We’ve extended our Language Builder promotion! Save 30% and more!

Great news for those of you who might have missed our 3-day promotion for our Language Builder sets! We’ve extended our sale to last through next Tuesday, April 28th. Just use our promo code BUILDER15 at check-out to redeem these savings below on all of our Language Builder card sets until next Tuesday:

We’re offering a value bundle of the Language Builder Picture Cards and the Picture Noun Cards 2 together for only $155 (a $234 value)! You’ll be saving over $75 with this bundle! Just add the bundle to your cart—no promo code necessary.

 

Everyone’s favorite—the Language Builder Picture Cards—is a 350-card set that teaches key language concepts to children with autism or other speech and language delays. With vivid, beautiful noun cards created by a parent and professional experienced in the program needs of ABA, this set will foster receptive and expressive language skills. Get the individual set of the Language Builder Picture Cards for $149 only $110—just apply our promo code BUILDER15 during check-out!

We’re also letting you SAVE 30% on any of our individual Language Builder sets, Picture Noun Cards 2, Emotions, and Occupations.

The Language Builder Picture Noun Cards 2 is a 200-card set of photographic noun cards for building additional vocabulary in students who have mastered the original Language Builder Picture Cards. This set is great for labeling practice, as well as sorting, adjectives, functions, things that go together, storytelling and more.

 

The Language Builder Emotions Cards depict facial expressions and emotions by presenting various scenarios featuring men and women of various ages and ethnicities. This 80-card set will help students identify and discuss different feelings and emotions, inviting discussion about a range of emotions, why people may feel a certain way, and possible responses to these feelings.

The Language Builder Occupations Cards is a complete set of photographic cards that depict community workers, both male and female, in each occupation. There are 115 cards featuring 61 different occupations. Each photo is depicted in a natural setting with plenty of contextual clues and reinforcers illustrating that occupations are not gender specific. The set is ideal for teaching occupations, community helpers, gender labels, pronouns, storytelling and more.

*Promotion expires at 11:59pm EST on 04/28/2015. Not valid with any other offers. Be sure there are no spaces or dashes in your code at check-out!

Pick of the Week: SAVE on Language Builder Sets – 3 Days Only!

This is a deal you won’t want to miss this week!  We’re discounting the prices of ALL of our Language Builder sets – the best selling picture cards series among special education professionals.

The Language Builder Card Sets are the most widely used photo language flashcards for teaching key language concepts to children and adults with autism, developmental delays, or speech/language delays. All of the cards measure the same 3½” x 5″ so coordinating the flashcards is a breeze.

DRK_LB1We’re offering a value bundle of the Language Builder Picture Cards and the Picture Noun Cards 2 together for only $155 (a $234 value)! You can get Sets 1 and 2 of the Language Builder Picture Noun Cards and save over $75. Just add the bundle to your cart—no promo code necessary!

Everyone’s favorite—the Language Builder Picture Cards—is a 350-card set that teaches key language concepts to children with autism or other speech and language delays. With vivid, beautiful noun cards created by a parent and professional experienced in the program needs of ABA. This set will foster receptive and expressive language skills and are ideal for higher learning, including functions, storytelling, and more. The set includes images in nine basic categories: Animals, Foods, Vehicles, Furniture, Clothing, Toys, Everyday Objects, Shapes and Colors. Stage One is comprised of 105 cards that present two identical images on non-distracting white backgrounds. These basic cards foster matching, labeling and categorization skills. The remaining cards round out Stage Two, which presents the images in their natural settings, enabling children to conceptualize and generalize. This week only, you can get the individual set of the Language Builder Picture Cards for $149 only $110—just apply our promo code BUILDER15 when you check out with us!

The Language Builder Emotions Cards depict facial expressions and emotions by presenting various scenarios featuring men and women of various ages and ethnicities. This 80-card set will help students identify and discuss different feelings and emotions. Half of the images are presented against a plain background, showing only the upper body and face, clearly depicting a single emotion. The remaining cards show people engaging in real activities and situations in natural settings and contexts. This invites discussion about a range of emotions, why people may feel a certain way, and possible responses to these feelings.

