The Paraprofessional Support Playbook: Beyond Prompt Dependency
5 min read
Map Your Day
Handing the Map Over to Your Child so it stops being your job.
The map works, and you are still the one opening it, pointing at it, and reading it out. Somewhere along the way you replaced verbal prompting with visual prompting and kept the prompting.
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Why it works here
Why a day map helps with handing the map over to your child
The goal of a day map is a child who checks it themselves. Getting there means deliberately removing your involvement one layer at a time, because a support your child never operates independently produces dependence on you rather than on the map.
You will recognize this if
- Your child follows the map but never opens it.
- You are still narrating each step out loud.
- The routine stops entirely on days when you are not there.
What the research saysVisual activity schedules meet the criteria for an evidence-based practice partly because they support independence, but the independence only develops when adult prompting is systematically faded.
Knight, Sartini and Spriggs, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2015
The setup
How to set it up for handing the map over to your child
Takes about five minutes. Use it as written, or keep only the steps your family needs. A short setup that gets used beats a complete one that gets abandoned in week two.
- 1 Stop reading the steps out loud and point instead
- 2 Then stop pointing and simply look at the map yourself
- 3 Then move the map to where your child reaches it without you
- 4 Let your child mark steps complete rather than doing it for them
- 5 Say nothing for a full segment and see what happens
- 6 Add prompts back one layer at a time if it falls apart, rather than all at once
The mistake most families make
Prompt dependency builds quietly and is easiest to spot when someone else runs the routine. If a grandparent or babysitter cannot make the map work, the map was never doing the work.
In the app
Built into the routine, not bolted onto it.
The Map Your Day lives inside the same routine your child already follows, so handing the map over to your child is a step with a visible length rather than a separate tool somebody has to remember to open.
- Attach it to any step in any routine
- Works for pre-readers, gestalt language processors, and AAC users
- Same setup at home, at school, and in therapy
Set this up for your child.
Five minutes to build, and your child sees it every time handing the map over to your child comes around.
$6.99/month after the free trial · Cancel anytime · Also at app.vizyplan.com
Common questions
About handing the map over to your child
At what age can a child run their own day map?
Earlier than most parents expect, given photos rather than text and a short enough sequence. The barrier is usually prompting habits rather than the child.
How do I know if my child is prompt dependent?
Have somebody else run the routine, or say nothing at all for one segment. What happens next tells you exactly how much of it was you.
Is it bad to prompt?
Not at all, and prompts are meant to be temporary. The problem is not prompting, it is prompting at the same level for two years.
VizyPlan supports routines and communication at home and school. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose or treat any condition. Talk to your child's care team about clinical questions.
