Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have trouble understanding social cues and communicating effectively. This can cause difficulties in school, friendships, family life, and later in the workplace.
This article will help parents and teachers work together to improve communication skills in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
In order to teach children with ASD how to communicate more effectively, there are five steps that must be taken. Keep in mind that these steps might be taken by the parents, the school teachers or educators, or the team of therapists and professionals that care for the child. The more people work on the intervention plan, the more successful it will be.
These are the steps to follow:
1. Identify the problem
The child, for example, does not know how to answer questions during 70% of the conversations.
2. Determine the cause
The child, for example, might not know the vocabulary used in the conversation, or he does not know how to answer WH Questions.
3. Develop an intervention plan.
Using the same example, If your child struggles with WH Questions you might teach him, through ABLLS-R task cards, to answer the different WH Questions (When, what, where, who, etc.).
4. Implement the intervention plan.
While implementing the intervention plan, you choose who is supposed to carry it: the speech therapist, educator, or parent. etc. For example, the mom teaches WH questions for 30 minutes a day after school.
5. Evaluate the results
The assessment is very important in order to adjust the intervention plan in order to reach the goal efficiently and quickly.
Important tips to keep in mind
There are some important things to keep in mind when teaching the child to communication more effectively:
Start by talking about the child’s strengths.
It’s important to start by identifying the child’s strengths. This will help them focus on areas where they excel rather than areas where they need improvement. Once you’ve identified these strengths, you can then work on improving those skills.
Find out how much the child understands.
To find out how much the child knows, observe him closely and ask questions such as :
- “What do you think?”
- “How would you describe this?”
- “Can you tell me more about this?”
- “Do you know what this means?”
- “What does this remind you of?”
- “What else do you know about this?”
Ask questions that encourage the child to talk more.
If you notice that your child has trouble understanding what other people say, try asking them questions that encourage them to talk more. You might start by saying something like, “Tell me more about this.” Or, “I’m interested in knowing more about this.” This will help your child feel comfortable talking about things he’s interested in.
Encourage the child to use gestures and pictures to communicate.
It’s also helpful to teach children how to read lips so they can better understand what others are saying. To do this, ask your child to watch another person speaking and then point at words as they’re being spoken. Then, ask him to repeat back what he heard.
