As a BCBA, I often see a heavy focus on teaching reading, math or other academic skills with both younger and older children with autism. In this week’s video, I talk about the important lessons I’ve learned in situations like this:
I became a BCBA in 2003 and a few years later I was contracted by the school district to work with the sixth-grader that we will call Tommy. I remember the day I first observed Tommy because it was September 11th, 2005. I walked into the Learning Support classroom and Tommy was reading about 9-11. He was reading things like, “on a clear sunny day, the sky was blue as the plane flew into Tower One. He was also reading about the explosions that ensued and the mass casualties.
I had always learned that without language comprehension it was kind of pointless to focus on academics like reading and math, but as I stood there watching Tommy it was more apparent than ever that teaching him language and language comprehension needed to take a front seat in his programming.
Tommy also had a lot of scripted language and would often make inappropriate and off task comments throughout the day. He would say things like “Miss Mary has a striped shirt on, “Tommy keep reading,” “Tommy don’t throw the ball in the air,” as he was throwing a ball in the air.
