By James W. Partington, Ph.D., BCBA-D

Parents of children with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), often feel frustrated and disappointed by their child’s inability to develop friendships and participate in daily interactions that most families take for granted, such as discussing the day’s events, and listening to their child interact with siblings or peers as they engage in leisure activities.  To develop these interaction skills, it is usually necessary to teach a variety of specific advanced language skills that are often not adequately addressed in many intervention programs.  Additionally, in order to develop meaningful social interactions and friendships, it is also necessary for the child to attend to the interests and activities of others.  Finally, if the child does develop the necessary language skills and learns to attend to others, it is still necessary for the interactions to result in enjoyment for the child so that he will want to have further interactions with those individuals in the future.

Variety of Language Skills To Be Taught
There are a variety of language skills that a child will need to acquire in order to have meaningful social interactions. Some of these skills include being able to describe and answer questions that require the child to label specific aspects of events as they are happening (i.e., “What are we doing?” “Who is here?” “Where are we?”).  Another important set of skills is to be able to ask peers and family members for information (e.g., “Where is the playground?” “When can we go to the playground?” “Who will take me there?”).  Additionally, the child also must be taught to remember and describe what they have learned about their peers (e.g., “What is Joe’s favorite video?”), and describe recent past events, (e.g., “Who sat next to you at lunch today?” “What did Joe bring for lunch?”).  (A more complete list of critical language skills that a child needs to acquire can be found in the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning SkillsTM-Revised -aka ABLLSTM-R and the WebABLLS).

Attention To Others
Since we want children to be able to socially interact with their siblings and peers, it is particularly important for the child to develop and use his skills to talk about other individuals.  It is not enough for a child to be able to know the names of children and family members, but he must also be taught to observe and talk about what others are doing as they are engaging in the activities so he will also be able to talk about these events at a later time.  A special emphasis needs to be placed on having the child attend to and describe what other children are doing (e.g., “Joe is playing with the dinosaurs”, “Erica is eating a sandwich”, “Sarah is wearing a Pokemon shirt”).  As the child is taught to attend to and talk about what he sees others doing, the foundation skills are being established for the child to be able to talk about the typical activities and the likes and dislikes of others.

Teaching Children To Describe Ongoing Events
Children are often not specifically taught to describe items or events while in the presence of those items or during those activities.  They may have been taught to answer specific questions (e.g., “Who is that?”  “What is he doing?” “What color shirt is he wearing?” etc.), but may never have been taught to give multiple descriptors of the person without being asked those questions.  For example, if asked to “Tell me about that boy” (when Joe is in the room with the child), can he tell you that his name is Joe, he has short brown hair, has glasses, is wearing a blue shirt, and is playing with the big red truck?  If the child is unable to talk about items, people and activities while they are present or occurring, why should we expect that the child will be able to talk about them when they are not present?

Therefore, if when asked specific questions, a child has the ability to label specific aspects of items, individuals and activities, we then need to teach the child to label those same aspects when asked to describe those things.  It is often a simple task to get the child to “Tell me about (any item, person or ongoing activity).”   At first, a parent or educator may demonstrate this skill for the child.  When in the presence of a cup the parent may say “Look at this… I’m going to tell you about it…it is a white cup, it has a picture of a dog on it….we can put juice in it…we use it to drink juice.”  After modeling the way to describe the functions, features or class of the item, the child can then be asked to describe other items the child uses or sees in his daily activities.  For example, the child could be asked to describe one of his favorite books.  The adult will ask the child to “tell me about this” (book). It will probably be necessary to prompt the child to give multiple responses (e.g., it is a big book…has farm animals…we can read it).  If it is necessary to prompt the child to give multiple responses to the question, it is then important to reinforce the child for giving those prompted responses, and then to immediately ask the child to once again to “Tell me about this” (book).  By immediately repeating the question the child has an opportunity to be reinforced for being able to give multiple responses to the general question without having prompts from the adult.  This procedure can then be used to develop the child’s ability to give descriptions of a variety of items, locations (e.g., bedroom), people and activities while they are present or ongoing.

It is important to make sure that activities to develop the child’s language skills are fun for the child.   The child should enjoy the interaction so that he will want to have similar interactions with others in the future.  As such, the child should be reinforced during the early stages of these interactions for making a few statements about what he is observing.  Over time, the child will be able to provide a greater number of details about his observations.  The goal is not to teach the child to give a long list of rote responses to questions, but rather to be reinforced for his participation in the activity and especially for his observations of novel aspects of situations.

Teaching To Talk About Previous Events
Although it is important to teach children to be able to describe people and items that are present and ongoing events, it is also important for children to be able to communicate that same information when those items, people and or activities are absent.  Rather than merely asking the child to respond with a “yes” or “no” answer, the child should be taught to make multiple comments about the event.  For example, if we used the strategy to get the child to “tell about” what he saw and did while he was attending a birthday party for another child, when in the car riding home from the party, the adult could then ask the child to “tell me what we just did?”  Once again, it might be necessary to prompt the child to give multiple responses describing the event, people and activities.  The child should be highly reinforced for giving multiple responses to the general question (especially when the child identifies aspects that weren’t specifically discussed during the party!).  When the child arrives home from the party, he can be greeted by the parent or sibling who didn’t attend the party and asked to “Tell me what you did?”   By using this strategy of talking about items and events in their presence, talking about the same items and events immediately afterwards, and then again after a slightly longer delay, the child can actually learn to describe items, people and events they’ve experienced.

Active Responding Is The Key
If we want a child to verbally interact with others, we must get the child to actively respond to develop the necessary language skills and be reinforced in a timely manner for using those skills with others.  Both parents and educators can develop the child’s these advanced language skills during the course of everyday activities.  It is not sufficient for adults to just talk about what they observe; the child needs to be the one doing the talking!  Getting the child to describe what they observe (including the actions and interests of others) and what they see happening, and then having them talk about these same observations after the items are no longer present or the activity is finished are important steps in getting the child to be able to have meaningful social interactions with others.

Useful References
Partington, J. W.  (2008).   Capturing the Motivation of Children with Autism or Other Developmental Delays.  Pleasant Hill, CA: Behavior Analysts, Inc.

Partington, J. W.  (2006).   Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills- Revised:  An assessment, curriculum guide and skills tracking system for children with autism or other developmental disabilities.  Pleasant Hill, CA: Behavior Analysts, Inc.

Sundberg, M. L. & Partington, J.W. (1998).  Teaching Language to Children with Autism or other Developmental Disabilities.  Pleasant Hill, CA:  Behavior Analysts, Inc.

Thompson, Travis.  (2007).  Making Sense of Autism.  Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

www.behavioranalysts.com

Dr. Partington is the director of Behavior Analysts, Inc. and provides services to children and their families at the STARS Clinic in Walnut Creek, California.  He is internationally recognized for his work in teaching parents and professionals effective and practical methods for motivating and teaching skills to children with developmental delays.  He is a licensed psychologist and a board certified behavior analyst (B.C.B.A.), and has 35 years of experience working with children with developmental disabilities.  His expertise is in language-based intervention with children who are experiencing language delays as a result of autism and other related developmental disorders.