Learning together, talking
together
Living and working with verbal
children with ASD
Maja Moller
Speech & Language Therapist
Elklan Tutor
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What is Autism?
Triad of Impairment
Imagination
Social interaction
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Plus ‘other’
Communication
Activity
Play charades
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What language skills do you need
to play charades?
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Make eye contact
Confidence
Ability to interpret the saying correctly
Imagination to know how to act out the word
Ability to use gesture and body language
Ability to listen to what the group was saying
and respond appropriately to it
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What language skills do you need
to play charades?
• Ability to engage in reciprocal conversation
• Ability to use non-verbal communication
• Ability to initiate.
What you have just done forms the bedrock of
communication and social interaction. Without
these skills our communication and
interaction is ineffective.
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Interaction
DVD of Alex and Jordan
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What did Jordan find difficult to do?
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Listen
Understand
Follow what Alex was saying
Take turns
Reciprocate
Why??
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Theory of Mind
• Described by Simon Baron-Cohen (1995)
• It is the ability to understand that others
are thinking something different to us
• Enables us to understand another's point
of view and to empathise
• Children with ASD are delayed in the
development of theory of mind.
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Sally Ann test
A child is told this story and show the pictures……..
1. Sally is playing with a bag and a
box and a sweet, which she
shows to Anne.
2. Sally hides the sweet in the
box.
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3.Sally leaves the room.
4. Anne takes the sweet out of
the box and hides it in the bag,
Sally doesn’t see this.
5. Sally comes back, the child is asked ‘Where will
Sally look for the sweet?’
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Outcomes
• Typically developing 4 year olds
understand that Sally will look in the box
even though they know the sweet is in the
bag.
• They can represent Sally’s belief (it’s in the
box) as well as the true state of things (its
in the bag).
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Children with ASD
• Uta Frith and Simon Baron-Cohen found
that 16/20 autistic children with a mean
cognitive age of 9 years failed the task.
• Because they had seen it go into the bag
they thought Sally would know that too.
• They could not conceptualise the
possibility that Sally could think something
different than the truth.
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Thinking different thoughts…..
• In order for the child to appreciate that
Sally and Anne can be thinking different
thoughts he must have ‘theory of mind’.
• Children with specific language
impairment and moderate learning
difficulties can also be delayed in ‘theory
of mind’.
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What impact does this have?
• Will find it hard to learn the rules of
friendship and make and keep friends.
• Social isolation
• Less practise in social situations
• Misinterpreting the behaviour and
interaction of others
• May be uncompromising with the
behaviour of others
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What impact does this have?
• He may be described as ‘selfish’
• Difficulty picking up social cues and
learning from the social context.
• Dominating or withdrawing interaction
• A lack of interest in others means that
everything tends to be on their terms.
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How to help
• Chat cartoons (Comic strip conversations)
• Social stories
• Both devised by Carol Gray
• Visit her website for more details
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Chat cartoons
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You can do it even if you cant
draw……
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Add colour to show emotions
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Drawing chat cartoons
Practical activity
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More information…..
• Visit Carol Gray’s website:
http://www.thegraycenter.org/socialstories/carol-gray
Information on social stories and comic strip
conversations (Chat cartoons)
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Turn taking board when there are
a limited number of turns
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Turn taking Board when the
number of turns is open ended
Whose turn is it?
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Turn taking card
My Turn
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Imagination
Practical activity
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Play in the child with ASD
• May copy the play of others from videos,
TV, DVD, peers
• Difficulty generalising so ‘stuck’ in their
play
• Repetitive play
• Development of the imagination leads to
creativity and development in play
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Liz Elks & Henrietta McLachlan
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Other features associated with lack
of imagination
• Difficulty separating pretence from reality
• Difficulty imagining himself into a role in
PE and drama
• Finds creative story writing very difficult
• Prefers factual books
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Liz Elks & Henrietta McLachlan
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Other features associated with lack
of imagination
• Obsessive, rigid thought processes
which may lead to:
– Difficulty coping with change
– Repetitive, rigid behaviours
– A need to know what is going to
happen next
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Liz Elks & Henrietta McLachlan
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How to help!
• Imagination is rooted in experience. We
can only imagine because we have
experienced something similar or read
about it or seen it on TV etc.
• Expose children to new experiences, take
photos, talk about them and say what
might have happened differently
• Explain that imagination is just taking your
experience and changing it slightly!
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One scheme really does help all!
The ‘Blank’ Language Scheme
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Development of understanding
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Level 1 – Naming things
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Level 2
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Level 3 – Talking about stories and
events
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More level 3 questions……
• What is daddy going to
do?
• What is Daddy saying to
the boy?
• How is the boy feeling?
• Tell me what you did at
park?with social
NBthe
Children
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communication needs find it hard to
say how they and others are feeling.
They sometimes struggle to tell you
what might happen next because of
their problems with imagination. 36
Level 4
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• Why is Daddy giving him a
cuddle?
Why did Felix chase the mouse? • Why is the boy still crying?
Kitty has now moved to the
• What else could Daddy do?
hole. What could the mouse • How will Daddy get the boy
do now?
dry?
Why is kitty sitting by the hole? NB This can be hard for the child with
Why does the mouse need a
social communication needs because
they cannot explain their answer or they
little hole into his house?
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don’t have the imagination to predict
and problem solve.
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Practical activity
• Look at the picture and make up at least:
– 1 level 1 question
– 1 level 2 question
– 1 Level 3 question
– 1 level 4 question
– If time do more!
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Use the Blank model to….
• Develop the child’s ability to predict and
imagine what might happen
• Develop his/her ability to answer ‘why’
questions
• Develop his ability to sequence stories and
narrative and so begin to understand how
another character might be thinking or
feeling
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More support needed?
• Buy Language Builders for Verbal Children
with ASD. Available on the Elklan stand at
a reduced price of £18 (RRP £22)
• Attend an Elklan Open College Network
(OCN) accredited course – details of all
the course available are on the stand.
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Contact Elklan
Henrietta McLachlan
[email protected]
01208 841450
Liz Elks
[email protected]
028 90395734
www.elklan.co.uk
Download this presentation at
http://www.elklan.co.uk/downloads/freedownloads
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