Tips for Parents, Teachers, and Caregivers 
Who Teach Autistic Children

Autism is Treatable
Taken from an article by a parent of an autistic child
http://aba.insightcommerce.net/main.php3?primNavIndex=5&

It is important to understand that without any therapy or intervention, a child with Autism or PDD will absorb far less information and knowledge from the environment than a typical child. A typical child will start to talk at 1.5 to 2 years with almost no help from his parents or siblings. He will then acquire around 6 new words a day and will have a vocabulary of an amazing 10,000 words before the age of seven. A child with Autism may become verbal much later and have poor language and social skills if he is not given speech and behavior therapy. At least initially, he must be given a strong knowledge base i.e. he must be taught speech, language and age-appropriate behavior. The most important factor is his age. It cannot be stressed strongly enough that for the best outcome, this work must begin as early as possible.

Starting work with your child

If you even suspect your child has Autism, you must begin work with him immediately. Do not waste vital time waiting for a formal diagnosis. I met one mother who waited six months for a formal diagnosis before beginning any treatment. Imagine how much she could have taught her child in that time. You will find out for yourself that most doctors know very little about Autism and will simply recommend a speech therapist, a special school or an early intervention center. The worst thing some doctors will do to a parent is to take away hope. You will learn a lot more about helping your child from other parents of children with a similar condition than you would from any general practitioner. As you work with your child and see the results, you will soon find other parents of newly-diagnosed children coming to you for advice.

Start working with your child now, even if it means just trying to communicate with him through play. This time will never ever be wasted. Even if tests show that your child does not have Autism, you've lost nothing. Trying to teach the child at the table could be difficult at first, as the child may resist learning and lots of positive reinforcement and encouragement is vital. There are many structured teaching methods for children with Autism such as ABA, TEACCH and Greenspan to name a few. Many parents adopt their own, often very successful strategies for teaching their children at home.



Autism diagnosis

Although early diagnosis for the potentially devastating disorder is critical, children with Autism rarely receive a diagnosis before the age of 3 or 4 years. There is no outward physical difference between a child with Autism and a typical child. The only differences are behavioral. A child with Autism will exhibit at least some of the following:
Poor speech and language skills
Inappropriate play eg. child may continuously spin the wheels of a toy car rather than push it
May line up toys or other objects
Trouble interacting with others
Poor eye contact
Walking on toes
Hand flapping 
Tendency to have narrowly focused and odd interests 
Not asking for things in the same way as other children
Failure to show objects to others
Failure to orient to one's name being called
Failure to engage in reciprocal play where there is a back-and-forth between two people
Failure to copy others' motor movements
May not use pointing to direct another person's attention
May resist social touch such as hugging 


Autism spectrum
A child with Autism can be anywhere in the broad Autism 'spectrum'. At the upper end, the child could appear almost normal and have few autistic traits. He may perhaps be the quiet child in the classroom with few or no friends and a couple of quirky habits. He may not even be diagnosed as autistic until much later in life. At the lower end of the spectrum, the child would be termed low-functioning, have poor speech and language and would require much more intensive therapy. No matter where a child is in the spectrum, he can and must be helped.


Types of Autism
Some children are born autistic and others develop the condition usually in their second year. This is known as late-onset Autism. The child starts life normally and gradually develops the condition, losing speech and gradually showing more and more of the symptoms. If diagnosed and treated early with one-on-one therapy, the child can show remarkable improvement, often to the point of being termed "recovered". This is where the child is indistinguishable from his peers.

Asperger's disorder
Asperger's disorder, also called Asperger's syndrome is a type of pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) as defined by the American Psychiatric Association. Asperger's disorder is similar to high-functioning autism in how it affects a child's mannerisms and socialization traits. A distinction between Asperger's disorder and Autism is that young children with Asperger's often have normal language development, although the rhythm, pitch, and emphasis are irregular. Unlike Autism, Asperger's disorder does not delay other aspects of development; a child usually has age-appropriate self-reliance and an interest in the world around him or her. However, like Autism, children with Asperger's disorder have abnormal social interactions, facial expressions, and gestures. Asperger's disorder affects males 9 times more than females. Its cause is unknown. More research is needed to confirm whether Asperger's disorder is a condition that is genetically related to Autism.

Speech therapy
A common mistake is to assume that speech therapy is the solution to Autism. Speech therapy certainly has it's place in prompting and refining a child's speech and vocalization but it takes many hours a week of intensive one-on-one work to teach the child compliance, new concepts, language and age-appropriate behavior. You will probably see a speech therapist for 1 or 2 hours a week. It takes a lot more work to get a child ready for school and to ensure he succeeds at school once he gets there. Once your child is in school, it would be wise to continue the speech therapy sessions. 

Language is the key
The frustration of a child with Autism was once described as that of being in a maze where the walls are made of glass, trying to communicate with someone on the outside and only being able to bang on the walls. There is no doubt that much frustration and temper tantrums can be reduced and even avoided when communication and language is encouraged and developed. A typical child works out very early that it is in his own interest to acquire language whilst a child with Autism may not. He needs to be taught that language will get him results. On this point, if your child asks for something, give it to him immediately or at least respond to his request immediately. Ignoring him will certainly not encourage his speech.

