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Picture a child happily lining up toy animals on the carpet and an adult who sits down and starts asking, what's that? What color is that? Can you say cow? Within seconds, the child goes quiet. Nobody did anything wrong. And yet, the moment closed. Welcome back to the Autism Little Learners Podcast. I'm Tara Phillips, and today we're talking about why constant prompting can shut down communication and what we can do instead. I'm Tara Phillips, and this is the Autism Little Learners Podcast, where I share simple neuroaffirming tools to support young autistic children with compassion and confidence. I want to start today with a little scene that might feel familiar. A child is sitting on the carpet, completely absorbed in their basket of toy animals. They've lined up the horse, a cow, and a tiny pig, and they're studying them with total focus. It's a beautiful moment of play. And then an adult sits down nearby with all the love in the world and says, what's that one? What color is the cow? Can you say cow? How many do you have? What sound does the pig make? What color is the pig? Within about 10 seconds, the child gets quieter. They look away. Maybe they push the basket a little further from the adult. Maybe they turn around and put their back to you. The moment that was full of curiosity has quietly filled, faded away, and closed. Nobody did anything wrong here. The adult is trying to connect. The adult was trying to help, and yet the communication shrunk instead of grew. That's what today's episode is about. We're talking about why constant prompting can actually shut down communication, what's happening underneath it, and what we can do instead. Before I go any further, I want to be really clear about something. Prompts themselves are not bad. We. We all use prompts every single day. The problem isn't prompting itself. The problem is when prompting becomes the interaction. When nearly every communication opportunity turns into a question, a direction, or a cue from us. It's like they're being quizzed all the time. If you've ever caught yourself saying things like, what do you want? Or say ball, or use your words, or what color is it? Or can you say juice over and over throughout the day, this episode is for you. I've said every one of those things myself, so we're walking through this together. Okay, let's start with what is prompt dependence? That's what we're actually talking about. Prompt dependence happens when a child learns that communication only happens after an adult prompts them or gets it started. Instead of initiating communication themselves, they wait. They wait for the question. They wait for the cue, they wait for the instruction. And honestly, it makes sense. Think of it from their perspective. If every interaction starts with the adult telling them exactly what to say or do, why would they want to take the lead or know that they should? And honestly, it makes sense. Think about it from their perspective. If every interaction starts with an adult telling me exactly what to do or say, why would I take the lead? I've learned that my role is to respond. Not to initiate, not to explain, explore, not to communicate spontaneously, just to respond. Over time, this can create a pattern where children become less and less likely to start interactions on their own. There's a helpful idea from research on this. When we talk about prompting, we usually talk about fading prompts over time, gradually offering less support so the child can do things more independently. But what sometimes happens instead is that the prompt becomes the thing the child's waiting for. The cue itself becomes the trigger for communication, the rather than the child's own idea or desire. And we end up reinforcing the waiting instead of the initiating. And here's the part that's easy to miss. A child who's waiting quietly for a prompt can look like a child who's doing well. They're calm, they're responding when asked. But underneath, they may have learned that their job is to follow our lead, not to share what's on their mind. I want you to imagine something with me. Imagine you're sitting in a meeting and someone walks up to you every 30 seconds or less and asks, what are you thinking? Can you tell me something? What color is your shirt? What did you do this morning? What's that called? What do you want now? Even if you knew the answers, you'd probably start feeling exhausted. You might stop responding altogether. You might look away, you might leave. You might think, can I just exist for a minute? Now picture a slightly different version. You're trying to read something genuinely interesting to you, and every time you really get into it, someone interrupts you to quiz you on it. After a while, you'd probably stop wanting to read at all. At least while that person was around. The thing you loved would start to feel like a test. Sometimes our autistic students are experiencing something a lot like this. They're trying to play, they're trying to regulate, they're trying to explore their environment. And meanwhile, us adults, all around them are asking question after question after question. What looks like a lack of spontaneous communication may actually be communication fatigue. And once we see it in that way, our whole approach can start to Shift. There is a difference between testing and communicating, and this is one of the biggest mindset shifts I've made over the years. So I want to spend a minute here. Many of our interactions with autistic children unintentionally become tests. Things like, what color is it? What animal is that? Count them. What letter is it? Tell me what this is. Now. There are certainly times and places for assessing skills. No doubt we need to know what children understand. But communication is not the same thing as testing, and the two can quietly trade places without us noticing. Here's the difference. A test has a right answer that I already know, and I'm checking whether you know it too. Real communication doesn't work that way. Real communication has a purpose. It's about sharing, requesting, protesting, commenting, connecting, showing excitement, expressing feelings. When I say, what color is the truck? And I can already see the truck is red, the child knows. I'm not actually curious. I'm checking. But when I say, whoa, look at that truck go, I've opened a door, there's no right answer. There's just a moment we can share. When we spend most of our interactions testing what a child knows, we're often missing the opportunities for the kind of communication that actually grows. We get compliance or we get silence, but we don't always get connection. So let's talk about what can happen when communication becomes heavily prompted. Because it shows up in a lot of different ways. Some children learn to wait for prompts like we talked about before. Some children start giving the shortest possible response, just enough to end the interaction. And some children disengage altogether. Some children might appear unmotivated when in reality, they're overwhelmed. And others may be processing language differently and simply need more time than we're giving them. I want to sit with that last one for a second. Because processing time matters so much, maybe many autistic children need more time to take in what we've said, to find their response, and to get it out. If we're filling every silence with another prompt, we may be cutting them off right before they were about to communicate. The silence wasn't a refusal. It was the child working, processing. And for the child who uses aac, constant prompting can create even more pressure. Imagine trying to navigate a communication system. Finding the page, locating the button, planning the message. When someone is repeatedly telling you what to say, it's a lot. Communication starts to feel like a performance instead of connection. And that's the opposite of what we want AAC and communication to be. So what can we do? I Want to share a few simple shifts that can make a real difference? None of these require a new program or a new curriculum. They're changes in how we show up in the moment. 