The Occupations Cards is a complete set of photographic cards that depict community workers, both male and female, in each occupation. There are 115 cards featuring 61 different occupations. Each photo is depicted in a natural setting with plenty of contextual clues and reinforcers illustrating that occupations are not gender specific. The set is ideal for teaching occupations, community helpers, gender labels, pronouns, storytelling and more.

 

*Promotion expires at 11:59pm EST on 04/23/2015. Not valid with any other offers. Be sure there are no spaces or dashes in your code at check-out!

5 Essential Resources for Your ABA Program

Our focus here at Different Roads to Learning is always on supporting the language and social skills in children on the spectrum through evidence-based interventions. We’re staunch believers in Applied Behavior Analysis and we’ve built our extensive product line around the tools that will best support these programs. As we continue to focus on Autism Awareness this month, we asked our BCBA Sam Blanco to choose five of her go-to resources and tell us a bit about why they’re integral components in her work. This week, we’re are also offering a 15% discount* on these five essential resources from our catalog. Be sure to use our promo code ESSABA5 when you check out online or mention it when you call us at (800) 853-1057.

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When you work with children with autism, you typically are focused on four goal areas: developing language and communication skills, improving social skills, increasing independence in both academic and daily living tasks, and addressing any maladaptive behaviors. While there are a wealth of resources available to help achieve goals in these areas, there are five resources I really can’t live without.

VB-MAPP: The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program by Mark L. Sundberg, Ph.D. is essential. It’s easy to use, provides a wealth of information in a relatively short period of time, and allows you to prioritize the unique needs of your particular learner. Beyond the milestones assessment, I love that the VB-MAPP provides a way to assess and measure barriers to learning such as aggressive behaviors, prompt dependence, and defective scanning skill. Finally, as a special educator, it can be difficult at times to know how your student is doing compared to his/her peers in a general education environment. The Transition Assessment portion of the VB-MAPP allows you to assess and measure progress towards specific skills necessary for transitioning to a less restrictive environment.

Language Builder Picture Cards: After the VB-MAPP, these cards are the first investment you should make if you’re working with learners with autism. They are designed to help you teach a wide range of skills including receptive language, expressive language, matching, sorting by category, and identifying feature, function, and class. I use these cards to play games with my learner to practice prepositions (such as hiding a card picturing a frog and having the learner find it by listening to directions like “the frog is under the pillow.”) I also use the cards as prompts for a “What am I thinking of” game. For this game I can look at the picture, then give the learner clues so he/she can guess what I’m describing (such as “I’m green. I have four legs. I hop.”) I then trade turns, and the learner has to look at a picture and provide clues for me to guess what is pictured. All in all, the Language Builder Picture Cards provide so many opportunities for language development you’ll never regret the investment.

Time Timer: I love the Time Timer so much that I actually own the 3-inch, 8-inch, and 12-inch models. For young learners, the clear visual indicator of the passage of time helps prepare them for transitions, complete transitions with greater levels of independence, and begin to understand the passage of time. Older learners use it to manage their time better during tasks, regulate their own behavior, and increase independence in both academic and daily living skill tasks. For all students, it helps facilitate a better understanding of the concept of time. When I taught in the classroom, I used the 12-inch model so that it was clearly visible for all students. I love the 3-inch model for older students who still need the visual tool.

A Work in Progress: When I first began teaching learners with autism, a colleague recommended A Work in Progress to me, and I have come back to it again and again over the years. It provides strategies and a curriculum for addressing the needs of learners with autism, including topics such as self-stimulatory behaviors, sleep problems, eating problems, toilet training, and social play. Most importantly, it describes how to meet the needs of learners with autism in language that is accessible. The curriculum portion of the book describes in detail what a teaching session should look like and how to run discrete trials. It also provides comprehensive instructions for dozens of programs.

Verbal Behavior Targets: Unlike A Work in Progress, this book is not a curriculum, but, as Luckevich states in the introduction, a guide to selecting targets “to meet the unique language goals of each individual child.” Verbal Behavior Targets provides hundreds of targets for each stage of language development (split into 6 chapters: words; multiple words; instructions and questions; sentences; category, feature, and function; and conversation topics. I know there have been many moments in the past, especially when I was first starting out, in which my learner would master a target skill and I would struggle to come up with additional targets. This book helps you continue to push your learner towards independence by providing a vast number of targets in developmentally appropriate sequence. And did I mention she also included data sheets?