Autism treatment
Of all the therapies around, ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) has attracted the most attention. The system pioneered by Dr. Ivar Lovaas at UCLA in the sixties is a teaching program that works on systematically removing the "traits" of Autism until the child does not satisfy the criteria for the condition. The system is very intensive but proven to be extremely successful in almost all cases of Autism. The ABA teaching system basically breaks down any task into subtasks and places a very high emphasis on rewarding the child for working well. There is no physical punishment at all in the system. The therapy starts off in a very rigid structured form but gradually takes the shape of a typical school environment. Those who know little or nothing about ABA may say it is too rigid and turns the child into a 'robot' by rote learning. This would appear so at the start but as the child learns to learn, he progresses to a point where he can join his typical peers in their learning style. Most parents who persevere with the program for two to three years can successfully mainstream their children. The results speak for themselves. The child usually begins school, attending regular classes with an aide. The aide is gradually 'faded' and the child blends in with the class. More on aides and fading later. An excellent piece software is the "Discrete Trial Trainer" that uses the ABA principles to rapidly boost a child's language. We have this product in our range of software. View the online training video by clicking here (turn on your speakers first): http://dttrainer.fti.sc/trainingvideos/index.html

How many hours?
A question often asked is how many hours of behavioral therapy does the child need? There are many cases where the child needs up to 40 hours a week but of course, it depends on the level of severity of the child. A program usually starts with around 15 to 20 hours a week and can work towards 30 or more hours a week. Once the child is in school, the hours of work at home will fall back to around 10 to 15 hours a week. Quality is of course more important than quantity and energetic, dedicated therapists are vital to your child's progress.

Working with your child
I would strongly suggest you begin working with your child at least initially rather than leaving him to a therapist. Your child will trust you and understand you are trying to help him. You need to have boundless energy, be animated and genuinely love teaching your child. This is not easy and experts estimate you could do this for no more than 10 to 12 hours a week. If both parents take turns, the task is, of course a lot easier. Later, you could introduce a therapist or two to help out as you will not be able to maintain a high level of energy for too long. The advantage of doing the initial work yourself is that you will then know a good therapist when you see one and be able to weed out those that are of little value to your child.

Choosing a therapist
Choosing a good therapist is not easy if you haven't worked with a child yourself. Many experienced parents will actually be able to train their new therapists. Therapists can be anyone with enough energy, enthusiasm, patience and genuine love for children. Those below the age of 18 are often too young and immature (some will actually be frightened!). Mothers with children often don't have the time and energy and often don't like to be told how to deal with children as they feel they are the experts. One applicant told me how she regularly smacked her own children when they misbehaved. There is no room for such people in your home. A good tip is to make a short list of the ones you feel may be suitable and tell them there will be a training period of a couple of weeks during which there will be no payment. Many of them will drop out as the work is very demanding and not suited to everyone.

Special Schools
Whilst there are many excellent special schools around, sadly, many are under-funded, understaffed and ill-equipped to teach children with Autism. There is usually not enough one-on-one support for the child and worst of all, the child can pick up inappropriate behavior from the other children. I find all this heart-breaking as there is so much a child with Autism can learn in the critical early years.

Mainstream Schools
Your goal should be to get your child into a mainstream school. Three years of intensive one-on-one work at home will go a long, long way towards successfully mainstreaming a child. Once a child with Autism is successfully mainstreamed you have won half the battle. I say this because it would be wise to continue working with him at home as well. I would strongly advise liaising with his teachers and aides to address any difficulties at school. You could use this feedback to work with him at home thus preventing him from falling behind. Obtaining in advance his school books and material they are going to cover at school is a good idea as you could work with these at home, reading them to him at night etc. so it is not all new to him at school. It is advisable to keep his home therapists as his school aides as they will know him a lot better than any school-provided aide. Y


Uneven skills
A child with Autism often has uneven skills eg. he may have very strong areas such as memorizing pictures or words and reading at an early age and weak areas such as making social contact with his peers. You need to firstly identify the strong areas. It goes without saying that you should use these strengths to the fullest advantage. For example if the child has strong reading skills, explore this to the maximum. Many of these children have strong visual skills. Use pictures to stimulate and refine their language. If your child learns to read or write before he gets to school, it will be one less thing to worry about and he will have more time to learn other skills that he is lacking. 


"My child can't talk at all! Where do I start?"
A frantic mother once phoned me with this question. Teaching speech to a child with Autism is done on a step-by-step basis. A child cannot run before he can walk. Before attempting actual speech, you can first teach a child to match identical pictures, then non-identical pictures i.e. matching a red car with a different-colored one. The next step is receptive language where the child is asked for the picture of eg., a cat, horse, house etc. (see next section). If your child can achieve receptive language or has already reached this stage, this is promising as he can at least understand what you are saying and this will ultimately lead to him expressing himself verbally. Do not be complacent though, as his vocabulary may be limited. You must do what you can to make sure his vocabulary is expanded as widely as possible.

Receptive language
This is where the child understands what other people are saying. It is a major step in the progress of a child with Autism. It is however not enough for the child to understand just a handful of words such as food, milk, bike etc. A typical child of seven can understand and use at least 10,000 words. You must boost the child's receptive language as early and as quickly as possible.

