Transcript Activities to Incorporate Social Language and Play

Activities to Incorporate Social Language
and Play Development in Young
Children’s Natural Environment
ANDREA SEPER-ROPER, MSW, BCBA, LBA, ESDM CERTIFIED
COORDINATOR OF BEHAVIOR AND AUTISM SERVICES,
BELLE CHILDREN’S SERVICES OF ST. LOUIS ARC
“Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.”
–Jean Piaget
Agenda:
 Social Language
 Why is Play Important in Teaching These Skills?
 Natural Environment Teaching
 Early Start Denver Model
 How Can I Teach These Skills?
What is Social Language?
 Communication
 Verbal: Speech or spoken language
 Nonverbal: Eye contact; gestures; facial expressions
 Both tell others what you want, express feelings, shares ideas,
etc.
 Social Communication:
 Sending clear messages and being tuned into other people’s
messages
 Knowing unspoken rules of conversation
Development of Social Communication
 First year
 Being interested in caregivers’ faces
 Babbling back and forth
 Imitating sounds and actions
 Responsive to sing-song voice and caregivers’ voice
 Second year
 Using gestures
 Pointing to request and show interest
 Using ~300 words by end of second year
Development of Social Communication (Ct’d)
 Preschool years (3-5)
 Increase vocabulary size to ~6,000 words
 Talk about future, past, and to problem-solve
 Make comments/ask questions
Why is Play Important in Teaching These Skills?
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than
in a year of conversation.” Plato
 Social language/communication is learned
 Socialization learned/Friendships formed
 Encourages cognitive enrichment, emotional growth,
and influences personality development
 Helps children learn basic concepts
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Sharing; conflict resolution; turn taking; rules
Play Hierarchy
 Solitary play
 Parallel play
 Interactive play
 Cooperative play
 Pretend play
 Rule-based play
What is Natural Environment Teaching?
 Utilizing principles of ABA to teach in the natural
environment
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What is a natural environment?
Focuses on child’s specific needs and embeds them within his/her
interests
Captures motivation, uses natural reinforcers and errorless learning
 Why is this important?
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Generalization
Following child’s lead = higher motivation
Using activities/materials in child’s natural environment allows for
more practice
The Early Start Denver Model
 Set of specific strategies that can be used by
professionals and parents/caregivers to work with
young children with an Autism diagnosis in a natural
learning environment
 Strategies can be applied to everyday activities
 Based on scientific evidence about how young
children develop and learn, how Autism affects early
development and learning, and how best to teach
young children
ESDM (ct’d)
 Basic Principle:
 Children learn best when they interact and communicate with
other people.
 Guiding Principles to Teaching:
 Developmental orientation to activities
 Strategies based on ABA
 Individualized learning plan
 Partnership with families
 Multidisciplinary team
 Teaching in groups/ with peers
How Can I Teach Social Communication and Play?
 Increase child’s attention to you
 Identify child’s attentional spotlight
 Find position in that spotlight, face to face
 Eliminate competition
 Find child’s social comfort zone
 Follow child’s lead:
Active listening
 Narrate
 Help
 Imitating
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How Can I Teach Social Communication and Play?
 Use Social Sensory Routines during face-to-face
activities
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Find the smile
Stay in the spotlight
Create fun routines from songs, physical games, touch
Accompany with lively faces, voices, and sounds
Narrate
Use stimulating objects to create SSRs
Vary routine
Pause often and wait for a cue to continue
Use SSRs to optimize child’s arousal level
How Can I Teach Social Communication and Play?
 Teach child back and forth of joint activities
 Position self and important materials between you and your
child
 Stay in the spotlight
 Narrate; label; put in simple words, songs, and sound effects
 Frame play and caregiving activities with 4 part joint activity
structure
Initiation/Set up
 Theme
 Variation
 Closing/transition
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Maintain turn-taking, back-and-forth style through each of the
4 parts
How Can I Teach Social Communication and Play?
 Using and Understanding Nonverbal
Communication
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Do less
Pause and wait
Add gestures to joint activities
Exaggerate facial expressions and gestures during
play/caregiving
Divide up materials to practice “give me” gestures
Build in barriers
Point and wait for child to follow
Put simple words to child’s body language and yours
Build steps for communication exchanges into key activities
How Can I Teach Social Communication and Play?
 Teach Imitation
 Imitate child’s play with objects
 Imitate child’s vocalizations and sounds
 Use prompts to encourage imitation and fade fast!
 Accept approximations
 Make imitative games turn-taking games/mini conversations
 Use 4 step joint activity structure
 Use SSRs to build gesture imitation
How Can I Teach Social Communication and Play?
 Increase constructive, varied, independent toy play
 Teach child to play with toys! Go from easy to harder slowly.
 Model first, then prompt; fade prompts!
 Use 4 step joint activity framework to teach more play skills
 Encourage independent play by organizing well, sitting behind,
and easing out
 Rotate toys
 *REMEMBER: Follow the play hierarchy!
How Can I Teach Social Communication and Play?
 Develop pretend play that is spontaneous, creative,
and flexible
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Use everyday objects during play
Bring dolls/animals/figures to life
Substitute objects for other things
Combine multiple actions to make scenes from life
Every day life events are the right themes for play
Playing out social interactions and other new experiences
Play out scenes from favorite movies/books
How Can I Teach Social Communication and Play?
 Help your child use language and understand speech
 Raise your expectations
 Continue imitating child’s sounds to develop vocal games
 Everything, and every action, and quality, needs a name
 Use simple language; one-up rule
 Put in your child’s ear the words you want to come from your
child’s mouth
 Instruct less; follow through more
Questions?
 Contact:
 [email protected]
 Helpful Resources:
 “An Early Start for Your Child with Autism” (Rogers,
Dawson,& Vismara, 2012)
 “A Parent’s Guide: Teaching Play Skills to Children with
Autism” (Erinoak Kids)
“Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in
play children learn how to learn.”