As a therapist, finding quality teaching resources can be challenging. There are so many products to choose from and the choice and cost can be overwhelming. The items described above are not only high-quality, but are essential to providing the best possible learning environment. Investing in a few versatile, solid products saves you money over the long term, makes both teaching and prep time more efficient, and helps provide a vast range of possibilities for student learning.

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This week only, you can save 15%* on any of these products on Sam’s list of 5 essential ABA resources by using promo code ESSABA5 when you check out online.

*Offer expires at 11:59pm ET on April 22, 2014. Not valid on past orders or with any other promotions and offers. Be sure there are no spaces or dashes in your code at check out!

Pick of the Week: Dr. Jen’s U-Play Mat for Education – NEW!

When you’re in one-on-one sessions and get down on the floor with the kids, wouldn’t it be wonderful to still have the benefits of a working surface that the child has complete visual and tactile access to? The brand new, innovative U-Play Mat is the answer! The U-shaped mat and 50 photo flashcards create a solid learning environment, promoting face-to-face interaction and eye contact.

There are 10 clear pockets on the 4′ x 3′ mat which allows the child full visual and tactile access. The U-Play Mat comes with 2 decks of cards featuring Animals and Foods from the folks who brought you the Language Builder Picture Cards. Each deck has 50 cards with 25 matching pairs. Each card has a clear, photographic image with the corresponding label on one side, and fun facts on the reverse. These fun facts can serve as conversation starters to build interaction, vocabulary and language skills. You can also use the U-Play Mat with additional customized set of flashcards and images. There is a detailed Activity Guide for therapists, educators, and parents to organize and implement an education program. The guide comes complete with 19 custom-designed, reproducible data sheets to record responses and track progress.

This week only, save 15% on the new Dr. Jen’s U-Play Mat for Education by entering the Promo Code BLOGUPM at checkout.

*Offer expires on June 26, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer. Be sure there are no spaces after the Promo Code when you enter it at checkout

 

Pick of the Week: Save OVER $100 on the Language Builder Flashcard Bundle

This is a fantastic deal and it won’t last long…The Language Builder Flashcard Bundle contains 3 sets of cards at savings of over $100! Normally, purchasing these top sellers individually costs $268.90 but this week only, wwe’re offering the Language Builder Picture Cards, Language Builder Picture Noun Cards Set 2, and the Photo Emotion Cards for $165.00 for ALL THREE! That’s over $100 in savings!

To take advantage of this amazing offer, you must click on the links above! This special offer is only available to you – our readers -for one week! The offer ends on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Since it’s an exclusive offer, you must follow the links on this post to access the Language Builder Picture Card Flashcard Bundle on our site.

The Language Builder Card Sets are the most widely used photo language flashcards for teaching key language concepts to children and adults with autism, developmental delays, or speech/language delays. All of the cards measure the same 3 1/2″ x 5″ so coordinating the flashcards is a breeze.

The Language Builder Picture Noun Cards contain 350 photographic flashcards for teaching key language concepts to children with autism or other speech and language delays. This set of vivid, beautiful noun cards was created by a parent and a therapist both personally experienced in the program needs of Applied Behavioral Analysis.
The set includes images in nine basic categories: Animals, Foods, Vehicles, Furniture, Clothing, Toys, Everyday Objects, Shapes and Colors. Stage One is comprised of 105 cards that present two identical images on non-distracting white backgrounds. These basic cards foster matching, labeling and categorization skills. The remaining cards round out Stage Two, which presents the images in their natural settings, enabling children to conceptualize and generalize.
In addition to fostering receptive and expressive language, these cards are also ideal for higher learning, including functions, story telling and more. On the back of each card is an easy to use system for tracking your child’s progress, including a list of possible program uses, with the date that each is introduced and mastered. Each set includes 57 foods, 39 animals, 27 vehicles, 31 clothing items, 24 furniture items, 39 familiar toys, 15 basic stages sets, 13 colors with duplicates, 12 shapes with duplicates and 83 additional objects familiar to your child.