Receptive language software
The Labeling Tutor CD-ROM is a software package that allows you to use your computer to teach your child any number of labels and sounds. What happens is the screen displays from 2 to 5 images and the child is asked over the speakers eg. "Touch Eating". If the child correctly clicks on the correct image using the mouse or touch-screen, he is rewarded with a little animation. When one label is mastered, the program moves on to the next label, occasionally bringing in mastered labels to see if the child has remembered them. This CD has been extremely successful. You can use your own images, sounds and prompts in any language and the child can be left to play and learn by himself. You can also set the level of difficulty and you get a visual report of his progress. The sky is the limit with this package as you can use it to teach subjects as letters, words, shapes, numbers, colors, objects, body parts, gender, actions, places, categories - in fact, anything one can depict in a picture or represent with a label. Use it to help a child recognize faces and emotions, understand binary concepts (like fat/thin, big/small, old/young), comprehend object functions, build associations (e.g., between fork and spoon), learn opposites, practice simple math problems, master verb tense, improve multiple discrimination skills, recognize variable looking objects, distinguish between similar looking objects and learn to recognize the sounds that specific objects make. Use it to associate pictures and words with communication symbols or sign language. The Labeling Tutor package comes with 200 images each with its voice-over. You can include your own images and voice in the system. This involves resizing your image files to a smaller size and reducing the colors to 77 colors each. I would suggest the "Pix Plus" CD-ROM which has 10,000 images that are ready to use with the Labeling Tutor.


Teaching with pictures
"A picture is worth a thousand words" and using pictures is an excellent way to teach speech, language and communication. Children with Autism are highly visual and can be taught almost anything using images. Temple Grandin, the famous autistic author of many books once said that she thinks in pictures. You need thousands of good photographic pictures to help with 'generalization' i.e. if a child with Autism has just one picture of a white dog and is taught this is a dog, he may not easily recognize a German Shepherd or a Rottweiler as a dog when he sees it. Using new and varied material also keeps a child from getting bored and frustrated. Minimize the number of stick images or drawings used. Actual color photographic material is the best as the images are more life-like and much easier for the child to relate to. You can never have too many pictures in your collection. Get them from anywhere you can - magazines, old books, the web, printed catalogs, even junk mail!

Printing from a CD-ROM
The falling prices of computers and color printers has created a trend away from buying expensive printed flashcards towards software such as our Flash! Pro2 CD-ROM containing many thousands of color photographic teaching images that can be printed from a home PC to a color printer at a tiny fraction of the cost. You can pay up to a dollar for each printed flashcard, whilst printing from our CD-ROM works out to around 1 cent per picture. Another advantage of using a CD-ROM with a huge range of pictures is that you can select and print what you need at any time. You do not need to print all the pictures right away. The images on the Flash! Pro2 can have their labels switched on or off. You can print the images in sizes varying from 1 per page (biggest) to 8 per page (smallest). This CD-ROM with over 10,000 printable teaching images is our most popular product and is widely used to teach children in schools and homes around the world.


Organizing you pictures
It is important to organize your pictures or you will waste vital time looking for them when you need them. My suggestion for the size of flashcards to be used for teaching purposes is to keep a standard of 4 per letter-sized (or A4) page - much bigger and you'll find it hard to file away the pictures. A good idea is to get a set of (preferably long) card cabinets to file the cards in their different categories eg. animals, actions, food, vehicles, plants etc. The cabinets we recommend are around 16in (42cm) long and can each hold at least 200 laminated flashcards. Take a laminated picture card with you for size when looking for cabinets. A good place to find cabinets is a used office furniture and equipment store. I use one cabinet drawer per category. You can cut cards with name tabs so they stand out above the cards to subdivide the categories eg. for animals - cat, dog, chicken etc.

Rotating your material
Once a noun, verb or concept has been mastered by your child, you must rotate your material i.e. don't use the same picture over and over again as this can be very frustrating for any child (another good reason to keep a big collection of images). A good idea to ensure your images are rotated is to "select from front and return to back" i.e. if you have 8 pictures of a cat, then choose the one from the front of the set and when you're done with it, return it to the back of the set. This way your pictures will be used evenly. 

Using sound
Many children with Autism have difficulties processing sound or distinguishing noise from normal conversation. Hence, they often appear deaf although they have normal hearing. Typical children are able to "filter" out background noise from useful auditory information. Children with Autism very often attempt to block out this bombardment of sound and retreat into their own world. In many cases they will hold their ears. In some cases, they will rock to and fro in an attempt to block out the sensory overload. It is important to teach these children to identify sounds. This goes a long way in being able to sort out noise from useful auditory information such as a teacher's instructions, a parent's voice, traffic, a barking dog etc. Some sounds you can teach your child to identify are:

