• Developing/Increasing communication about past and future events:

  • Establish familiar and recurring routines: A child's ability to refer to past and future events occurs first within the context of familiar and recurring routines (9). The child is able to rely upon the support of the immediate, familiar, and highly predictable context to internally represent and recall events (9).
  Example: A routine is established in music: the group first plays instruments and then blows bubbles. At the end of the class, the teacher asks the child, "What did we do in music class?"
  
  
  • Visual support strategies: Various visual support strategies can be used to assist the child in discussing past and future events. The visual information which is required to communicate about past and future events provides support and assistance for the child when he may be experiencing difficulty recalling or representing events internally, . The following visual support strategies can be used to provide assistance in relating past and future events:

"Visual Schedule"

• Developing/increasing the ability to understand and express varied emotions and use of self-regulation:

The following strategies may be helpful for focusing on the expression and regulation of various emotional states in the verbal child with autism:

• Development of vocabulary to share emotional states and experiences with others: The child must first learn the vocabulary for varied emotional states in order to be able to exhibit emotional self-regulation skills. Vocabulary focus should begin with basic emotions (happy, sad, mad, scared) and progress to more abstract emotions, such as embarrassed or proud. The child can be taught in a variety of ways how to identify (recognize) and appropriately label varied emotional states first in others, and then in themselves. Photos, mirrors, video-taping and role playing are tools which can be used to teach the child these skills. For example a child looks at various photos of people expressing emotional states, and labels the emotions.
• Using contextual information to assist in determining the emotional state of others, and why those emotions are being expressed. After learning to label various emotional states, the child will need to be taught to use contextual information to assist in determining the emotional states being expressed by others, as well as why that emotional state is being expressed. For instance a child is running across the street without looking, and a parent yells in a loud voice, "Stop!" Due to the context, the parent is probably expressing the emotional state of being scared, rather than being angry, because she fears her child will get hurt. Video-taped clips of various movies or T.V. shows can also be used quite successfully in teaching the child these skills.

"Comic Strip Communication"

• Verbal reasoning:

To address any of the verbal reasoning difficulties listed under question number six in "Questions to Consider", the following teaching strategies can be used:

• Role-Playing: Various problem situations, which the child has experienced, can be acted out through role-playing, or using puppets/dolls.
• Visual support strategies: Photos, pictures, and/or written information depicting problem situations can be used to teach the child to identify problem situations, possible causes and possible solutions.
Example: A problem situation is depicted by a picture of a boy's bike with a flat tire lying on the ground, or with a large piece of glass lying on the road. A discussion then revolves around identification of the problem - a flat tire; causation for the problem - the piece of glass; and possible solutions.


• Video-taping: Videotaped clips of various movies or T.V. shows can be used quite successfully in teaching the child verbal reasoning skills.
Example: A 3-5 minute clip from a movie is shown to the child. A discussion then arises regarding what problem situations were shown, possible causes for the problems and possible solutions.

• Narrative discourse skills:

  Use of visual support strategies, such as story mapping, can be used to focus on the child's narrative discourse skills. Even if the child is able to read (decode) at an advanced level, when initially teaching narrative discourse skills (retelling), it is better to use very simplified stories.

Conclusion:

Although the verbal child with autism has acquired some verbal language skills, this does not always mean that he can effectively communicate at all times and in all situations. There are many factors which can adversely affect the child's ability to effectively communicate, including the immediate context or environment, feelings of stress or anxiety, unfamiliar communicative partners, etc. It is important for anyone who frequently communicates with the child to have a good understanding of the child's communicative strengths and weaknesses.