 

The Language Builder Picture Noun Cards Set 2 is a 200-Card set of photographic cards that offers additional vocabulary for students who have mastered the original Language Builder. Categories include Body Parts, Safety Signs, Tools, and Musical Instruments, along with over 100 additional cards to expand your set. This set is great for labeling practice, as well as sorting, adjectives, functions, things that go together, storytelling and more.

 

 

 

 

The Language Builder Photo Emotions depict facial expressions and emotions by presenting various scenarios featuring men and women of various ages and ethnicities. This 80-Card set will help students identify and discuss different feelings and emotions. Half of the images are presented against a plain background, showing only the upper body and face, clearly depicting a single emotion. The remaining cards show people engaging in real activities and situations in natural settings and contexts. This invites discussion about a range of emotions, why people may feel a certain way, and possible responses to these feelings. For the convenience of the instructor, the back of each card is numbered, provides a label for the featured image, and lists suggested activities for which the card is targeted. An included activity booklet provides more detailed instruction ideas.

*This offer ends on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST.  You must click on the links above to access the Bundle on our website.

Pick of the Week: NEW! Language Builder Picture Nouns Software

This week, we’re so excited to introduce you to the new Language Builder Picture Nouns Software. We’re also thrilled to be the first to offer this wonderful program. For the next 2 weeks – to celebrate our worldwide exclusive on this new program – we’re offering you 15% off!

Based on the top-selling flashcards – The Language Builder – this innovative software program transforms basic flashcards into an interactive digital learning experience. The 550 Images are taken directly from the popular Language Builder Picture Nouns 1 & 2. There are 550 images presented through six different activities. The easy-to-use interface gives you the ability to select which words, word lists, or categories you want to practice.

Activities Include: Identification, Matching, Multiple Choice, Sorting Similar Images, Grouping by Category, and a Voice Recorder Function. The Word Groups include: Wild Animals, Farm Animals, Pets, Sea Life, Insects & Bugs, Foods, Clothing, Vehicles, Toys, Musical Instruments, Everyday Objects, Body Parts, Safety Signs, and Shapes & Color.

To redeem your 15% discount and be the first to purchase this great new program, simply purchase the Language Builder Picture Nouns Software and enter the Promo Code BLOGLBPS at checkout.

*Offer expires on February 7, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer. Be sure there are no spaces after the Promo Code when you enter it at checkout.

From Basic Vocabulary to Building Sentences in Autism Education: Using Picture Cards

With our current pick of the week being the Language Builder Picture Cards, we thought this wonderful post outlining specific uses for the set from creator Angela Nelson would be most helpful.

The most popular use of the Language Builder Picture Card Series is to build vocabulary. The realistic and current photos help students to learn the name of various nouns, occupations, and emotions. In the beginning, this task can be very repetitive and basic, focusing only on learning single-word responses. When a child with autism begins to gain expressive language skills, parents and educators are thrilled to watch these new words emerge.

Labeling Sentences

After a child has mastered numerous single-word labels for the picture cards, the next critical step is to build these one-word answers into more complete and functional Labeling Sentences.

Building sentences will start simply. As a first step, you may just ask the child to use the article along with the word. For example, move toward an answer of “an apple” or “a car.” The next step would be to work toward “It is an apple,” or “It is a car.”

As you expand your student’s communication skills to include full sentences, you will no doubt need to use prompts in the beginning. The most common method is verbal modeling. But it is important to fade the verbal prompt as soon as possible. To help your student answer in full sentences without need for a verbal prompt, you can move to a visual cue prompt.

Written cue cards are a great method to remind your student to use full sentences. For example, if you show your student a picture of a car, and ask “What is it?” your student is likely to just answer “car.” To prompt your student to use the article “a” with the word car, you can start by putting a cue card in front of the picture with the word “a” on it. Have your student touch each card (the “a” card and then the picture card) as they say the words “a car.” The next step would be to add cue cards for “It is a car.” When your student starts to grasp the concept of speaking multi-word sentences, you can begin to fade the visual cue card prompts.

Requesting Sentences

Another important type of sentence that your child will need to learn to use is a Requesting Sentence. When your child learns to use communication to make requests and get their needs met, it will reduce the child’s frustration, which will in turn reduce the frequency of tantrums and outbursts.