Airplane, Ambulance, Baby crying, Bagpipes, Bath tap, Bee, Bell, Bicycle bell, Blowing nose, Brushing teeth, Cannon fire, Cat, Chick, Chicken, Children playing, Chopping, Church bell, Clapping, Clock ticking, Coughing, Cow, Cricket, Crow, Crying baby, Crying child, Cymbals, Dentist drill, Dog, Dolphin, Puppy, Drill, Drum, Duck, Rubber Ducky, Biting apple, Elephant trumpet, Fan, Fire, Fire alarm, Fire truck, Fireworks, Flushing toilet, Flute, Food blender, Frog, Goat, Goose, Gunshots, Guitar, Hair dryer, Hammering nail, Harp, Helicopter, Horse neighing, Horse galloping, Jet, Keyboard of PC, Kissing, Kitten, Knocking on door, Laughing, Lightning, Lion, Monkey, Motorcycle, Mouse, Mowing lawn, Ocean, Opening coke bottle, Owl, Parrot, Peacock, Piano, Pig, Pinball machine, Police car, Pouring, Power drill, Railway crossing, Rooster crowing, Sawing wood, Scissors, Seagull, Sea lion, Sheep, Shower, Sneezing, Snooker table, Stirring tea in cup, Tambourine, Tap dancing, Running, Tearing paper, Telephone, Tractor, Train, Truck, Trumpet, Turkey, Vacuum cleaner, Yawning One way is to use a cassette player and flashcards to get the child to identify and/or match the sound to the pictures. A much easier option is the "Talk to me!" software.


The "Talk to me!" CD-ROM (screen-shot pictured above) comes with over 2,200 images each with a voice that plays when you click on it. You can record over each voice or sound as often as you wish. Included are all of the 150 sounds listed above each with an image under the category "Sounds" that you can teach your child to identify. You can easily include your own images and voices or sounds and play back the sounds by clicking on the pictures. You can print what you see on the screen as flashcards. It's a fun way to learn and identify sounds and voices.

Sensory issues
Autism is a sensory condition affecting one or more of the child's senses:
Touch: A child with Autism could be very sensitive to touch and may resist close contact, hugging etc. even from even his parents.
Sound: Certain sounds could be unbearable to an autistic child. He may even hold his ears when hearing some voices or sounds.
Taste: Certain food textures could be unpalatable to a child with Autism. Some children will only eat a select few foods.
Sight: One autistic adult stated that he could not stand to look at the color yellow.
Smell: Some children may show a strong preference for certain, often unusual odors.
You should bear this in mind when setting up your child's learning environment and be prepared to make any adjustments.

Learning environment
A child with Autism should begin work in a quiet environment without any distractions. However, the real world is not so sterile. A classroom of kids can be very noisy. You should thus slowly introduce "noise" into your child's teaching environment. One way is to start with the doors and windows closed and over a period of time, gradually open the doors and windows. You could also introduce very soft music, turning the sound up very gradually over the weeks. If you find your child cannot concentrate, reduce the noise levels and start again gradually.

Working at the table
Working and concentrating at the table for a child with Autism will not be easy especially at the start. Keep the sessions very short to begin with. It is always tempting to keep going when the child is doing well. But this will backfire if you keep the child working at a drill for too long. You will know this when the child does not want to begin the next drill as he will show a lot of protest behavior. Always move up gradually. Never reward a child who is working well with more work. If you feel he has done particularly well at a drill, let him go for a short break to do whatever he wants. He will soon make the connection between good work and rewards. There may be times when you let him go for a break just for coming to the table with no protest at all.


Finishing on a positive note
When you begin a set of drills with your child, you must always finish on a positive note. If you end a drill when the child has a tantrum, this will simply tell him he can end his work with a tantrum. A tantrum could mean that the drill is too long, too difficult or even frustratingly easy or boring. There may be times when the child will simply not finish a drill. If this happens, get him to do something a lot easier to finish off eg. "Clap your hands" (he claps) "OK, good boy, off you go". This principle applies to all aspects of the child's daily routine and activities. For example, if he is tamtrumming to brush his teeth and you allow him to leave the bathroom whilst he is yelling, he soon learns that the best way to get out of brushing his teeth is to throw a tantrum. The only way is to ignore the tantrum (can be very difficult) and continue with the task at hand or at least until the tantrum has subsided. Letting him go then, will teach him he gets rewarded for good behavior or finishing the task.

Getting organized
You must set aside a room to do your work and store your equipment such as toys, books, pictures, cards, videos etc. You will soon build up a huge volume of items that must be available when you need them. A good shelving system to hold your books, video tapes and lots of good-sized stackable drawers for your cards, pictures and toys is a good idea. If you child has outgrown his toys, put them away in the garage. Some toys that have lost their reinforcing value could be brought back at a later stage. For a child with Autism, appropriate play with toys is always a plus. Don't hold back on getting him new toys. Joining a toy library is a good idea to save money. Another idea is networking with other parents and exchanging toys with them. 

Sight-reading
Reading is of course a vital skill without which a child cannot get very far in school or society. A common mistake is to teach reading using just words without pictures or any other media. The child could learn to sight-read by memorizing the sequence of letters but may not understand much of what he is reading. A much better approach is to begin by using pictures with the text underneath. The child will then associate the words with the pictures. Do not teach your child to read words he would not know the meaning of. The Flash! Pro2 CD-ROM mentioned above is a ready source of images that can be printed with or without the labels to teach sight-reading.

Phonics
I highly advocate the phonics system of reading i.e. reading by combining the sounds of each letter. I have included the reference list (click on the "Phonics" tab above). Most educators do not use the child's visual strengths to complement this method of reading. Using images makes the task a lot more interesting and of course, relevant. Once again, do not teach your child to read words he would not know the meaning of. 
You must document what your child can read. Once you are confident he knows the meaning of a word, annotate this word as "mastered". You will reach a stage where you can construct simple crosswords where you have a number of words horizontally and vertically in boxes and you can ask the child to find the words on verbal cues. Later, you can list the clues below the crossword for the child to read. 