1 comment More question, less this is my favorite strategy, so let's make it concrete. Instead of asking, what are you building? Try wow, that's a tall tower. Instead of what animal is that? Try I see a horse. Instead of what color is it? Try that's a bright red truck. Here's why it works. Comments Reduce pressure Comments Model language and comments create an opening for the children to join in the interaction in if they want to and if they're ready to, without requiring anything from them. A simple goal some people find helpful is to aim for more comments than questions when you're working with a child. Not zero questions, just a shift in the balance. And often when we stop demanding responses, we actually get more communication, not less. The child relaxes, the moment opens up, and they offer something on their own. The second one is pause and wait. This one sounds simple, but it can feel surprisingly hard. After you say something, wait. And then wait a little longer than feels comfortable. A lot of us count to five in our heads and think we've waited a long time. Try counting to 10. It can feel almost awkward, and that's usually a sign you're giving enough time. Finally, many autistic children need that additional processing time. If we jump in too quickly with another prompt, with another question or another instruction, we may unintentionally interrupt the very communication we are hoping for. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is create space and trust the child to fill it. 3. Follow their interests. You all know how passionate I am about deep interests, and this is where children can shine. Communication grows when we're talking about things that genuinely matter to the child. If a child loves dinosaurs, trains, letters, elevators, vacuum cleaners, or maps, start there. Join them. Observe what they're doing. Comment on it. Share in their excitement. When you enter a child's world instead of trying to pull them into yours, you're no longer the person who interrupts the fun. You become part of the fun, and connection creates communication opportunities far more effectively than any series of prompts ever could. 4. Model without expectation. This one's especially important for AAC users, so I want to slow down on it. Model words, model phrases, model communication on the device, but don't require immediate imitation in return. Think about how children learn spoken language. We don't expect babies to repeat every word we say. They hear thousands and thousands of models before they ever use those words independently? AAC learning works the same way. A child needs to see their words modeled again and again without pressure to perform. So model on the device while you play. Tap. Go as the car goes. Tap more as you hand over another block tap. All done. When snack is finished, you're not testing. You're not waiting for them to copy you. You're showing them what their system can do and what communication can look like. That's a gift rather than a quiz. 5. Create opportunities instead of Demands There's a real difference between creating an opportunity and demanding a response, and it's worth learning to feel that difference. You might pause before giving a swing push. You might hold up two snack choices, then wait. The opportunity is right there. The child gets to decide whether or how they can communicate that on their own terms. Remember to think about multimodal communication. So saying the word or tapping on the button on an AAC device isn't the only thing we're looking for. What if they reach for the one that they want? That's communication, and we want to honor that. All of these things feel very different than repeatedly asking, what do you want? What do you want? Tell me what you want. One sets the table and lets the child come to it. The other stands over the child and waits for a performance. Same goal, completely different feeling. And children can tell the difference. As you're listening today, I want you to think about your own interactions with curiosity rather than judgment. What percentage do you think of? Your communication with children is made up of questions, and it's nothing to feel bad about. We all do this. This is just a shift that we want to make and start thinking about. What percentage do you think is made up of comments, observations, shared enjoyment, narrating what's going on, and genuine connection? You don't have to count exactly, but just notice that general balance. And again, this isn't about guilt. I have absolutely been there myself, and many of us were trained to ask lots of questions. It was presented as being responsive and engaged, but once you notice the pattern, you can't unnotice it. And the good news is that small changes start working really, really fast. If it helps, you might just pick one interaction tomorrow, maybe snack time or a few minutes of play, and try to comment more than you question. That's it. One window of time and you can build from there. Communication is not something we pull out of children. It's something we build together. When we reduce pressure, honoring processing time, following interests, and focusing on connection, we often see communication flourish in ways we never expected. The child who seemed quiet starts to share the moment that used to close up starts to open. The goal is never a perfect response. The goal is authentic communication. The goal is helping children feel that their thoughts, their ideas, their interests and their communication attempts are valued exactly as they are. Thank you so much for spending part of your day with me. If this episode was helpful, I'd love for you to share it with a fellow teacher, therapist or caregiver who works with autistic children. And if you're looking for more practical neuroaffirming strategies, please be sure to check out Autism little learners@autismlittlelearners.com until next time. Remember, connection comes before communication and communication grows best when children feel safe, respected and heard. Thank you for spending this time with me. You're doing important work and the small supports you put into place matter. Keep leading with connection and I'll talk to you again next week.