More than words..

Language  is a very complex skills. Applying language to a social context is even more difficult. For a child with autism, initiating conversation is challenging. This is because they have a language deficit and a social deficit. In other words, children diagnosed with autism have not contacted the reinforcing qualities to engage in a conversation.

In general, children with autism find it more reinforcing to engage in self-stimulatory and repetitive behaviors such as spinning a toy non-contextually, engaging in body rocking, hand-flapping etc. Because of this, teaching your child appropriate language and behavior is so important. We want to help our children look more like their peers and engage in social behavior just like how we do.

In addition, some children diagnosed with autism have a limited verbal repertoire and some children are non-verbal. These children have a long history of gesturing for what they want when they want it. And guess what we do as parents and teachers? We give them access to these things as soon as they gesture for it. What's wrong with this? The problem here is that your child is learning that his/her gestures are getting him/her access to what they want. Therefore, why talk when I can tug at your hand and show you what I want?

Parents always have a concern that their child has had a long history of gesturing. Thus, if they change their behavior, they are afraid their child will engage in tantrum behavior. So parents want to avoid that and "give in". So what do we do now? How does a parent prevent "giving in"?

1) Don't be afraid: You are your child's number one advocate. You are the only person that can teach your child what is appropriate and what is not. I always ask parents this " What if your child was not diagnosed with autism? Will you be teaching him appropriate behavior?" and the answer I always get is "yes". So my rationale is that autism or no autism, you child is capable of learning. He/she deserves the right to learn and this requires you to be a warrior. A warrior is someone who is brave and not afraid to address change. Therefore, don't be afraid. You are a warrior and you can do this. :)

2) Magnify teaching and start small:  If your child is non-verbal or has limited language repertoire, start small. We do not want to frustrate our child and make language punishing. The first steps to teaching language is to teach small sounds that you know they can make. Some example are "m," "aah," "oo," etc.

3)  Now we will use "incidental teaching" to teach language. Incidental teaching is defined as a method for increasing expressive language by observing what your child initiates for in their environment and we are required to respond in a way that requires language or more language from your child.

Here are the steps we will use:

• The child initiates
• We ask the child to elaborate & prevents access to the item
• The child eloborates
• The child gains access to what he/she wants

Here is an example:

• The child initiates for a cookie by gesturing
• The adult looks at the child and request an elaboration  "cookie" & prevents access to the item
• The child says "cookie"
• The child gains access to the cookie

Initially, your child might engage in tantrum behavior or other behaviors of concern, so when this happens, remember to lower the expectation for your child.  By doing this, you are setting your child up for success. Do not give your child access to any preferred item when he/she is engaging in tantrum behavior. This is very important. You do not want to teach your child that when your child engages in inappropriate behavior, he/she will gain access to the preferred item.

So this is a suggestion as to what you do if and when your child is engaging in tantrum behavior.

• The child initiates for a cookie by gesturing
• The adult looks at the child and request an eloboration "cookie"
• The child tantrums or starts crying

At this point, go back to a word or sound that your child knows, say "coo" or "o". If your child is still engaging in tantrum behavior, do not let your child escape this situation. Wait till your child is quiet or is not engaging in tantrum behavior, offer your the cookie again and expect only eye contact. When eye contact is given, give him/her access to a small piece of cookie. Remember, he/she only gains access to the whole cookie when he/her emits a sound or language. Also, remember WE DO NOT WANT TO PUNISH LANGUAGE.  Now, if your child has been engaging in tantrum behavior for awhile, but now has calmed down and has given you eye contact and gained access to the small piece of cookie, let him/her go play for awhile come back to teaching later.

The next initiation for the cookie, expect language even if it is a sound, and when your child finally emits the sound/language, give him/her that whole cookie and celebrate that success ( give him two cookies if you'd like!)  You always want to end with success and you want to make it clear to your child the expectations you have for him/her. You do not want to punish learning or language. Always keep that in mind. Start small and build up on that, so your child can be successful.

Raise the bar when you observe an environment  that is going to co-operate with you and lower the bar when you observe that the environment is not co-operating with you.

Practice makes perfect, therefore with more practice, learning occurs more frequently and your child is slowly learning a new repertoire of behavior.

You can use incidental teaching for learners that are more sophisticated in acquiring language. Here's an example of that: 

• The child initiates for a cookie by saying "I want cookie"
• The adult looks at the child and request more language  "Mommy, can I have a cookie please?" & prevents access to the cookie
• The child says "Mommy, can I have a cookie please?"
• The child gains access to the cookie

Remember, language is an important part of our life and we want to continue teaching our children language daily and keep embedding it in their behavior repertoire. Be your child's language warrior and you will see with the right contingencies, your child will start learning what they are supposed to be learning. Last but not least, I can't stress this enough, make learning fun. This is something new your child is going to be doing and the last thing you want is to make learning  language feel like a challenging process. 

I hope this was not too much information for you, if you have any questions, please leave a comment and I will try my best to help as much as I can. Thank you !!