Reading Software
We market a CD-ROM called CompuThera that offers a seven-step gradual discrete approach for teaching reading. It has been designed for children having trouble learning by observation alone. It is aimed at visual learners and children whom traditional classic educational methods cannot motivate. Children with Autism fit this category; that is why CompuThera will benefit them most.
Targeting both receptive and expressive cognitive skills, the CompuThera treatment plan builds on mastered items to progress through the program using simple drills, eventually leading to reading simple sentences.
The ability to read often triggers in autistic children the conceptual leap leading in breakthrough in communication. The CD-ROM comes with full instructions and a "Seven-step to reading for Visual learners and children with Autism " Therapists Manual.

Spelling
When testing your child's spelling, don't simply say eg. "Spell cat". Try and get him to work out the word you want by saying eg. "What animal goes miaow and drinks milk". When he says "Cat", you say "Great, spell cat". This will help him build the connections in the mind that all developing children need. Be imaginative and use different clues each time.

Knowing when to move on
Once your child has mastered an exercise (be it understanding of a word, concept, spelling, reading or whatever) you must move on or he will get bored and frustrated and this could manifest itself in bad behavior. A good rule of thumb is if the child gets the exercise correct 8 times out of 10, consider it mastered. Move on to the next piece of material but do the mastered exercise twice a week for two weeks, then once a week for a month, then once a fortnight for two months and then once a month for four months. The exercise is then truly mastered. Of course you could be running several different programs on any given day. Working with your child will teach you to challenge your child but not to the point where the demands are too high. A good consultant to monitor your teaching schedule is well worth considering. A consultant will let you know what programs to begin, continue with and drop. 

Recording method
With several different drills in your child's schedule, you must have some sort of recording system. Keeping a record of a child's drills and progress is very important. If this is not done, you run the risk of not remembering what the child has learned. You will frustrate the child by using materials repetitively and worst of all you could drop material from a drill before it has been mastered. A simple but very effective way is to record the child's progress on a spreadsheet such as Excel. Keeping a track of pictures, words etc. that are Mastered, Current and Next, gives you an easy way of rotating your material so the child doesn't get bored with mastered items, keeps him focused on current material and allows you time to work on obtaining new items and ideas that can be added to the list. The entire schedule can be held on a single file with each program on a different worksheet within the file. 

Most frequently used words
The complete Webster's dictionary has over 460,000 words. However, around 75% of all words used in schoolbooks, library books, newspapers, and magazines are in the Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary of just 220 words! These words are: a, about, after, again, all, always, am, an, and, any, are, around, as, ask, at, ate, away, be, because, been, before, best, better, big, black, blue, both, bring, brown, but, buy, by, call, came, can, carry, clean, cold, come, could, cut, did, do, does, done, down, draw, drink, eat, eight, every, fall, far, fast, find, first, five, fly, for, found, four, from, full, funny, gave, get, give, go, goes, going, good, got, green, grow, had, has, have, he, help, her, here, him, his, hold, hot, how, hurt, I, if, in, into, is, it, its, jump, just, keep, kind, know, laugh, let, light, like, little, live, long, look, made, make, many, may, me, much, must, my, myself, never, new, no, not, now, of, off, old, on, once, one, only, open, or, our, out, over, own, pick, play, please, pretty, pull, put, ran, read, red, ride, right, round, run, said, saw, say, see, seven, shall, she, show, sing, sit, six, sleep, small, so, some, soon, start, stop, take, tell, ten, thank, that, the, their, them, then, there, these, they, think, this, those, three, to, today, together, too, try, two, under, up, upon, us, use, very, walk, want, warm, was, wash, we, well, went, were, what, when, where, which, white, who, why, will, wish, with, work, would, write, yellow, yes, you, your.

Keep these words handy and teach them to your child as soon as possible. Have pictures put up on your wall or notice board with the labels below them. When your child starts reading, this list should be kept handy. Some concepts such as "think" and "wish" will come after simpler items such as "jump" and "drink" but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day! An excellent source of words is from the Ladybird book series called "Key Words Reading Scheme" which is a set of little children's storybooks organized very cleverly to include the 1,200 most-used words in the English language. These well-illustrated books gradually build the child's language.

My own list
I have loaded up a list of over 2600 words from my spreadsheet (click above on the "Vocabulary" tab to view this list). You can highlight the entire list, copy and paste the list into a spreadsheet (I suggest Excel). You can, of course edit this list, deleting whatever you don't want and adding new words etc. You can use the list in many ways. I used the next columns to date when a word was a) first read b) last read and c) last spelled. The next columns were used to count the days the currently worked-on words were successfully read/spelled. This was to indicate when a word was marked as mastered in reading or spelling. Once you have this live document, you can sort it by date to rotate you mastered reading and spelling words to ensure the child has not lost what he has learned. If he has lost a word eg. in reading, this word must go back as a current word and repeated in the daily drills eight days in a row correctly to be remastered. I use ten current reading words and ten current spelling words on any day. Yes, it's a lot of work but if you don't document your child's work, you run the risk of him losing words and ultimately having a very limited vocabulary. It is not unusual to come across an untreated child with Autism in his teens with a vocabulary of less than 200 words.