Sort through the picture cards for which your child knows the labels. Find pictures of items that your child likes and that you have available to give to them. Food items are often the most successful to start with. For example: Cheese, Raisins, Juice, Popcorn, and Apple. Stick a magnet to the back of each picture and place the pictures on the refrigerator. Write the word “I” on one index card and the word “want” on another and place those on the refrigerator also. When you know your child wants a specific food (as most parents often do), pull the corresponding picture down into the “I want” sentence. Use the visual cues as a prompt to help your child remember to use the full sentence to request their desired food. As always, you should fade the prompts as your student begins to master this full sentence activity.

A Note on Using Cue Cards to Prompt

You may think: Why am I using written words to prompt my child? He isn’t speaking well, so why should I assume he can read?
The cards are not meant for your child to read. They are merely place markers. It makes as much sense to use the words as anything else. However, you could also use something as simple and nondescript such as blocks or blank cards for your child to touch as they say the words. The idea is to give your child a physical reminder to speak the extra words. In fact there are schools of thought suggesting that if you tie spoken words to physical activity that it creates more neural pathways for the words to attach to. Regardless, you can choose to use the word cards, or to use a more neutral object. Decide what works best for your child.

Additional Activities to Develop Sentence Skills

Labeling and Requesting are the most basic of all full sentence activities, and provide a basis for your student to understand that communication requires more than single word utterances. The following list of activities offers just a few examples of the many lessons you can use to help build full sentences and a more complete system of communication with your child.

Adjectives

You can use picture cards to discuss adjectives or descriptive words. Some adjectives are clear from the pictures, such as “the apple is round” or “the frog is green.” Other adjectives draw more on a child’s real-world experience, like “the bunny is soft” or “the banana is sweet.” To teach adjectives, you can start with a receptive task. Place cards in front of your child and ask them to “find something green” or “point to something that is round.” This receptive language activity will allow your student to hear some of the adjectives you use, before trying to come up with their own descriptive words when you start to build sentences with them.

 To transition this activity to expressive language, you can hold up a picture and ask your student, “What color is the frog?” You will need to prompt your student at first either verbally or using a cue card method as described above.

Wh-questions

Picture cards provide a great opportunity to practice “Wh” questions. You can show your student a picture and ask him or her to answer questions such as “What color is the frog?” “Where would you find a plate?” “When do you use a pillow?” “Why do you use soap?”

To start, some of these questions will fall easily out of the Adjectives lessons you have already practiced, such as “What color is it?” Other questions will provide a new challenge for your student.

Tell Me About

Use pictures with which your student is already familiar. The best pictures will be the ones you have practiced extensively on the Adjectives and Wh-Questions. Show your student a picture and ask him or her to tell you about the item in the picture.

The first things that your student should be able to tell you about the pictures are the responses that they learned in Adjectives and Wh-Questions. The difference with this drill is that you student has to generate the content themselves rather than respond to your question. When you ask your student “What color is it?” they know color is the relevant detail. In the Tell Me About lesson, students have to decide for themselves that color is a relevant thing to tell you about the picture.

You can start with scripted responses, using the picture to cue your student. Then you can progress to more creative responses that might not be so obvious from the picture. For example, show your student a picture of a duck. Ask your student, “Can you tell me about a duck?” By looking at the picture, your student can get some basic answers. “A Duck has feathers.” “A duck has webbed feet.” “A duck has a bill.” As your student becomes more familiar with this activity, you may progress to things about a duck that are not readily apparent from the picture. “A duck can swim.’ “A duck says ‘quack quack,’” “A duck lays eggs.”

The Tell Me About Lesson also gives you the opportunity to increase the length of your student’s verbal activity. Start by requiring the student to tell you only one detail about the picture. Then move up to two, or three or more details. Of course, if you ask your student to tell you three things about the picture, you may have difficulty if they haven’t mastered counting skills. Here’s a trick: hand your student three blocks and have them toss a block into a bucket with every detail they tell you. This is a great way to help your student count their answers, and it makes it fun for them!

Storytelling

The next step in this language building series is Storytelling. Again, this activity builds on the previous lessons. Show your student a familiar picture card and ask your student to “Tell you a story” about the picture. The first elements of the story will likely be familiar from the Tell Me About lesson. For example:

“Tell me a story about a duck.”
“There was a duck, it had webbed feet, feathers, and a bill. The duck went for a swim in the pond, then it laid some eggs and said ‘quack quack’”

As your student’s language skills grow, so will the creativity of the stories!

