Teaching the concept of time

Visual timers are perfect for teaching the passing of time. Make sure you are constantly reinforcing the concept of time moving as you might say” Look at the timer, you have 5 more mins to play”. By keeping a watchful sense of time it will carry over and be seen visually as the visual timer pie gets smaller. I like to explain time as a whole pizza and as time goes by it gets hungry just like our bodies do. The red pizza pie on the timer gets smaller and smaller as “time gets eaten up”. Time is such an abstract concept and hard to teach but, using a visual schedule or timer can help make this process smooth as transitions are made. No knowing if today is the last time you would ever get to play with a toy or do a fun activity can cause frustration and confusion. Many times problem behavior arises when you stop doing a desired activity. Ever wonder why that is? In most cases if you didn’t know when you would get the chance to eat again you might get very worried and start to have extreme anxiety, it may not be that the child over indulges to keep eating but that there is no clear ending to the task and beginning. That is why routines are comforting to those on the spectrum. The repetitive nature is a cycle that comes full circle once again. As a parent or educator we must break the cycle. Don’t be afraid to switch things up and make “life happen” not everything can be so routine. If you start early on you will have an amazing success with how your child can adapt and handle stressful situations. It is often said that those who complete college are better adept to handling stressful situations. This is only due to the fact that they have made it through and mastered the experience. Don’t let stress control life. Helping children stay on task and use their time appropriately is important. During downtime you can have independent tasks for your child to complete that require little to no assistance or prompting. These would be tasks that are already mastered and completed. You could have your child make their bed or put dishes into the dishwasher to help them with keeping the house clean and making them an essential part of the family unit. Teaching skills around the house proves very useful in general but also leads your child to become self sufficient and able to carry out jobs. These jobs can then be transferred to work at a store, office or school.

Turning Obsessive behaviors into functional tasks that are appropriate.

Often times those who harbor an intense obsession is deemed “bad” but if we use the motivation behind the activity or interest then we can try to make something productive and enjoyable for kids on the spectrum. When I was teaching in my classroom I had one such child who was very Obsessive compulsive about the order of things. If I would move a book on the bookshelf wrong he would go over and try to get it back to just the right spot. At times the behavior would be very disruptive and lead to problem behavior if the student weren’t able to “fix it into place”. I realize that the compulsion had no true function to our classroom but here is how I turned it around to make it appropriate. I used his obsession of neatness to start a small job at the school cafeteria. The job would be done the same way every morning. The job was to put juice, milk and water into the cooler. I set up the job to help him use his OCD to be productive and start a job where other students could see my student on task and in there community of school life. It turns out that it was the best idea I had for my student’s OCD behavior, in fact it no longer was obsessive but more natural and the job was meaningful to my student as he looked forward to going to the cafeteria. The behavior in class diminished and the focus now was doing the bottles in order in the morning which got my student a job where he was more social and was able to give high five’s to classmates. I recommend finding ways to transform obsessions into productive activities.

Branch out and Brainstorm

Teach Brainstorming

Ideas for the classroom:
To teach concepts ask many questions relating to parts of the whole concept. Categories can be broken down into parts and function. Make a fun game show out of it. Have students take turns answering questions then once they get a question right they get the chance to make a choice for a fun project such as make a collage about something they are interested in such as trains or dogs ect. Have then also research ways to expand there interests. Often time’s individuals with autism are obsessive about one topic or idea. Teaching types of breeds of dogs can help to give the student some new information to learn as well as making an appropriate brainstorming of the idea. It’s even possible that you may want to teach strategies to train dogs to do tricks. These topics that are “obsessive” are often calming and familiar.