Step 1 Planning
The first step for Graduated Guidance Prompting involves planning the intervention. Graduated Guidance requires many moment-to-moment decisions about when to apply and fade the prompts. As the toddler begins to acquire or use the skills, the prompts are faded (reduced and gradually withdrawn), but quickly reinstated if toddler regresses or stops using the skills. If the prompts are not faded appropriately, toddlers can become prompt dependent. Thus, using graduated guidance requires considerable skill.
Graduated guidance is used only with chained tasks or skills within an activity or routine that includes a physical component.
A chained task or routine requires a number of individual skills or behaviors which are sequenced together to form a more complex skill. With these types of skills, numerous steps comprise one completed task.