Hitting a brick wall
Some educators will tell you that you will ultimately hit a brick wall i.e. you won't be able to go past a certain point when teaching an autistic child. Do not believe this. We were told our child would not be able to read beyond the standard 200 words. By 6 years he could read and understand over 1,000 words and spell over 400 with his vocabulary increasing with each day. When you come to a brick wall, don't break you head against it. Find a way around it! Also, don't believe everything the doctors tell you. You will find out for yourself what strengths and weaknesses your child has as you work with him.

Using the computer as a teaching tool
Children with Autism are usually very strong visual learners and can benefit enormously from a home computer. However, there is a lot of over-priced and over-rated software out there with very little reinforcement and limited educational value. The best software allows you to edit information and enter new teaching material and reinforcement. Reinforcement is vital (and severely lacking in most learning software packages) to hold the child's interest and involvement. The software must also be easy to use - easy enough for a parent to operate and edit and of course if the child is to run the software, it should be easy for him to do so. Our son has almost 150 CD-ROMs in his software collection. I am always on the lookout for new software to interest him.

Useful internet sites
The web is full of useful resources you could utilize to help your child. A site I often go to is http://tucows.com/. It has lots of free and demo games and learning software you could download to your computer.

Other sites are:
http://looneytunes.warnerbros.com lots of online games for kids.
http://freejigsawpuzzles.com great online jigsaw puzzles.
http://007arcadegames.com hundreds of free online games for kids.
http://miniclip.com more free online games.
http://www.manythings.org lots of exercises and resources
http://www.centerforautism.com lots of resources and links on ABA, diet and contact addresses
http://englishpage.com English to foreign dictionary, grammar, tutorials and lots more

Dietary Intervention
At least 50% of children with Autism respond to dietary intervention. The main culprits are casein (found in dairy products) and gluten (found in wheat, barley, rye and oats). Many research scientists indicate that incompletely digested gluten and/or casein enters the bloodstream and plays havoc with the child's system, affecting brain function and learning processes. Many parents observe that casein and gluten foods make their children vague, sluggish and spacey. Others say these foods trigger episodes of extreme aggression or self-harm.
Dr. Kalle Reichelt is a noted scientist who has written extensively on this topic. A collection of his articles can be found at: http://www.panix.com/~donwiss/reichelt.html
It is extremely difficult to maintain a GFCF (gluten-free, casein-free) diet, however it is possible and many parents claim excellent results. There is a good book called "Special diets for special kids", written by Lisa Lewis that includes GFCF recipes. I also came across this site with information on foods free of gluten and casein: http://www.glutenfree.com

Enzymes
New studies are showing that digestive enzymes particularly DPP-4 break down gluten and casein. Many parents have found that enzymes allow them to take their children off the gluten-free/casein-free diet without triggering off side-effects or behavioral regressions. I recently came across a site with more information and enzyme products for sale: http://houstonni.com

Milk
There has recently been a lot of news about A1 and A2 milk. From what the research shows, the A1 milk, apart from causing long-term diabetes and heart problems could also cause problems with some children with Autism. A2 milk is apparently the good milk. There is a site http://www.a2corporation.com/ that has more information on this. I will post more information on this issue when I get it. Apart from MSM (see next segment) I personally have not used any drugs, dietary intervention or vitamin supplements. However I encourage people to look further into any intervention that they feel could benefit their children. Although a change in diet may show some improvement in your child's behavior, it is most important that you keep working with him on a one-on-one basis as well to accelerate his rate of learning.

Drugs
There is as yet no drug that cures the core symptoms of Autism but some can ease the behavioral problems. Antidepressants such as Prozac may reduce repetitive behaviors. Stimulants such as Ritalin may lessen hyperactivity. Anti-psychotic drugs such as Risperidone can decrease aggression and hyperactivity. 

Physical Exercise
All children benefit from physical exercise. Children with Autism have shown remarkable improvement with vigorous exercise especially with concentration and alertness. Daily Life Therapy developed by the late Dr. Kiyo Kitahara of Tokyo, Japan puts a strong emphasis on systematic education through group dynamics, the intermingling of academics and technology, art, music and vigorous physical education. The Boston Higashi School applies the Daily Life Therapy. It is now famous in the US for its high success rate. It is true that a healthy mind will exist in a healthy body. You will have to improvise when teaching your child to play and exercise. As an example, if you feel your child is not ready for badminton, try getting him to play hitting a balloon instead of a shuttlecock. This is an excellent exercise to help with a child's coordination and can be a precursor to badminton or tennis. 

Stimulatory behavior or 'stims' are when the child will do something repetitively such as flapping his hands or running to and fro. A stim is usually a coping mechanism for the child when he is under stress or when he needs to unwind eg. when he comes home from school. A little stimming should be tolerated by the parents. Getting him interested in something else is the ideal way of avoiding this behavior.

Echolalia
This is when the child will repeat (often repetitively) what he hears without necessarily understanding what he is saying. Although this is not the best behavior, the child can at least vocalize words and can be taught speech and language. You could use this to the fullest advantage by getting your child to express a variety of words that will come into use in his following years. Better still, show him a picture of what you are saying before saying it.

