TEACCH Strategies: They Work!
by Nancy Trembath
December 1st, 2002
Structured play time? This didn’t make sense to me because I’m a fan of John Rosemond’s parenting philosophy, which insists that children should be able to entertain themselves with only minimal guidance from their parents. My parents didn’t sit down and play with me. My three-year-old daughter can entertain herself for an hour with a glue stick, scissors, paper and markers. My five-year-old son can entertain himself for hours by pacing back and forth, tapping his fingers together, and making weird breathing noises. If I tried to play with him, he’d scream, walk away, hit me or throw the toys. I was stuck. How could I teach him to play or try to teach him work skills when he clearly didn’t want to play with me?
My first experience with TEACCH was the Parent Workshop last May. After explaining the characteristics of autism, one of the therapists gave us specific activities to use with our autistic children. I had been frustrated in the past with doctors and therapists who either gave vague instructions or told me to find a good speech therapist and hope for the best because there isn’t much out there for autistic children. Now I had specifics. I knew these would work with autistic children.
The TEACCH strategy that has helped me the most is structured teaching and play. When my children and I sit down to play board games, I place a white blanket on the floor in the middle of the living room, and I make sure there isn’t much clutter around the blanket. Then I lay out 3 board games in the order that we will play them. Memory, Hi-Ho Cherry-o, and Uno are the favorites right now. The three of us sit on the blanket, and at first I placed a towel for my son to sit on to mark his spot, but he doesn’t need that any more. I tell him we’ll play these three games in this order, I tell him what he can do when we’re done (maybe watch a video or play on the swing), and we begin. At first, we’d play only one round of each game, but lately, if both kids are really involved in the game, we may play another round. This works well between dinner and bedtime, or on rainy days.
During the summer, when the kids were home all day, I structured our outside playtime. I drew a simple stick figure schedule, listing activities like blowing bubbles, riding bikes, drawing with sidewalk chalk, hitting the t-ball, throwing beanbags in a laundry basket, and swinging. I created two or three schedules with the same activities in different orders, so my son wouldn’t get stuck in the same pattern of games. This changed his outdoor play, because if I didn’t have a schedule, he would either swing the whole time or sit at the end of our driveway and zone out. Now that he’s in school, I don’t structure the outside playtime because we have less of it. But occasionally, he will ride his bicycle without prompting from me or he will ask for sidewalk chalk.
During the summer, I also had regular work times with my son which I structured as TEACCH suggests. My son needs to develop his fine motor skills, so I would alternate motor activities with pre-reading or academic activities. I’d lay out 4 activities in a row on the floor by his little work table, so he could see exactly what he had to do. When each activity was finished, he’d place it in the "finished" box, which in our house is a 9 x 13 cake pan.
Each activity is structured so he can see when each activity will be finished. One of my problems in the past with trying to work with him was that I’d say, "Let’s do this again", or "We need to work on this a little longer", and he’d get frustrated because he didn’t know when he would be done. For example, in the past I had tried moving the hands on a toy clock and asking him what time it is. There’s no structure to that and he’d fight me. Now I use index cards with face clocks and he has to match them with other index cards with a specific time written on them. When he’s matched them all, then he’s done. He likes this much better. For his fine motor skills, he has to pick up little wads of paper with my toast tongs and put them in a container. When they’re all picked up, he’s done, and the container and the tongs go into the finished box.
TEACCH also suggests using a daily schedule, but I only use these on his bad days. He goes through cycles were he acts more autistic for a week, and then he’s less autistic the rest of the time. During those bad days, I use the picture schedule maker on the Do 2 Learn website (www.do2learn.com). You can buy a yearly subscription to this feature. I can see him physically relax when I hand him his schedule for the day. Sometimes I wonder if it really doesn’t matter what the schedule says or whether we follow it. He relaxes because he knows I have a plan for the day.
I have to admit that I don’t structure every day or every activity. I could do more at home, but let’s face it, it takes a lot of planning and work to prepare these schedules and work routines. I started with planning four simple activities at the work table. Then I drew some schedules for outdoor playtime. Playing board games requires the least forethought so we do that a lot. Start small and you’ll be amazed at the results.
Nancy Trembath
TomMommy@msn.com
![[puzzle.gif file]](puzzle.gif)
Copyright © 1997-2008 CoryWare SoftWare
December 1st, 2002