In previous posts, we have mentioned the difficulty Flora and children with ASC have in social interaction and communication with others. This is why it is important to plan activities that give Flora the opportunity to develop her vocabulary and motivate her to communicate with those around her.
More information about Autism and communication can be found here.
In addition to educational activities, it is important to give Flora the opportunity to communicate with us during daily activities, such as snack time.
How can we turn snack time into an opportunity for Flora to communicate with us?
1. Snack choices
As we want to motivate children to communicate, it is important to choose snacks that are attractive to them. At the same time, it is important to have a range of choices. In this way children need to identify the snack they want, choose it and communicate their choice to us. It also gives them the opportunity to be exposed to different options and experiment with new flavours.
2. Symbols
As in any activity, it is important to have ready the symbols of objects/snacks, and in this case the snacks, that we will use. In this way, we help the children to associate the symbol with the object and the word.
As we focus on language development, it is important to have symbols that help with building sentences, such as subject and verb ( ' Eirini give' )
3. Differentiation
Each child with ASC has different abilities and needs and communicates differently, verbally - non-verbally , sounds - words - sentences. It is important to take these into account and differentiate the way the child communicates with us. With the use of symbols, students can either request for the desired object, or gradually learn to build sentences. More information on differentiation can be found here.
4. The role of the adult - snack time
We place the snacks in a tray so that the children cannot access them and motivate them to contact us to obtain the desired snack.
The adult names the snacks on the tray and encourages the children to communicate which snack they want, taking into consideration each student's communication level.
More information on how to turn snack time into a communication activity opportunity can be found here.
Snack time can also be turned into a Maths activity and more specifically an activity that helps students learn how to manage money. More information can be found here.
Here we have to emphasize that every child has different needs and we need to ensure that we adapt the activity appropriately. If you are interested in planning a similar activity, you can contact us at florastophasma@gmail.com so that we can share ideas and tips for the best possible outcome.
We will share more tips and activities in the future, so keep visiting us. We are looking forward to hearing your views and experiences. You can email us at florastophasma@gmail.com. Follow us on instagram and like our page on facebook.