Verbal stim
The child may babble repetitively about a number of things such as his favorite TV show or movie. Many experts will say to stop all babbling in your child. I would not agree entirely with this for the simple reason that even typical children babble as a precursor to speech usually at around 1.5 years of age. Children with Autism will begin speech later and will start at that stage by babbling. All you need to do is establish with him when this is OK (eg. when he is at home) and when it is not i.e. in public.
He needs to be taught awareness of others' reactions to his verbal stim.
You need to work on him doing this quietly or nonverbally.
You can actually expand on what he is stimming about through conversation, drawing and role-playing in an attempt to convert this stim into a learning process.

Toilet training
I get mothers calling up and asking about toilet training. Toilet training in typical children starts at around 2 to 3 years. When you feel you child is ready, you need to remove his nappy and allow him to feel the discomfort of the mess in his pants for a while before changing him. You need to start with training him to pass urine. To start serious training, you need to set aside a weekend. You need a buzzer or beeping timer, a portable toilet that he can easily sit on and lots of reinforcers eg. bits of sweets, chocolate or some other rewards. Do this exercise in the living room or area that he plays in. Give him lots of fluids to drink - juice, water, lemonade etc. Set the timer to go off every 15 minutes and each time it goes off, sit him on the toilet for around a minute. Do not pressure him to do anything. If he passes even a little urine, reward him immediately so he associates the reward with doing the job. Allow him access to the portable toilet until he is ready to use the regular toilet.

Safety awareness
Safety should be encouraged from a very early age. Crossing the road is difficult for any young child and you would need to hold the child's hand whenever near traffic. However, instilling the basic concept of traffic awareness can begin very early. What I did with my own son was to hold his hand and ask him to tell me when it was safe to cross, asking simply "Is it safe?" I got the idea when I saw him eager to cross the road to his favorite video library. He soon worked out he had to look both ways for traffic before answering "yes" or "no". Within a week, he understood the concept completely. Never miss an opportunity to teach your child. One parent reported that she had huge success with her child when he was outside playing on the trampoline or swing. She would get him to recite nursery rhymes and songs here with considerably more success than when they were indoors at the table.
Studies have shown that swings are the number one cause of injuries to children in the playground. Very young children with Autism are especially in danger as they will be more unaware of the danger. After a couple of close calls, I got the idea of hanging a boxing bag in one of the doorways of our home. The children were allowed to hit, punch and push the bag which was hung a few inches from the ground. In no time at all, they became aware that they had to stay out of the way of a heavy swinging mass.

Getting your child to interact with the computer
A home computer is a valuable teaching tool for your child. Most children with Autism are naturally attracted to the sights and sounds of a computer. Children as young as 12 months and even younger are able to sit on their parents' laps and interact with a home computer. Very few children under the age of three will be able to operate a mouse. DON'T waste valuable time waiting for this to happen. A child will be able to use a touch-screen long before he can use a mouse. Touch-screens allow a child to navigate around a program by touching the screen directly instead of co-relating the movements of the hand to the mouse cursor (a difficult feat for some adults!).

Touch-screens
There are two types of touch-screens:
a) where the monitor's screen is touch-sensitive (expensive) and 
b) the add-on touch-screen, pictured below, which you can place over your existing monitor (cheaper alternative). The add-on will come with some software and an adapter to connect to your mouse input. Get the one that allows the use of your mouse as well so your child can use the mouse when he is ready. Leave the mouse at the side of the keyboard. Your child will eventually start using the mouse and you can then discard the touch-screen add-on.

Other children
It is best to have your child play and associate with typical children of his age or even slightly older. Given the choice, encourage him to interact with more vocal, animated children rather than shy, quiet kids so his speech will be stimulated. Children often respond better to feedback from their peers than from their parents or therapists. Watch them play together. Those that involve him in play will be of most benefit to him. Play dates with other children is an excellent idea. Children with Autism often don't like going to unfamiliar places and seeing unfamiliar faces. From an early age, you must expose them to as many different environments and people as you possibly can.

Talk to your child
If you remember just one thing from this document, please remember this - The best and simplest advice for anyone who has a child with Autism is to keep talking to your child, telling him what you're doing, what is happening and what is going to happen. Children with Autism like routine and you can use this to the best advantage. Use terms simple enough so the child understands and of course speak at a speed the child can absorb. An agenda or chart of daily events and events within the day preferably in the form of images that can be put up on a notice board is an excellent idea. If the child can read, a written list can often help. If he can't read yet, use images.


Math
Setting up math situations to real life is far more stimulating than just written sums on paper so be imaginative and use real objects, money, prices at the supermarket etc. This site: http://daisymaths.com.au is designed to help young kids (3-12 years) enjoy learning math.

Always insist on a response
Once your child starts to respond to you in any way, be it verbal, with a picture, symbol or other, you must always, always, always insist on a response to anything you ask him. It is a lot easier to do the opposite but if you do so, he will soon learn he is able to get away with no response and his communication will suffer.

Self-injurious behavior
Many children with Autism could at some stage exhibit behavior such and head-hitting and hand-biting. This can be very distressing for the parents. It is usually a sign of frustration, a call for attention or both. Most kids outgrow this behavior. You should never outwardly react to such behavior and should only intervene if you feel the child will do himself some real harm.

