Setting Up Work Tasks

Setting up a work task

1. Use your defined work area you have decided upon above.

2. Only the materials required for the task and your child’s schedule showing them what comes next should be in the teaching area. Anything else is a distraction and will disrupt the task. If you are using a token board keep this visible also.

3. Visually lay out the materials in a logical way working left to right where possible. For multi-step tasks only offer one item at a time initially. For example in a matching task only present one piece to the child at a time.

4. Model & Prompt -For new work (and most work from the work packs will fall into this category) remember you need to teach the child the logistics of the task first. This can be done by you modelling the task first so that the child can see how the task works, for example with a writing task you may draw the first shape and then hand the pencil to the child and say ‘your turn’. For prompting a new task we like to set our pupils up for success and we often use ‘errorless learning’ this means that we ensure that the first few times a child engages with an activity we make sure they get it right. When using errorless learning, provide the prompt directly after the natural or teaching cue. So if you are working on identifying blue, you would say, “touch blue” and then immediately move the students hand to the blue card. Then you provide praise and a reinforce.

5. For work tasks your child is more familiar with generally least to most prompting will work best. For example, in a colouring task; you may have a picture of a bucket and a ball. You will have only a picture and one crayon on the table. You may say ‘colour the ball’, allow the child a few seconds to respond. If no response you may repeat the instruction but gesture to the crayon, if the child fails to respond we may partially physically move the child’s hand toward the crayon, you may increase prompting up to a hand over hand prompt, remembering all of the time to quickly fade out of the prompts as your child grasps the concepts and becomes familiar with the task. As parents you naturally fade in and out of prompts with your children as they grow and learn new skills, it is likely that instincts will take over, it is just important that we are aware of how we are prompting our pupils as we want to avoid our pupils becoming prompt dependent.

6. As your child becomes familiar with a work task after a few days they may start to complete some or all of the task independently, this would be a good time to slightly increase the difficulty or introduce a slightly different task working on a similar skill. Remember the initial stages will require the most work and effort from you as parents, but some intensive work initially will reap more rewards later.

Remember the initial stages will require the most work and effort from you as parents, but some intensive work initially will reap more rewards later. Creating a routine and predictability for your child will foster independence, reduce anxiety (for all of you), reduce behaviours of concern and create more time for you and your family to enjoy each other’s company. Consistency is key!

The video below discusses structure and routine. It is for teachers to structure their classrooms, however many of the messages may be useful or inspiring to you in the home to help understand how important it is for your child to have predictability in their day.

This next video is on prompting and explains the different levels and forms of prompting that you may use with your child.