- Teach your child how to talk by offering options
- In the early stages, avoid open questions. Use direct phrases
In the first few years since his ASD diagnosis, my son struggled to answer basic questions such as ‘What would you like?’ Even now, it often requires repetition and rephrasing to communicate with him.
Here’s the technique I learned from his speech pathologist to help my son overcome this problem.
Offer options
Children with autism can struggle to understand open-ended questions like ‘What do you want to eat?
Instead, I follow up the question with an offer of two specific choices. For example: ‘What do you want to eat? Biscuits? Crackers?’
This makes the question simpler to understand and provides a demonstration of how to say ‘biscuit’ or ‘cracker’, which makes it easier for your child to repeat their preferred option.
Avoid vague phrasing
Don’t say ‘Where shall we go onto next?’ And don’t add components to the question, eg ‘Where shall we go? You must be tired now.’ Your child may struggle to understand the question being asked.
Instead, stick to direct phrases like ‘Where do you want to go? Playground? Home?’
Add hand gestures
Help your child understand that two options are being suggested, by presenting one hand palm up as you say the first option, and the other hand palm up as you say the second option.
This has an added benefit: if your child struggles to say the word they can still touch your left or right hand to indicate their preference.
Practise speech
Motivate your child to talk by deliberately ‘acting dumb’ and offering a less desirable choice.
For example:
- When offering a cup to drink from, offer your child’s favourite cup and a different, boring cup and say ‘Which cup? Red cup? Blue cup?’
- Pretend to forget the way to the playground and say ‘Which way? Left? Right?’, pointing to each direction.
- Offer your child’s favourite biscuit and a vegetable at snack time, and say ‘Which would you like? Biscuit? Broccoli?’
Top tips
Hold out for signs of engagement. As I did when I practised sounding out words with my son, the key here was to not hand over the item to him until he had made some effort to talk or communicate in some other way.
However, there’s no need to be too strict or disrupt the flow of events. If there’s any small sign of engagement, shower them with praise and go about your day. And try again next time.
Change the order of the options you offer. According to our speech pathologist, children with autism have the tendency to more easily recall the last option that was offered and choose that. Switch up the order so that you sometimes say the ‘correct’ answer first and other times last, so that your child has to listen, think and choose for themselves.
Use this ‘options’ format in any situation. Even now, if my son and I disagree over how much longer he can spend on the iPad, I find that it’s more effective to ask, ‘Five more minutes or ten more minutes?’ rather than say, ‘Ten more minutes and that’s it’ or ‘Just a few more minutes, OK?’
Or when he doesn’t want to eat any more green beans, it’s more effective to say ‘Two more beans or three more beans?’, rather than ‘You need to eat them all!’
By offering him two specific options — one option that I want/expect him to choose and another option that’s less desirable — it clears up ambiguity and minimises stress.
And most importantly, it gives him the control. I’ve found this to be crucial in helping my son to be happy and calm. I’ve observed that, as a person with communication difficulties, he can feel vulnerable and frustrated by the lack of control over his everyday choices.
It’s often the case that he is willing to finish iPad time, but just not right this second. But he can’t express those nuances, so he simply says or indicates ‘no’, which to an adult can seem defiant or absolute.
So, wherever possible, I try to give him options — even if those options are heavily vetted!
Summary
Give your child control by offering two specific options.
Encourage them to express their choice through simple words or hand gestures.
Autism Hacks 