Plan/do
Modifications within the setting environment...
Consider how long children are expected to sit at particular activities, for example snack-time and carpet time. As a guide, 2-year-olds should only be expected to concentrate for 4 minutes, and 3-year-olds for 6 minutes etc, so this needs to be taken into account when planning activities.
Think about the amount of language adults are using within the setting. Again, as a guide 2-year-olds only understand sentences containing 2 information carrying words so they are unlikely to understand long sentences. Use short sentences or phrases and one-part instructions.
Give children time to understand an instruction and respond to it. Use the child's name first in order to gain their attention and if possible lower yourself to their level. It may be that the instruction needs to be repeated. Don't rephrase the instruction if you are repeating it as this may confuse the child.
If concerns about progress remain...
If concerns remain, children will need specific targets based on the early learning goal statements that are causing the most concern.
Targets need to be SMART - specific, measurable, achievable and realistic - so that progress can be accurately assessed when they are reviewed. Advice is available from Entrust or the Educational Psychology Service about effective target setting.
Specific support for learning
There are many different ways to adapt tasks and activities to support a child's development and learning, such as:
- Task analysis - breaking down activities into a sequence of smaller steps. You can find further information on the online Indiana Resource Center for Autism. This is sometimes referred to as the small steps approach please see the Portage website for more details.
- Forward chaining - the child starts the activity and the adult completes it - in time the child completes more of the activity.
- Backward chaining - the adults starting the activity/sequence and the child completing the last stage - in time the child completes more of the activity
- Errorless learning - ensuring that the use of support and sufficient prompting is in place so tasks are successfully completed
- Lego-based intervention - using Lego to encourage understanding of colour recognition, positional language etc.
- Dialogic reading - to target early learning skills