TASK ANALYSIS- MAKE IT VISUAL

Hello,Hi it’s a  great and endless joy for me to meet you guys again

It's the will to win if you can

and live it if you can't

thanx to http://www.visualphotos.com/ for the above picture

Task analysis is the process of breaking the complex skill in to smaller, manageable steps in order to teach the skill/concept. Task analysis can be used effectively with ASD (Autistic spectrum disorders) to address the needs in ADL (Activities of daily living skills), communication, behavior, academic and social domains. It is important to make it visual for ASD children when using this method for teaching skill acquisition. As parents/therapists you should be aware of your child strengths when considering the method for implementation of task analysis. Most of the successful methods used are reinforcement, video modeling, prompting and time delay. Skills that require a task analysis typically consist of multiple components that comprise a larger skill.

Steps in task analysis:

Step1 identify/prioritize the target skill: identify the skill that your child needs to acquire and List down the steps in the target skill (breaking the skill in to components).  Give Visual representation for easy comprehension of your child by using real photographs and pictures. Numbering the steps will help your child to remember the sequence. Colour  coding the steps lead him to remember the order. 

Step2 identify the prerequisites skills and materials needed to teach the task: as a parent/therapist you have to determine whether your child has the required prerequisites skills needed to learn the task. Once you think he is ready for the task list down the necessary materials needed to teach the task. The material you selected to teach the skill should be appropriate to the needs of the child.

Step3 selecting strategies to teach the skill:  forward and backward chaining is the most successful strategy used in implementing task analysis. The process of teaching the links in the chin is called chaining.

Teaching the sequence beginning with the first step/simple behavior is called forward chaining. Unless until he masters the first step he is not allowed to progress to the next step, this way the child understands the logical sequence of the task.

In the backward chaining the sequence is taught beginning with the last step, through this the child understands the benefit of performing the task.

 In the total task teaching the entire skill is taught and the support is provided for the steps the child finding difficult. The benefit of this is the child understands the total task with out interruption.

Step4 implementation of the program and monitor the progress: implement the method by using reinforcement schedule and give opportunity for your child to perform the learned task in a variety of settings (generalization).

It’s important to remember when you are planning for task analysis:

The skill level of your child

The age

Communication

Processing abilities

Prior experiences in performing the task

Literal interpretation of spoken language

Task analysis is one of the most valuable strategie and it can be used to teach any skill including self help, communication and social skills. But remember to make it visual!!! Your child is a magnificent puzzle if the right strategies are used, of course it’s easy to solveJJJ

Take care

CONCEPT DEVLOPMENT

Hi, a warm welcomeJJJJ

“Don’t wait for change, create it”

Thanx to www.foxnews.com for the above picture

A concept is a mental representation, image or idea of concrete (objects) and abstract stuff/Information (emotions and colors). Children understand most of the concepts very naturally by listening to adults, observing peers and siblings and when given opportunity learning by doing. Most of the time about “concept development” is confused with “skill development”. A skill is the ability to do a task (ex; using spoon to eat, tying shoes). When it comes to autistic children understanding abstract concepts are very difficult that’s the reason they struggle with language and emotional skills. We are here to understand how to plan/set up program for enriching concept formation to our challenging kids.

Steps in concept development:

Simple to complex: always start a concept from the scratch/bottom line. Initially introduce the concept in a simple format and as the child understands increase complexity. For ex; teaching the concept of an apple, first introduce apple word to the child by showing a real apple then make it complex by showing picture of an apple and asking the child to find an apple from the group of different pictures etc

Known to unknown:  when you are planning to teach a new concept keep it in mind what the child knows and start from that.  Proceed from what he knows to what you want to teach in the related area. This gives an idea to the child what he is going to learn. For ex; for teaching to coin words, start with the phonetic sounds and teach him to coin words with the help of phonetic sounds, which the is already mastered.

Concrete to abstract: plan strategy more meaning fully by teaching abstract concepts by using concrete examples. This gives the child an idea of reference when understanding concrete concepts like colors and emotions. For ex; for training the child to identify red color show him the real apple by saying apple is red, this association helps your child to master the concept of red. Concrete concepts are real and children have opportunity to manipulate and explore while understanding the abstract concepts.

