Working With Autistic Children

Autism is a disorder that affects the social and psychological development of a child. As a result, a child is unable interact with other people around them. Usually, the signs and symptoms of autism are observed in the early years of childhood before they start going to school. There are a wide variety of signs that suggest autistic behavior in a child. Some children have communication difficulty, some tend to repeat their behaviors, some are highly sensitive towards their senses like touch, smell, hearing, etc. Each child has different levels of autism. While working with autistic children, the first thing that needs to be done is to understand the behavior pattern of each one of them.

Strategies

If you have just started to work with an autistic child, you may face a little bit of difficulty in understanding the child. At this stage, follow these strategies and you will find that the task has become much easier for you:

Act Patiently: No matter what, you cannot afford to lose your patience. You may be expecting certain kind of response from them but you are not getting it from them. That can disappoint you a lot but do not hesitate to put more effort to see the signs of improvement in them. For this, you have to invest a good amount of time in understanding the children well. With passage of time, they will also feel comfortable with you and will become more responsive.

Follow a Routine: These children feel very comfortable when they are leading a routine life. Whenever this routine is changed for some reasons they tend to feel insecure and may get agitated. Prepare a daily schedule that include their daily activities starting from meal times, sleeping times, fun times, etc. Try to maintain it every day to keep them happy. If there is a possibility that the schedule may get disrupted then tell them about it in advance.

Reward the Children: When they are giving correct responses or behaving positively then reward them promptly. They feel very encouraged when they are rewarded and praised in front of their contemporaries. However, if they are misbehaving or not giving right response, never ever punish them. This is because they may not be able to understand that there is some connection between his or her behavior and the punishment given.

Repeat Your Words: This hold true for every activity starting from improving their communication or other skills to behavior modification. When you are repeating the words they can understand and learn them better. At the same time they can remember the information given to them. It is a misconception that repeating words will lead to development of robotic speech in the child.

Go Slow: When it comes to behavior modification, it is important that at one time only one problems should be handled. Trying to change a number of behaviors may not be an effective method. Prepare a separate list of problems for each child and rank them according to the priority. Give highest importance to the problem that affects the child the most. Take one problem and keep working with the child till you do not get satisfactory results.

Tips for Working with Autistic Children in the Classroom

The teaching environment plays a crucial role in how the children will respond to the teaching. Here are some useful tips that will help to improve the learning potential of the autistic child:

• Make sure that there is a well-defined work environment inside the classroom. It should not get unwanted distractions like excess of light or noise.
• Keep the classroom environment flexible. This is needed because each child has a unique learning style. A child should be allowed to move around the classroom freely while carrying out a task. Such things help them in learning.
• Autistic kids respond well to pictures and other visual aids as compared to written or verbal instructions. Therefore, include pictures, televisions and CDs as your teaching tools.
• There are some children who are more comfortable in communication with typing instead of writing or speaking. For them, a computer and keyboard should be used for improving communication skills.

The most important thing that has to be kept in mind during working with autistic children is that one has to think of the welfare of the concerned child first. You should regularly interact with the parents and other members of the children and inform them about the progress. If these children get enough support and cooperation at home, then they can become really good learners.