What is the term for the gradual removal of cues to help maintain a behavior?

The term for the gradual removal of cues to help maintain a behavior is known as fading. This process involves initially providing prompts or cues to elicit a desired response and then systematically reducing these cues over time. The goal is to help individuals learn to perform the behavior independently without reliance on those external cues.

In the context of music therapy, fading can be particularly useful for encouraging clients to engage in certain musical activities or responses autonomously, eventually leading to greater independence and self-efficacy in their musical expression. By fading prompts, therapists can effectively reinforce desired behaviors while ensuring that clients can still perform those behaviors without assistance.

Other concepts like differentiation, generalization, and shaping represent different principles of behavioral change and learning and are not specifically about the gradual removal of cues. Differentiation refers to the ability to distinguish between various stimuli, generalization involves applying learned behavior to different but similar situations, and shaping focuses on gradually reinforcing closer approximations of a desired behavior. Therefore, fading is the precise term that aligns with the described process.