Increasing Functional Vocabulary in a Child with Autism

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Question: I have a 5 yrs old autistic kid, who can’t comprehend simple objects or simple commands, like banana or cut, we have been working through this for more than half year. As she is also doing intensive ABA training in another centre, I know that she is working on photo-object matching now, however, if it comes to picture-photo matching or matching photos with different bananas, she can’t do it.  So she can do requesting of a few preferred things but generally she doesn’t know what words are called so I’m wanting to know the best way to increase her functional vocabulary so she’ll be able to follow some basic directions and use words to request.

Learning Vocab Through Photo Matching – Not my Favorite

  • Doesn’t always generalize to learning what things are called
  • Children with autism don’t generalize well between different pictures of one vocab word

Learning Vocabulary a More Natural Way

  1. Observe in the classroom and write down all of the nouns and verbs that the teachers repeatedly use to give basic directions.  Also, write down all of the nouns and verbs that the student probably wants to request (favorite foods, toys, activities, etc.).
  2. From that list, take the top 10 most frequent or most useful words to teach.
  3. Model the word: set up an activity where you will model one of those vocab words over and over again.  If it’s an object, bring in the real object.  If it’s an action, do that action repeatedly while saying the word each time.  Say the word over and over again and give as many different examples as possible.
  4. Follow Directions: Have the student follow basic directions using the vocab word.  Reward with the object or action itself it is is motivating or bring in other motivators if necessary.
  5. Request: If applicable, tempt the child to say the vocab word to request it by setting up situations where the student will want more of that thing.

**Make sure you do these activities in the classroom.  You can do some practice in the speech room as well but ALWAYS bring it back to the natural environment for generalization