Your Child is a Scientist
At this time in his or her life, your child may be investigating scientific concepts like cause and effect, the physics of falling objects, trajectory of things thrown across the room, creating sound, and collecting and organizing objects that look alike. He or she could be very interested in liquid and how it pours and perhaps also smoke or mist and how it rises. Things that spill and splatter when dumped are also very cool. Light switches are the best. Sand through the fingers is amazing. Bubble rising in water or floating in air are fascinating. Opening and closing doors may be worth investigating for hours or days or months. This page is about how you can use your child's scientific mind to support social development. If you understand what your child is interested in, you can become a source of interesting information and your child will pay much more attention to you and other things you want your child to understand.Even
if you simply respond in some way every single time your child does something, your child will notice you more. For example:
Your child picks up a toy elephant, so you touch the elephant and say Elephant. Your child drops the elephant and you say, Bye bye Elephant. Your child walks across the room and you follow. Your child sits down and you sit too right next to him or her. This strategy is often referred to as "Following Your Child's Lead"
and it is a powerful strategy but I have not found it to be as powerful
a teaching strategy for children with autism as it is for children who
do not have autism. With a little tweaking and employing the knowledge that your child is a scientist, this strategy can work better.
Following a child's lead will increase a child's social interest and social engagement but it gets boring for most children. The child with autism is most interested in consistent, predictable events that he or she can control. Most adults respond to children in ways that are too complicated and this gets boring because the child does not understand or appreciate what the adult is doing. If, on the other hand, the adult does something simple and predictable, like saying "hmmmm" every time a child picks up a block, the child will tune right into this with scientific interest--often trying the sound out himself or herself, as part of the investigation.
Simple Routines Can Be Structured as a Cause/Effect Game
In the Click, Click, Click Puzzle Game, there are several scientific concepts for a child to explore. First, there is that clicking sound. That draws attention. Then, for children who like puzzles (many kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders) there is the similarity of shape between puzzle piece and the inset hole in the puzzle. Putting things into holes is another scientific area that interests many children. But and all-time-best concept for many young children is a Cause/Effect game where the child is able to do something (cause) and create a predictable event (Effect). When doing this puzzle game with a child, I quickly change the dynamics just slightly to turn this game into a Cause & Effect game. I know that the child to be the one who controls the effect. Step 1. Click three times and then hand over a puzzle piece so the child can put it in. Next round and Step 2. Hold the puzzle piece in the air until the child looks at you and then click three times and hand the piece over. This communicative Look can become the Cause and the adult smiles back at the child as if to say OK, I will do it and clicks three times. The smile and the clicking is the Effect (what the Play Partner does in response). Any behavior--a look, a reach, a grunt of annoyance, a word--anything can become the Cause so long as your child understands that he or she is causing you to do something. I often provide Talking Buttons to children who are not yet talking so they can use a word like "Go" to get me to click again.
Build A Mountain
It is important that you understand how these Cause and Effect games and other games that are very simple joint exploration of the physical properties of the world can gradually develop into far more complex social interaction. The game featured below, has several steps but it started out with mom just putting her son on a pile of bean bag chairs and then playfully threatening to tip him off every time he looked at his mom. The social Look at mom was the Cause and tipping the bean bag mountain was the Effect. I learned this game as an Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) game (see link below) but here the game is being used to elicit language. Watch how this mom models what her child could do to communicate and then responds when he does communicate. You can see how this mom changes her timing in a subtle way so that her child begins to be in control of what she does and when she does it.
Do Something Predictable
Following a child's lead will increase a child's social interest and social engagement but it gets boring for most children. The child with autism is most interested in consistent, predictable events that he or she can control. Most adults respond to children in ways that are too complicated and this gets boring because the child does not understand or appreciate what the adult is doing. If, on the other hand, the adult does something simple and predictable, like saying "hmmmm" every time a child picks up a block, the child will tune right into this with scientific interest--often trying the sound out himself or herself, as part of the investigation.
Simple Routines Can Be Structured as a Cause/Effect Game
In the Click, Click, Click Puzzle Game, there are several scientific concepts for a child to explore. First, there is that clicking sound. That draws attention. Then, for children who like puzzles (many kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders) there is the similarity of shape between puzzle piece and the inset hole in the puzzle. Putting things into holes is another scientific area that interests many children. But and all-time-best concept for many young children is a Cause/Effect game where the child is able to do something (cause) and create a predictable event (Effect). When doing this puzzle game with a child, I quickly change the dynamics just slightly to turn this game into a Cause & Effect game. I know that the child to be the one who controls the effect. Step 1. Click three times and then hand over a puzzle piece so the child can put it in. Next round and Step 2. Hold the puzzle piece in the air until the child looks at you and then click three times and hand the piece over. This communicative Look can become the Cause and the adult smiles back at the child as if to say OK, I will do it and clicks three times. The smile and the clicking is the Effect (what the Play Partner does in response). Any behavior--a look, a reach, a grunt of annoyance, a word--anything can become the Cause so long as your child understands that he or she is causing you to do something. I often provide Talking Buttons to children who are not yet talking so they can use a word like "Go" to get me to click again.
Build A Mountain
It is important that you understand how these Cause and Effect games and other games that are very simple joint exploration of the physical properties of the world can gradually develop into far more complex social interaction. The game featured below, has several steps but it started out with mom just putting her son on a pile of bean bag chairs and then playfully threatening to tip him off every time he looked at his mom. The social Look at mom was the Cause and tipping the bean bag mountain was the Effect. I learned this game as an Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) game (see link below) but here the game is being used to elicit language. Watch how this mom models what her child could do to communicate and then responds when he does communicate. You can see how this mom changes her timing in a subtle way so that her child begins to be in control of what she does and when she does it.
Link to RDI Book