Whole to part: make sure you plan to precede concept from the whole to part. It’s always easy to understand the whole concept before the child pays attention to the minor details. For ex; tech the child the concept  a tree(whole)  by showing the real tree or the picture of a tree, once he masters in identifying the tree slowly progress by teaching the parts of the tree like root, leaves, stem(parts) etc

Stages of concept development:

Acquisition: in this stage the children learn the concept

Maintenance: able to perform the learned concept whenever you ask him with 90% accuracy

Generalization: learning becomes permanent and generalizes the learned concept to all the novel situations

That’s all for today!!!!! Take care

TEACHING CALENDAR SKILLS

Hi it's an endless joy for me to meet you guys again with this great topic... Thanx to all my students who  helped/helping me in my journey of learning new skills and concepts while working with them. Every child is a great resource and is equivalent to a good book. Hats off  you guys!!!! and i adore you all

Thousand miles begins with one step

thanx to www.lapetite.com for the above picture

 Have you ever wondered how to teach your child calendar skills? Calendar skills are necessary for daily living and learning to use calendar helps us to organize our day more effectively. The concept of calendar is very abstract, and it is difficult for many our children to understand. Prerequisites for teaching calendar skills are, recognize numbers, identifies sight words of the days and months of the year. Once the child masters prerequisites It’s a good sign and you are good to go ahead to teach the concept of calendar to our extraordinary brains. Autistic children struggle to understand and use the concept of today, tomorrow, yesterday in their communication effectively since this seems abstract link it to what your child does day in and day out.  So it’s very important goal to work and help them to lead for functional independency.  

Strategies to teach the concept of calendar:

      Help them to make their own calendar, teaching this concept is all about looking at the calendar each day and helping him/her to understand what day it is in the month.

      Introduce songs and rhymes to learn days and months names in order/ in sequence.

      Introduce sight words of days and month names, train him to identify and arrange them in sequence

      Teaching the concept of days by associating to activities, give him a concrete cue for understanding the abstract concept of Monday. For ex; Monday he goes for swimming, Tuesday he goes for music class, Wednesday his favorite program telecasts in TV…. So on. Otherwise you set a specific activity for each day to understand the concept, see to that you follow the activities consistently

      Play matching games; give practice by matching the day’s flash cards to the activities. Make it fun

      Teaching the months of the year by helping your child to associate them with holidays, festivals and birth days, introduce matching and bingo games for better registration

      Choose colors to represent the month /stickers cut from a magazine or news papers

      Get a calendar with one sheet per day. Make it a practice to tear it every day morning or use a monthly calendar and make sure he crosses off the day as it passes

      Once the child has had plenty of practice understanding day concept, introduce the concept of week. Explain to your child that a week has 7 days.

      Make day and night representation cards (for day its ‘sun’ and for night it’s moon). The visual representation helps your child to understand if they have trouble with the concept

      Customize the calendar for your child with 30 squares representing days and hang on an envelope next to the calendar to hold the days of the month and numbers. Attach Velcro to the calendar numbers so the numbers can be put on and removed

      Introduce the calendar/ talk about special activity for the day saying today is…… and help him to find the numbers to represent the date

      Teach calendar skills through music and songs, it’s a fun way to remember the sequence and repetition helps your child to memorize. Go to www.educationworld.com/a-lessons/archieves/calendar.shtm/, which has some fun songs

      Talking about the date each day and looking at the calendar and helping them to understand where they are in each month and how the month fit together and form a year can be a really good way to start talking about calendar

      Mark special days by crossing or coloring the square, talk about how many days until that happens, this will help him to use a calendar and see how it works

      Prepare a folder for understanding before after and the concept of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Today is……. Tomorrow will be…….. Ask him questions like which day comes after Thursday etc

      Along with the concept of calendar teach the child to talk about the weather of the day by giving picture weather cards like today is sunny day…..

      Write a social story about days of the week. Ex; I go to my grandma’s house on Mondays I eat berries there I go swimming on Tuesdays wearing my blue swim suit….

