This week, you're an air-traffic controller at a major international airport (let's say, LaGuardia in NYC). As part of your job, you must be able to quickly recognize the various features -- name, appearance, landing requirements, etc. -- of the aircrafts that frequent your airfield. For example, if told the outgoing plane is a Boeing 707, you must be able to recall the aircraft size and runway distance required for takeoff. As a controller, you're often asked to work long shifts during which you're responsible for the well-being of many people, so it's incredibly important that you're able to quickly and efficiently recognize these aircrafts to provide the correct direction for pilots and other personnel.

Your company recently hired a new assistant controller to aid you in your duties. They've asked that you oversee their training. Fortunately, you have a background in behavioral science and a strong understanding of stimulus control and stimulus equivalence, so your approach could be uniquely effective.

1. The foremost priority of the air-traffic controller is to ensure safety of all parties using the airspace, so it's critical that planes are given direction at the proper time. In everyday language, how would you explain to your trainee the importance of recognizing antecedent stimuli (SD and S-delta) when on shift?

2. As your trainee has progressed through their instruction, you've been providing prompts to draw their attention to important environmental events (e.g., an outgoing plane on a shared runway). However, the trainee must now begin to independently recognize these events. How could you use fading to ensure your trainee successful?