Ok, this post might not make sense to everyone (who am I kidding, I mean my 3 readers), but I had to rant.
1. Telling an autistic child to, "Say 'bye.'" I understand why parents fall into this -- you don't want your child to seem rude, so you just prompt (still not effective, but understandable). But when I hear a speech pathologist do this, it drives me crazy. "Can you say 'bye'?" Well, yes, he can, but if it's only when you ask him then it's not really functional, is it? The behavioral approach to solving this problem is to start with a full prompt, then fade to successively lesser (ok, I just said that part cuz it sounds smart) prompts.
2. Asking an autistic child a question you don't know the answer to. If you ask, "What did you do at school today?" and they don't answer, you are reinforcing silence! I admit I've done this before, but I'm really trying not to ask anything I can't prompt. If a child already has trouble answering questions he does know the answer to, please don't give him more opportunities to practice not answering! The behavioral approach to this is much more complicated than #1, but more rewarding than looking stupid when you repeatedly ask a child questions he can't answer yet.
I have many pet peeves on this subject, but they're probably only interesting to me (and maybe Marria, who I better not ever hear is guilty of #1). :)
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4 comments:
I think you are absolutely right, but number 2 is true of a lot of non-autistics, they hear that question and they just shut down and tune out.
Also, this is way OT but, I found some cute easter fabric, that I thought would make great dresses, and it was only .50 a yard, so I bought all they had. I'll give it to you on Monday.
Anna, you are too good to me. I will have to finish your quilt one of these days. Just let us know exactly how many .50 you spent, and we will reimburse you :)
I'm so immersed in the autism/ ed field, that I read that as "this is way occupational therapy" hehe
I'm still thinkin "occupational therapy"...really...what else does OT mean?
Off topic :)
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