How to Develop Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder During the Coronavirus Crisis?

Whether we want to believe it or not, the coronavirus is here, and your child will be out of school and therapy for several weeks, perhaps months. For our children with autism spectrum disorder, this automatic and sudden change may affect them.

Trying to explain to your child why they cannot go to school when it is not a vacation or summer break can be complicated and confusing for the child. Adding to the confusion is that your child will miss going to their favorite places in the community.

During this radical change, please keep two things in mind:

1. Our children feel the world's nonverbal anxiety and stress more intensely, so when you interact with your child, it is essential to stay calm and positive.

2. Staying at home with your child will require a lot of patience, creativity, and positivity.

It is essential to create a daily schedule

The first thing we highly recommend for every family is to create a daily schedule. There are many schedule templates you can find online that you can modify to fit your lifestyle. If your child can participate in creating the daily plan, let them participate because of the importance of what they will add for you. When creating a schedule, do not schedule an activity for more than 45 minutes.

Provide plenty of sensory breaks to re-energize your child and get them moving. Add self-care skills such as: getting dressed, bathing, brushing teeth, bathroom breaks, eating meals, etc. as well. During this time, it is acceptable for your child to engage in self-stimulatory behaviors and screen time. It allows you and your child to take a break from each other and decompress. To help transition your child from one activity to another, use the timer on your phone.

Using a timer is always helpful because it lets your child know when the activity ends. Every morning, set all transition times on your phone's timer to stay on track with the daily schedule. Give a verbal warning before the timer goes off. For example: In two minutes, when the timer goes off, we will clean up and start writing." You can sing a transition song during the transition period, or use an alert cue that signals your transition.

Creating a homeschooling schedule can be very overwhelming. Our advice is to look at the goals in your child's Individualized Education Program (IEP) / or therapy plan and find worksheets or activities to help support those goals. Also, create a personal goal you would like your child to achieve over the next two or three weeks. Whether the goal is for your child to learn to write their name or learn to get dressed, you will be surprised at what can be learned while at home.

Since there are so many homeschooling activities to choose from, we have created a list of activities that I found helpful. These activities are divided into five categories: sensory, gross motor, fine motor, games, and self-care skills. The great thing about these activities is that you do not have to buy expensive materials to implement them. All you have to do is find simple items around your home. The positive thing about coming out of social distancing is that the social bond between you and your child becomes stronger.

1. Sensory play

Sensory play is wonderful because it encourages children to use five senses: sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing. Some ideas for sensory activities include blowing bubbles and having your child chase and pop them. Put shaving cream on a table and have your child draw or write letters and numbers.

Now is the perfect time to spend quality time with your child. Fill a plastic bin with water beads and hide small zoo animals, dinosaurs, or anything your child loves, then ask your child to find them. Each week, change the materials in the basket to shredded paper, pasta, sand, etc.

2. Gross motor activities

Gross motor activities focus on strengthening and coordinating the leg and arm, and developing large muscles. For example: you can place adhesive tape in a straight line and have your child walk on the tape (works on balance). Another example: throwing a ball into a basket (works on hand-eye coordination), or crawling under a rope.

Ask your child to help you with motor chores such as moving chairs or carrying the laundry basket. These are great ways to help your child meet their sensory needs.

3. Fine motor skills

Fine motor skills are important because they help with writing and self-care skills. Some fun activities include: playing with playdough. You can work on finger and hand strengthening skills by rolling the dough into small balls or making animals like snakes. Hide objects such as small beads or coins in the playdough and have your child find them.

Another simple activity involves only stickers and paper. Randomly place dots all over the paper using a pen or marker. Have your child place stickers (choose favorite characters or objects) over the dots. Make it educational by turning the dots into shapes, letters, and numbers, and have your child place the stickers on the dots to create the shape, letter, and/or number. Teach your child how to color inside the lines.

Print simple coloring pages (those that do not contain too many details) and trace the lines with a black pen or crayon. By darkening the lines and making them thicker, your child can identify the boundaries of where to color. You can begin teaching the concept of cutting and using scissors by cutting playdough, for example.

To encourage writing, draw shapes, write numbers and letters, or write your child's name on a piece of paper and have your child trace it.

4. Games

Games reinforce the concept of turn-taking and following rules. Now is the ideal time to teach the concept of play in a one-on-one learning environment. When your child returns to school, they will have the foundational turn-taking skills to play games with their peers. When teaching turn-taking, start with games that have simple rules and games that reinforce the concept of "my turn / your turn." You can start by doing puzzles inside your home and taking turns putting puzzle pieces together.

You can also print coloring pages and take turns coloring. Pair physical activities with visual cues

(pictures). For example: holding up a piece of green paper means starting to jump, run, etc., and holding up a red piece of paper means stopping.

You can teach the concept of chasing and tag. To start, have your child walk or run behind you and ask them to tag you with your name, then turn around and walk or run after your child and tag them. Keep doing this back and forth until you increase distance and speed. Tag is an essential play skill because so much playground play revolves around tag and chasing. Once your child enjoys playing simple games, you can begin teaching games with more complex rules such as: hide-and-seek

5. Self-care skills

Self-care skills are critical because they not only help your child become more independent, but they also help enhance problem-solving skills. Each week you can decide on one or two self-care skills you want your child to work on. Once you choose, it will be essential to break down the self-help skill step-by-step and teach it in small sequential steps, then link the steps together.

For example: if you want to teach your child how to get dressed independently, you will not teach them how to put on socks and pants first, but how to put on a shirt independently. Once your child can put on their shirt independently, teach them how to put on pants. After that, putting on socks, have your child put on pants and shirt independently. Continue this procedure until your child can dress themselves.

Some self-care skills you can practice are: washing hands, brushing teeth, tying shoes, opening and closing a lunchbox and/or backpack, using utensils or a napkin, etc. If your child needs pictures to help them, search online, as there are many free visuals that can be downloaded for each of these self-help skills that break skills down into small sequential steps.

This is a great time for you to socialize with your child as well as teach them life skills that will prepare them for the future.

Always look for something your child loves. By choosing activities your child prefers, this will enhance social communication and interaction with you. The ultimate goal of this period (the coronavirus crisis) is to strengthen social interaction with your child through learning and enjoying daily activities.

Source:

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Originally published in Arabic. This English version was produced with AI-assisted translation; the Arabic original remains the reference.