      Use calendar as part of daily activity. Repetition is a key for the success

Your child experience is the first hand, the best way to understand calendar is talk about it every single day so that it becomes part of their life.  Experiment with different methods and use material which you feel relevant to make the child explore the conceptJJJJ I mean sky is the limit. Brainstorm with your family to generate ideas, I am sure your ideas might work best.

Take care

AUTISM- INTRODUCTION

Hi
Here is a short insight into Autism

 Thanx to www.baby-pictures.org for the above picture
Autism is a complex neurobiological disorder of development
 that lasts throughout a person’s life. It is sometimes called a
developmental disability because it usually starts before age
three, in the developmental period, and because it causes delays
or problems in many different skills that arise from infancy to adulthood. The main signs and symptoms of autism involve
language, social behavior, and behaviors concerning objects and routines:          

Communication—both verbal (spoken) and nonverbal
(Unspoken, such as pointing, eye contact, or smiling)

Social interactions—such as sharing emotions, understanding how others think and feel (sometimes called empathy), and holding a conversation, as well as the amount of time a person spends interacting with others

Routines or repetitive behaviors—often called stereotyped behaviors, such as repeating words or actions, obsessively following routines or schedules, playing with toys or objects in repetitive and sometimes inappropriate ways, or having very specific and inflexible ways of arranging items. People with autism might have problems talking with you, or they might not look you in the eye when you talk to them. They may have to line up their pencils before they can pay attention, or they may say the same sentence again and again to calm themselves down. They may flap their arms to tell you they are happy, or they might hurt themselves to tell you they are not. Some people with autism never learn how to talk. These behaviors not only make life challenging for people who have autism, but also take a toll on their families, their health care providers, their teachers, and anyone who comes in contact with them. Because different people with autism can have very different features or symptoms, health care providers think of autism as a “spectrum” disorder—a group of disorders with a range of similar features. Based on their specific strengths and weaknesses, people with Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) may have mild symptoms or more serious symptoms, but they all have an ASD.

Autistic disorder (also called “classic” autism)
Asperger syndrome
Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise
Specified (or atypical autism)
Pervasive developmental disorders (PDD)—to describe autism. The PDD category includes the ASDs mentioned above and: Childhood disintegrative disorder and Rett syndrome. Scientists don’t know exactly what causes autism at this time. Genes, their function, and their interactions—are one of the main underlying causes of ASDs. Current evidence suggests that as many as 12 or more genes on different chromosomes may be involved in autism, to different degrees. Some genes may place a person at greater risk for autism, called susceptibility. Other genes may cause specific symptoms or determine how severe those symptoms are. Or, genes with changes or mutations might add to the symptoms of autism because the genes or gene products aren’t working properly. Research has also shown that environmental factors, such as viruses, may also play a role in causing autism. Other researchers are looking at possible neurological, infectious, metabolic, and immunologic factors that may be involved in autism Boys. Statistics show that boys are three to four times more likely to be affected by autism than are girls. Some signs of autism are detectable at eight months of age. In general, the average age of autism diagnosis is currently three years old. In many cases, a delay in the child’s starting to speak around age two brings Problems to parents’ attention, even though other less noticeable signs may be present at an earlier age. Studies also show that a subgroup of children with ASDs experiences a “regression,” meaning they stop using the language, play, or social skills they had already learned. This regression usually happens between the first and second birthdays.
Possible Red Flags for Autism

Ø  The child does not respond to his/her name.

Ø  The child cannot explain what he/she wants.

Ø  The child’s language skills are slow to develop or speech is delayed.

Ø  The child doesn’t follow directions.

Ø  At times, the child seems to be deaf.

Ø  The child seems to hear sometimes, but not other times.

Ø  The child doesn’t point or wave “bye bye.”

Ø  The child used to say a few words or babble, but now he/she doesn’t.

Ø  The child throws intense or violent tantrums.

Ø  The child has odd movement patterns.

Ø  The child is overly active, uncooperative, or resistant.

Ø  The child doesn’t know how to play with toys.

Ø  The child doesn’t smile when smiled at.