Listen to your child
Once your child becomes verbal you must document what he knows and understands. Listen to your child and document any new words you think he knows or should know. I started with just a handful of words on an Excel spreadsheet. Keeping this document for my child was extremely valuable as I made sure he knew and understood the words. The list grew to over a thousand words in less than 12 months. I also introduced new frequently-used words into the list and used pictures to ensure he knew what they meant. By not keeping a live document, you risk your child loosing words and ultimately having a very limited vocabulary. 

Watch your child
If you are one of those fortunate parents who has a 'scribbler' for a child, i.e. a child that loves to scribble text and images, then a) make sure he has lots of blank paper and writing materials at hand. b) Look at what he is scribbling. Chances are any text he scribbles are words he has seen before and possibly understands. You must check these words are in his word bank. If they are not, enter them in.

It is of course important to watch how you child interacts with others and how they interact with him. If there is very little interaction, it may be time to find new friends for him. Friends that make the effort to involve him in play are worth their weight in gold. I sometimes indulged in a little bribery with my son's friends eg. play this game and we'll go to McDonald's later. It's true your child needs reinforcement but his friends may need a little motivation booster as well!

Failure
If your child keeps failing with an exercise, drop it and try something else - you can always come back to it later. For example when we tried to teach our son categories i.e. animals, plants, people etc. he couldn't get it. We dropped it and continued with pictures and labels. Around four months later, we came back to categories. He matched the pictures to their categories with almost no help at all. Children all develop differently and each child will learn at a different pace.

Involve him
A child with Autism will become a loner if left to himself and his language and social skills will suffer. From an early age, you must involve him in whatever is happening with his siblings and peers. There is no better way to teach him.

Down time
A child with Autism often has what is known as sensory overload. He needs a bit of time, space and possibly a peaceful environment at least every few hours to do what he wants so long as it's not too destructive in some way.


Bad news and Good news
You will have heard enough about the bad news on the prospects of children with Autism. Typical children have certain expectations of their peers and a child with poor language and social skills even at a very early age can easily become a social outcast, made fun of and even bullied. We all know children with Autism need help. Here's the good news - They can all be helped! It takes hard work and determination on the part of his parents, teachers and those working with him. I know of parents who have given up work and worked full-time for three years to work with their children to get them into a mainstream school. A couple of minutes a day playing with your child on the floor is simply not enough. You need to grab his attention and draw him out of his world and into yours, showing him, teaching him, involving him and above all making it all fun!

Don't look too far ahead
Looking too far ahead and imagining the worst-case scenario is a waste of your time and energy. Work hard with your child today and plan his work for the next, taking one day at a time and moving up one step at a time. People who have done this have had the best results with their children.

Mindset
As a parent or educator of the child, you need to be mentally prepared for the task ahead of each day. It goes without saying that you also need to set aside time each day to work with your child, prepare materials, print, laminate, organize materials, record data etc. You will find the early months the hardest. But life will begin to improve for the whole family as your child progresses.

Comparison
It is always tempting to compare your child with other kids with a similar condition to see where they measure up. Try to avoid this as there will always be kids with capabilities above and below your child. Rather, try to aim for the milestones of typical children. 

Telling Others
Many parents will not tell others about their child's condition. This is a personal thing although some people simply must be told eg. teachers and those in constant contact with the child. That way they can keep an eye out for the child. In a classroom setting they may find it helpful to keep the child towards the front of the class. As time progresses and your child improves (with lots of hard work of course) and he starts to blend in, you could tell eg. his new tennis teacher that he simply has a "speech delay" so he doesn't treat your child like a cripple. The rule of thumb is to tell people as much as they need to know. You will have to use your best judgement. 

Fading
A child with Autism will generally begin attending school with an aide. Depending on the ability of the child, it is recommended that the aide be 'faded' at some stage i.e. the child should be less reliant on his aide and take instruction from his teacher. This could begin in the second or third year at school. Fading should begin with certain classes eg. P.E. (physical education) and sports, then art class etc. Do not attempt to fade the aide from all the classes at the same time or the child could struggle and become frustrated. The aide could start by spending less time with the child in the classroom and could share her responsibilities with other aides or other children. If the child starts to struggle, the aide should be brought back. Flexibility is very important here. 

Early Learning
All children respond to love and the best people to get involved in a child's learning process are those he will trust first - his own parents. The keyword in early learning is "early" - a child is never too young to learn. The young mind has startling capabilities of memory and learning. This is why it is easier to teach young children more than one language than it is to teach an adult (although, as mentioned before, I personally would not confuse a child with Autism with a second language). Don't be afraid to put as much new material in front of your child as you can - you need to push the limits of your child but without pushing him over the edge! Each day a child goes without learning something new is a lost opportunity. 
Our multimedia software was the result of sheer desperation. We simply couldn't get the huge volume of good quality images and sounds our son's home-based program demanded so we decided to create our own. When our consultant's supervisor came down from Los Angeles, he saw our collection and immediately procured the software for his therapy centers in USA, UK, Hong Kong and Australia.

Autism need not be a life-long sentence if you do enough work with your child in his early years. Your biggest enemy is time. Helping a child with Autism on the road to recovery (and recovery has been achieved by many) is expensive in terms of time, energy and other resources. Doing nothing will ultimately cost a lot more. Our children are our most precious resource and must be given every opportunity to achieve their full potential.


Taken from http://helpingtogrow.com