Follow The Leader

Have you heard of the Hanen Centre? It is a Canadian non-profit charitable organization aimed at helping parents, early childhood educators and speech-language pathologists promote language skills, social skills and literacy skills in young children.

 

Here's an intriguing article written by their Clinical Staff Writer on the importance and power of imitating children with autism. Who knew so much could be done following our child's lead. Take a read!

 

If you have a child with autism spectrum disorder, you may find it difficult to join in with him when he’s playing, or to catch his attention when you want to show him something. But when you “follow the leader” by imitating or copying your child, you will discover an easy way to connect with him and get him to notice you.

If you’ve ever played “Follow the Leader” as a child, you’ll remember that one person is the leader, and the others follow along, copying whatever the leader does. You can do the same thing with your child at home, copying his actions, movements, and sounds.

There are many advantages to imitating young children with ASD:

• Your child chooses the activity – because you imitate something that your child is already doing, he is naturally motivated by that toy or activity. Children are more likely to interact when they pick the activity themselves.
   
• You and your child share the same focus – when you are both doing the same thing, it is easier for your child to pay attention to both you and the activity.
   
• It helps your child notice you and look at you – when you do exactly the same thing that your child does, it encourages your child to look at what you are doing. Studies have shown that when children with ASD are imitated, they look at the adult more than if the adult plays with them without imitating (1,2).
   
• It promotes other social skills – besides encouraging children to look at the person imitating them, children with ASD have also been observed to vocalize, smile, play, sit closer, and touch the adult imitating them (2).
   
• It encourages your child to lead – when your child notices that you are copying him, it might encourage him to perform new actions or try new things in an attempt to get you to copy him again.
   
• It encourages your child to imitate you - imitating others is a particular area of difficulty for children with ASD (3). The ability to imitate is linked to other skills such as language, and it also helps children learn through observing others (4). Therefore, helping your child to imitate you is an important goal. When you imitate your child, he may notice what you are doing and start to imitate you back.

To read the full article, click here.

 

Written by Lauren Lowry, Hanen Certified SLP and Clinical Staff Writer

 

Taken from: http://www.hanen.org/Helpful-Info/Articles/Follow-the-Leader--The-Power-of-Imitating-Children.aspx