Mims, Pamela Joanne (2009). ProQuest LLC. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED513255
Reviewed: December 2017
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for System of Least Prompts.
To view more detailed information about the study findings from this review, please see System of Least Prompts Intervention Report (236 KB)
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
The study took place in a self-contained special education elementary school classroom within a large, urban school district in the southeastern United States.
This study included two 11-year-old boys (Fred and Richard) with moderate intellectual disability. Fred had an IQ of 44 on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), was nonverbal, and used visual supports to communicate. Richard had an IQ of 42 on the WISC, possessed minimal sight word vocabulary, and communicated through visual supports. The study included two additional students, Charlie and Dave, whose experiments did not meet WWC pilot single-case design standards.
Two separate multiple probe design experiments (one for each student) were used to measure the effect of SLP on listening comprehension across three adapted books (Jamaica’s Find; Don’t Wake Up the Bear!; and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day). Prior to the study, the books were shortened, pictures were added, story lines were repeated, and comprehension questions were inserted throughout the stories. The interventionists in the study included a teacher and two paraprofessionals. During the intervention sessions, the interventionist read aloud the three books and used SLP to help students answer the comprehension questions. First, the interventionist would ask the question and wait 3 seconds for the students to respond. If the student did not respond, the interventionist would reread the sentence in the story that contained the answer to the question, and would re-read the question and response options. If the student did not respond in 3 seconds, the interventionist moved to the second level prompt, which was re-reading the specific target information and then modeling the response by pointing to the correct picture answer. If the student did not independently answer the question in 3 seconds, the interventionist used the third level prompt, which was a physical prompt of guiding the student’s hand to the correct picture. The interventionist reinforced correct independent and prompted answers throughout this process. Intervention sessions typically lasted 30 minutes. Students continued to receive the intervention for a given book until they answered eight out of 10 questions correctly in three consecutive sessions.
During the baseline phase, the interventionist read aloud the same adapted books to the students and asked the 10 comprehension questions as they came up in each book. The interventionist did not prompt student responses or provide positive reinforcement of correct answers.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
The result of the WWC assessment of the study. The rating is based on the strength of evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Studies are given a rating of Meets WWC Design Standards without Reservations, Meets WWC Design Standards with Reservations, or >Does Not Meet WWC Design Standards.
A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
Based on the direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of the findings within a domain, the WWC characterizes the findings from a study as one of the following: statistically significant positive effects, substantively important positive effects, indeterminate effects, substantively important negative effects, and statistically significant negative effects. For more, please see the WWC Handbook.
The WWC may review studies for multiple purposes, including different reports and re-reviews using updated standards. Each WWC review of this study is listed in the dropdown. Details on any review may be accessed by making a selection from the drop down list.
Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).
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