Resources
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Prompting social interaction
The “What Works” Brief 17 from CSEFEL, Strategies for Increasing Peer Social Interactions: Prompting and Acknowledgement includes numerous examples and references for implementing this evidence-based practice.
Provide Children with Prompts
Prompting prosocial behaviors, and then acknowledging such behavior when it occurs increases children’s positive interactions with their peers. Prompting and acknowledging strategies should be used together when possible.
Prompting encourages children to engage in social behaviors in three ways (Bovey & Strain 2005):
1. Behavioral Momentum
Before children engage in new or emerging social behaviors, ask them to do something that they already know or are good at doing. Then provide positive feedback about their actions, and immediately ask them to try a more complex social request. The key is to provide children with opportunities for positive attention before attempting an emerging social behavior.
A child care assistant prompts Taj to clap his hands fast three times in a row before suggesting that he pass out his birthday snack with a classmate.
“Taj, you are a very fast clapper! (positive reinforcement)
Now, please ask Jeremy to help you give everyone a cupcake at the picnic table.” (opportunity to practice selected social behavior)
2. Priming
Give children specific cues about how to participate in social activities before the start of those activities.
A teacher provides direction about initiating play with a friend.
“ Francesco, who are you going to ask to play with you in the block corner today?” or “Tawanda, can you ask Pamela to paint the piñata with you in the art corner?”
Some children might need to practice the behavior first, so prime a child further by suggesting…
“Tawanda, let’s pretend I’m Pamela. What can you say to ask me to paint with you?”
3. Correspondence Training
Ask a child to think about what he or she is going to do before a social activity begins to generate his or her own cues. After the child completes the interaction, follow up what happened.
A family care provider prompts Huang to consider what he’ll do when the children go outside.
Huang, what are you going to do with Jamald when you go outside?”
Huang talks about riding “the red flash” and is encouraged to ask Jamald to ride with him. When the two boys are finished, the provider asks Huang,
“What fun things did you and Jamald do outside today?”
Resource
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25 verbal acknowledgers of positive behavior
FACTS/LRE, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Acknowledgment increases the likelihood that a child’s positive social behaviors will occur more frequently. After a desired behavior is observed (e.g., Shelley shares her crayons), the child is immediately rewarded with a verbal, physical or tangible acknowledgement such as:
Verbal: “Shelley, what a good friend you are to share your crayons with Kade!”
Physical: High fives, special “friendship” hand shake, thumbs up
Tangible: Stickers, wearing a “Super Friends” cape or hat, name on Friendship
Circle
Examples of prompts and acknowledgements
Prompts and acknowledgement are also used to resolve conflict during play in the following resources from the Center on the Social Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL):
