So, have you ever tried to teach that awesome beautiful lesson you spent so much time on, or tried getting that very important data while working on IEP goals... and your students are literally dangling out of the chair upside down? Yea, me too. Here's some tips to get your students ready to learn!
1. Teach and reinforce sitting.
- Sometimes you need to just work on staying seated during a lesson or work task and the actual content isn’t the priority. Use fidgets, reinforcers, videos and motivating topics, differential seating, hands-on materials. If teaching the skill of sitting, don’t teach a new concept too.
- Practice already mastered content (matching, colors, making choices, etc…)
- Start small and repeat. Stop before you lose them!
2. Teach the cues that you use all day! Directly teach “give, touch, look,” throughout lessons to practice the frequently used cues during tasks.
- Your open hand cue is a great start for teaching "give."
3. Teach imitation skills. Imitation is a huge part of learning.
- Start with toys . Have students imitate putting a block on a block, scribbling with a crayon, spinning a fidget spinner, rolling a car, throwing a ball.
- Imitate "put in." Our kids know put-in's!
- Move to objects with an environmental cue. (More than 1 object for discrimination)
- A bowl and a spoon. Pretend to stir.
- A baby doll and a bottle. Feed the baby
- A straw and a cup- Put it in
- A car and a ramp- Push it down
- Students with Autism are visual learners This doesn't just mean pictures. Use your body to illustrate things (even sign language.)
- Example- Hold your hands out wide to demonstrate the word "big." Use hand over hand prompting to have the students imitate.
- Use AAC modeling to encourage imitation with a device.
4. Teach left to right literacy skills with simple adapted books (no matching at this point, just move a picture from the left page to the right page, and turn the page.)
5. Practice beginning work task skills like matching objects and pictures, file folders, "put-in" tasks, coloring, tracing, etc... using content that is familiar and reinforcing.
- Favorite characters
- fidget toys for put-in tasks
- pictures of family, favorite foods, favorite toys,
- pictures of personal items (shoes, clothes, backpack)
- pictures of staff members or peers
I hope this helps!!
Check out The Structured Autism Classroom TPT store on the homepage (linked) for adapted books, matching folders, and more!