How to Teach a Child with Autism
Autism is a mental disorder in which a person suffers from impaired social interaction and communication (verbal and non-verbal). Its symptoms become evident before a child turns 3 years old. It affects the processing of the brain and the person may experience the same restricted behaviour over and over again. Treatment for autism varies from person to person.
It is quite difficult to treat a child who is suffering from Autism because it is extremely hard to get him/her to pay attention. Moreover, every child responds to the disease differently. Nevertheless, psychologists have made a few strategies which you can use to teach an autistic child.
Instructions
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1
Set out the teaching space
First of all, you must set out a good teaching space where you can teach an autistic child. You must know that autistic children have problems with unfamiliar surroundings and are generally uncomfortable. Therefore, it is extremely important for you to create a space where you can easily teach the child on a regular basis. In order to make the child feel comfortable, you can keep different toys and playing material in your teaching space. -
2
Develop your teaching schedule
If you want to teach a child with autism, you will have to develop a good teaching schedule. A teaching schedule is more important for autistic children because they are usually moody and can be unwavering. -
3
Promote reading to improve learning
Autistic children don’t like reading because they feel disturbed by different kinds of signs. However, reading is very important for learning. Therefore, in order to promote reading, you will have to develop different strategies. For instance, you can use close captions on television to help the child associate printed words with spoken ones. -
4
Develop learning strategies for the child
Autistic children face difficulties in expressing their emotions, intentions and other signals which are needed for communication. So, you will have to develop different strategies in order to enhance the learning process. For example, you can read the child a book while expressing different kinds of emotions. In this way, the autistic child will be able to learn about different emotions which need expression in different situations.