Prompt dependence
When a child will only perform a skill once an adult signals. The skill is present; what is missing is starting it alone — and the adult help that taught it is now the thing preventing it.
Why prompt dependence matters.
This is the most common way well-delivered support quietly fails. Nobody does anything wrong: an adult helps, the child succeeds, everyone records success, and the help never comes out because removing it makes the numbers dip for a fortnight.
You can spot it from the outside. If your child does something reliably at school and never once at home unprompted, the skill has not transferred — it has become attached to a person.
Questions that get a real answer
- What does my child do without any adult signal?
- How are prompts being reduced, and on what schedule?
- Has anyone tested this with an adult who did not teach it?
Ask these of anyone, including us. What you are listening for is not the right answer — it is whether the answer is specific enough to be wrong.
Terms that usually turn up alongside it.
Receptive language
What a child understands, as distinct from what they can say. Usually ahead of expression, sometimes well
GlossarySelf-regulation
Managing your own attention, emotion and arousal well enough to do what a situation asks. Built gradually
GlossarySENCO
The person in a school responsible for children with additional needs. Usually the most useful single
Send it to us and we'll translate it.
Any report, from any provider, including ones we have nothing to do with. We will tell you in plain English what it says, what it recommends, and which parts are actually supported by the evidence in it. No charge, and it does not make you a client.