Ø  The child has poor eye contact.

Ø  The child gets “stuck” doing the same things over and over and can’t move on to other things.

Ø  The child seems to prefer to play alone.

Ø  The child gets things for him/herself only.

Ø  The child is very independent for his/her age.

Ø  The child does things “early” compared to other children.

Ø  The child seems to be in his/her “own world.”

Ø  The child seems to tune people out.

Ø  The child is not interested in other children.

Ø  The child walks on his/her toes.

Ø  The child shows unusual attachments to toys, objects, or schedules (i.e., always holding a string or having to put socks on before pants).

Ø  Child spends a lot of time lining things up or putting things in a certain order.

The source of the information is from autism speaks/ introduction to autism book

See you soon guys.

TEACHING ORGANIZATION SKILLS

Hello, it’s indeed pleasure for me to share with youJJJ

“I don’t want to sit around and hope good things will happen. I want to make them happen.”

thanx to  www.agefotostock.com for the above picture

What is organization mean to you?  For me it’s refers to “assigning things in order and in a designated place”.  Yes it makes completely sense to me; organizing stuff always makes our life easy and saves hell lot of time. Some people have great organizing skills and some don’t have, but it’s essential to incorporate these skills in our routine. Most of our children with autism good in stacking or arranging stuff (beakers, plastic cups) according to color and size and they insist things to be in same order or go crazy when things are not same place they usually be. This is a good sign, and teaching organization skills works best with our children. Some of children are naturally organized while others struggle with basic organizational skills. Teaching organizational skills is an important task every parent needs to focus. Autistic children have difficulty packing their school bag most of the time they does not carry necessary supplies, difficulty completing home work and difficulty to organize them for art and craft activities. There are ways to help an unorganized child become more organized? Yes very much, let’s look in to couple of strategies to make this idea works  

Strategies:

ü  As a parent you need be more organized, and set an example for your kid. Most of our kids needs model and learn effectively by seeing you doing things. Demonstrate clear steps before he masters and do it all by himself.

ü  Having/find place for everything is important; arrange things in storage containers, shelves and big trays. Kids are visually trained to sense organization because they can see where things are placed.

ü  Arrange (assign place) similar things together like puzzles in one place or in one container, flash cards in another place and same as for books/toys.

ü  Make things accessible to the child, where in the child independently reach for things and puts them back after it’s done.

ü  Help the child to become organized by assigning place for ADL stuff. Ex; his clothes can be sorted out like pants together shirts together and underwear’s together, and finding place for his brush soap and shoes. Give opportunity for the child to do it by himself

ü  Labeling is extremely important as most of our children process better when there is written instructions.

ü  In the classroom help the child to create/maintain folder for each subject to carry the paper work and assignments.

ü  Most importantly helping the child to follow routine will ultimately helps in effectively working on organization skills. A daily time table/ schedule help the child in organizing things or himself for the activities.

ü  Checklists /task analysis (some of our children do best when step by step instruction is given) are of a great help to ensure that all the steps are done in order and helps in avoiding clutter.

ü  Initially prompt your child to successfully learn organizing skills.

ü  Make use of organizers:- calendars, folders and graphic organizers(floral diagram, flow chart etc)

ü  Sticking index (list of items) to the school bag and it provides him as a remainder to carry things in the bag.

ü  Using color coding and highlighters for increasing organization

ü  Look for a peer who will help him with organization and provide non judgmental remainders.

ü  Provide clear directions; where things go, how to do.

ü  Some children are best with picture charts and word cues for understanding organization, follow whatever best for your child.

ü  Label the whole environment( in the house label the kitchen cabins, storage bins, closets, medicine racks etc. in the class room label the areas of lunch, circle time activity, place for the bags etc.)

ü   Cleaning up after playing/using is very important. Whatever the mess the child does, he is in charge of arranging back the things. Make sure before he goes to bed he maintained to follow the routine.

Organizing skills becomes increasingly important as child grows, and every child learns in their own pace. Give time; stay patient and consistent with the learning process. I am sure in the end the results are worth to celebrate. A best child is a product of organized environment. Your children are able!!!!!

Take care