Capture your Child’s Attention to Promote Learning

In order for learning to take place, a child must first be able to attend to the environment and to people. Most of a child’s early learning takes place through, watching, and listening. Children with autism do not demonstrate an adequate level of attention to people, as this does not appear to be inherently motivating for them. When a child does not naturally enjoy interactions and is not hard wired to learn through this crucial channel, they will not attend to the movements, gestures, facial expressions, and words of others; subsequently, their learning will be detrimentally impacted.
There is a lot that you can do to promote your child’s ability to attend to people. Identify what your child is naturally interested in and motivated by. It could be an object or the way an object is used, or it could be physical activities such as roughhousing or running. Meet your child where he is at in his favorite activity and use this as the window for learning. Even an unusual or repetitive activity, such as spinning in circles or lining up toy cars, can be a starting point from which to build a play repertoire. Find ways of interjecting yourself into these activities and turning them into a meaningful interaction. For a child who spins in circles, you may hold his hands and play games of Ring Around the Rosie. A child who is fixated on lining up cars may be open to you lining up blocks around the cars and making a garage. If met with resistance, you may alternatively try to find ways to capture attention away from the cars. A game of tickles might break the child’s fixation on cars just long enough to have a short back and forth interaction with a caregiver.
Position yourself face to face with your child as often as possible, whether it is during mealtimes, play routines, or looking at books. During snack time, offer small portions and wait for your child to make eye contact with you before providing more. Fill your child’s cup just a little and hold it within his sight but just out of reach so that he will have to signal to you in some way that he wants it. Building in ways to capture your child’s attention during daily routines will set into place the necessary groundwork to promoting learning.
Working With Autism is located at 16530 Ventura Blvd, Suite 5101 in Los Angeles.  For more information, please call 818-501-4240 and visit www.workingwithautism.com.