Discussed in this Episode:

✅Hand-Over-Hand Pointing Practice: “Say your child wants barbecue shapes, you just proactively put their hand, your hand over theirs, point with their finger to the barbecue shapes.”

✅Drawing Progression Books: “We’ve got these little how to draw a house, you know, how to draw a person… Laminate them, cut them up, spiral bound them… they show them step by step, how to draw something.”

✅Help Sign with Objects: “If they need help, have a visual for help. They need to hand to you or the scissors to ask for the scissors to cut it or open.”

✅Sitting Variation Teaching: “There’s to sit in a chair, there’s to sit on the floor, there’s to sit on the carpet, to sit on cold concrete… sitting on a bench seat outside to eat sometimes in a preschool compared to sitting at a chair at a table.”

✅WhatsApp Documentation System: “Take a photo of the child sitting so people can see. Or if you’re using the sign, make a little video… if they’ve got the seatbelt on in the car and something’s weighted thing in their hands, show a photo.”

✅Processing Time Implementation: “Don’t just point and then give it to them. Just point to it with them proactively and then maybe count to three, then give it to them.”

✅Peer Help Network: “I had a little boy who used to love doing up shoe laces… So the other children would go to James and ask him for help and do the sign and point to their shoelace.”

✅Fine Motor Songs: “Doing lots of those little activities, you know, lots of little songs that require pointing… or reading a big book and getting them to point to their animals.”

✅Environmental Opportunities: “He doesn’t really motivate by anything I said, doesn’t he love the bath? Yes. We’ll get him to point to the plug. Don’t just put the plug in.”

✅Play Schedule Turn-Taking: “It’s great to put a photo of who’s doing which bit of like adding on a train, taking the train round the train set.”

Pointing

Pointing is a key skill to teach so children use guesture appropriately to communicate. It is a very important non-verbal means of communication. Pointing is a skill that neuro-typical often children learn spontaneously. Children with ASD usually need to be formally taught this skill, as instead of pointing they ‘drag’ or ‘lead’ adults to what they want. Even very young children with ASD can be very strong and as they grow older and stronger the adult may be injured if dragging behaviour is allowed to persist.

Pointing is a vital skill and consistency is the key.

How to Promote this Skill

• Model appropriate pointing whenever possible as you communicate with your child, e.g. when giving your child a drink, point to the drink and say “Drink” before you give it to them.
• Eye contact: in order for pointing to be an effective form of communication, the child needs to be taught to look at the other person.
• Wait. Remember to give your child time to process and then point.
• When your child is ready to make a choice, rather than letting them grab the preferred item, anticipate their action and mould their hand gently into a point.
• Ensure that all key adults use pointing with the child – consistency is vital in the acquisition of this skill.
• Some children need many fine motor experiences to help them develop independent pointing. In addition to helping your child learn how to point (gently put your hand over theirs and form their index finger into a point), you may need to give your child many experiences with actions to songs and finger plays as well as a range of other fine motor activities.

When working with any child with neurodiversity it is critically important that the programme implemented is realistic, both for the child and for the family. By realistic I mean setting everyone up for (achievable) success and that everyone across all environments has the time to implement it. I believe the best way to create a realistic programme is to only address one or two ideas at any one time. I recommend in the early years you always have visuals of the goals you are working on in a prominent place (e.g. fridge or preschool office) so ALL people engaging with the child know the week’s two goals. Over the years I have found by displaying the goals ensures consistency and everyone creating opportunities to reinforce the goal. As children with autism spectrum disorders are highly individual, not all strategies may work with every child. If you find this to be the case, remember that it is worth revisiting an old strategy in the future as it may work then. Most children respond best to a range of strategies. In this podcast I have chosen two very important skills, ‘Pointing‘ and ‘Asking for Help,’ to teach children as examples of two goals you could work on at the same time.

If you allow your child to ‘pull you’ without prompting any language, they will continue to do this as it works.

– Excerpt from The Early Years: The Foundations for ALL Learning by Sue Larkey and Gay von Ess