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Teaching Object Imitation to Children with Autism

Dr. Mary Barbera

All children learn language, social skills, and play skills through imitation. Kids with autism and toddlers with signs of autism or other delays tend to be very delayed with imitation. So today we are talking all about how to teach imitation using objects. I recently did a Q&A with my online course members and was asked a question about object imitation so I want to talk to you about that today.
[I have] a 33-month-old who is on module five of the early learner course. He’s very good in terms of verbal imitation, but not non-verbal imitation. And most of his actions that he knows are rote as per his BCBA. We have to do hand over hand before he can do a new action. Even when he is watching TV, he does not do the action, but sings the song.”

Autism and Object Imitation

One thing you need to do in situations like this is to get object imitation straight. To improve imitation in children, we want to collect identical items of things. For instance, two little drumsticks, two plastic spoons, two plastic cups, two green napkins.

You’re not going to present all of these things at the same time. The real goal isn’t to target that a child will put the red block in the cup, but that they copy an action. To prevent rote responding you want to have each set of items do two different things.

So I would keep all of these things together in a bag. Then I would sit catty corner from the child and give one set of objects to the child and one set of objects for me. For instance, one block and one cup. To get object imitation going, you say, “do this” and then you move an object. Put the block in the cup. And then if you need to, you can help him by tapping on the cup or putting the block in. That’s imitation with a prompt. You might want to try the exact same thing without a prompt or with less of a prompt.

Object Imitation and ABA

Now, it sounds like this question came from a listener who has a behavior analyst and they might want to write down targets, like “flip the cup” or “red block in cup” or “tap red block two times.” That’s fine. But if the child can put a bigger red block in, they should be able to put a yellow block in.

You want to get that generalized responding going and not focus on just every time he sees a yellow block, he knows that goes into the cup. The big thing is in the beginning, you have a set. They have a set, it’s identical. You might be able to then get to one set where you both do the action with the same items. Or you can have more functional toys, like a farm or a dollhouse. Make the doll go up the steps and he has an identical doll to make it go up the steps.  

This should be a fun program and should not involve crying or upset. If they need, you can maybe use less materials.

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Beyond Object Imitation

So once you get the child willingly, happily doing object imitation, then you start with gross motor imitation. Don’t work on one thing at a time. Each of these should have three to five targets you’re working on at a time. So I like to start with motions that also involve noise, like clapping. You could say, “do this” and touch your head.
The problem with using your head is the child can’t see it unless you’re in front of a mirror. And so sometimes it helps to have the motions be in front of them. The other important thing, when you are trying to teach imitation skills is you say, “do this” and then you move. Do this is kind of a signal for like, “oh, I have to copy exactly.”
It starts out with object imitation. Then you go to gross motor imitation along with nonverbal imitation and behavioral imitation. Then once you get a number of gross motor skills together, you could start fine motor. After that, you can start head motions. You could see how functional yes versus no is. Now, whether they cognitively understand yes and no is going to be another skill. But shaking head yes and no. Then oral motor skills. But you don’t want to start here because it’s not appropriate to prompt oral motor skills. So you have to really start at the very beginning and move up to get your imitation strong. 

Learn More About Object Imitation

All kids learn through imitation. That’s the way they learn language, social skills, play skills, and pretty much everything. So we have to make sure that we’re working on imitation, starting with object limitation.

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