Therapist Unlimited Blog

Opening lines of communication with stimulation, and engaging questions and answers

One of the biggest challenges in daily therapy and life skills development with Autistic children is the need to broaden and enable communication. These children vary from one end of the spectrum to the other when it comes to verbalization, as some are very internal and rarely verbalize with caregivers to those that are constantly talking; unaware of the communication processes of reciprocal speaking and listening.

For those children who need a little extra coaxing to communicate with others, there are some easy exercises caregivers can perform with the special-needs child to help them feel comfortable while developing communication skills. To begin, find something that your child is comfortable around and holds his or her interest. Some examples could be animals, favorite foods, transportation vehicles, or other items that are fairly easy to access. For this exercise, we will use animals as our example.

Now, the goal is to gradually increase your child’s verbalization and communication skills to the point where he or she feels comfortable around strangers and can participate in the learning process through reciprocal communication. To start, show your child a DVD or book on animals. Notice which animals hold the child’s interest. You may want to engage your child in the process by saying the animal’s name and having him/her repeat the name back to you. Additionally, you may also wish to write the animal’s name on paper and see if you can get a written response. This process involves more sensory and motor skills as opposed to just watching a DVD play or listening to a caregiver read.

After both of you feel comfortable with this objective, the next step is to engage the child into more of a discussion. You may want to say things like “What color is the whale?”, or “How many ears does the rabbit have?” to stimulate the question and response lines of communication. If too complex, you may want to ask the question yourself, and then repeat the question in your answer. For example, “What color is the whale?”, followed by a look at the child and after a few moments with no response, you could take the child’s fingers and place it on the whale answering, “The whale’s color is blue.” The more senses you can engage the child in; the more total-body learning can be facilitated and improved chance of response occurs.

Beginning communication with unfamiliar people and in new environments

In Part One, the outcome for a child with Autism was to be able to comfortably communicate with a caregiver in a familiar setting with a child’s topic of his or her interest. For Part Two, the focus now builds on the communication session of question and answering and moves it to unfamiliar people and environments. Still building on the theme of animals, your job now is to begin preparing your child to a visit a local pet store.

First, you will need to obtain a store’s advertisement and show your child all that the pet store offers, including any animal pictures of the animals for sale. See which one he/she takes an interest in and make a mental note, as you will need this information later. Now, ask your child if he/she would like to visit the store and explain that there will be other people there and some of those people’s jobs are to answer questions about animals and provide their daily care; just like you do as their parent. If your child seems interested in learning more, ask if there are any questions that he/she may want to ask to clerk. Should you receive a positive response to this question, proceed to make a list with your child, carefully noting some coaching on what to ask may be necessary. However, if you do not receive a positive response to this suggestion, make a list yourself of questions you may want to ask your child while in the store. Some examples are: “How many fish are in the tank?”, “What color(s) is/are the hamsters?”, “Where does the Guinea pig drink from?”, and other easy or developmentally-appropriate questions. Finally, put one question down that you know you child will not be able to answer.

Next, on the day you all are to visit the pet store, review the questions with your child. You may want to go early in the morning when the store opens to avoid large crowds; so you child will feel more at ease. Have your child “lead” you to find the animals, as he/she can feel a sense of accomplishment and leadership by being in charge of that task. If there is an associate around and your child wants to talk about pets, now would be a good time. Should no one be around, you can engage your child by asking them the earlier pre-written questions and obtaining an answer. If you receive no response to the question, or if your child is not focused on the task, gently take his/her hand and engage them both tactilely and audibly, simultaneously just as you may have done with the book example. Ask the question again, use your child’s fingers to “touch” the answer and repeat the question when you give your answer. For example, the question, “How many fish are in the tank?” will require you to manually count with your child and then answer, “There are ____ fish in the tank.”

Finally, when it comes to the previously-written “hard question” you know your child can not answer, try accomplishing the goal of this exercise and have your child ask a sales associate for assistance. First, ask the child the question and if you get no response, suggest he/she ask someone who takes care of that animal for advice. If you get a positive response, have your child ask the question to the clerk and when done, see if there are any additional questions your child may want to ask. Be prepared, there may be some strange questions, but the whole goal of this exercise is to get your child comfortable with the speaker-listener process and repetition. Sometimes though, your child may not be ready to speak to the sales associate. If this is the case, ask the child if he/she wants you to go ask the clerk to “tell you” the answer. Often times, the security of the caregiver brings a positive response, and sometimes after you get in a question or two, your child may feel comfortable enough to begin asking questions on his/her own.

You may need to repeat this outing several times before your child is ready to move on to bigger and more crowded areas like aquariums, fairs, and zoos, however, once this “small step” is completed, it can be supplemented with a post-trip communication activity with questions about favorite animal seen, pet names picked out, guessing an animal’s gender, guessing an animal’s age, hypothesizing a typical animal diet, etc. Additionally, one day you can always engage in role-play and have your child be the “pet expert and you the novice, so he/she can “teach” you all about the pet store’s animals.