Generalization

The setting in which you begin to teach language skills is very structured and formal. However these new skills will become more valuable as they generalize across time and setting, and with various communication partners. To help promote generalization, you can start by moving your therapy session to different places – starting even with different rooms in the house.

Next, it is important that the skills your child has learned in the formal therapy session be practiced throughout other aspects of the child’s life, such as during family time and at school. Make sure to bring the cardsto dinner, to the store, to school, etc. Whenever you communicate with your child, require the same full sentences that are expected during therapy. Stop and take the time to use the prompt cards if necessary.

Finally, keep good records and good communication channels open with all of the other professionals and family members in your child’s life. You can send a notebook back and forth to school, or perhaps start an electronic communication log to make sure teachers are requiring the same sentences, using the same words, and bringing in the same prompts as you are at home and in therapy. Consistency is a major key to building and generalizing successful language skills to help your child interact with the world around them.

Pick of the Week: The Language Builder Picture Cards

What more can we say? The Language Builder Picture Cards are the premier set of flashcards for any home or school program aimed at developing language skills. There are 350 beautifully photographed noun cards that take you through teaching and generalizing Animals, Foods, Vehicles, Furniture, Clothing, Toys, Everyday Objects, Shapes and Colors. The Language Builder is the first thing any parent or teacher needs to set up an ABA program and start teaching expressive and receptive language skills.

This week only, save 15% on the Language Builder Picture Cards by entering the Promo Code BLOGLB22 at checkout.

*Offer expires on December 27, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer. Be sure there are no spaces after the Promo Code when you enter it at checkout.

Building Language for Your Child with Autism, Part 4: Building Expressive Vocabulary

This is the step where your child learns to actually say the words out loud. All of the tasks described in previous posts come into play when building your child’s expressive vocabulary. Picture cards are a useful tool again, because it just isn’t feasible to bring every object directly to your child. We certainly want them to learn the words bus and airplane, but it’s difficult to get those items into your living room!

The basic idea for building expressive vocabulary using picture cards is just to hold the card up and ask your child “what is it?” The intricacy comes in knowing how to prompt your child and how to fade that prompt. We talked previously about the importance of your child being able to imitate the words that you say. Imitation is the basis for the prompts you will use to build your child’s expressive vocabulary.

The first several times you ask your child the name of a new picture, you will likely have to model the word for him or her. For example, you ask your child “What is it?” If you do not get a response, you say “apple.” Ideally your child repeats the word “apple.” After a few tries, you can shorten your prompt to “app….” And then to “aaaa…….” And then perhaps to just opening your mouth as if to say “aaaa…” but not making a sound.

A Comprehensive Picture Card Library

It is a good idea to have a large selection of pictures ready to go when you start to teach the lessons we just described. Here are a few tips to help you choose or take appropriate pictures:

  1. Start with words that are familiar to your child. Words like apple, cup and cookies may be better than ­saxophone or stethoscope.
  2. Start with pictures on a plain white, or a distraction free background.
  3. Make sure to have duplicates available for the matching tasks when you first start out.
  4. Consider taking multiple pictures of the same item (6 different apples for example) to help your child generalize their newly learned words.
  5. As your child becomes more comfortable learning new words move to more natural settings for your pictures.
  6. Have a broad range of pictures, across multiple categories, ready for when your child is ready to move forward!
  7. If you take the pictures yourself, consider having them laminated for durability.If you don’t have the time to make your own pictures, a 350-Card Set of photo flash cards called the Language Builder Picture Card Set is avaibable and is specifically tailored to meet the needs of an early language vocabulary building program.

 

This is a part of a series of guest posts by Angela Nelson on building language in children with autism. As the creator of the acclaimed Language Builder Picture Noun Card Set, Angela received her BA and JD from UCLA where she studied and practiced behavior psychology under Dr. Ivar Lovaas. She has been creating autism and special needs curriculum products since 1997.

 

 

Building Language for Your Child with Autism, Part 2: Matching Objects and Pictures as a Precursor to Language

Developmental Psychologist, Jean Piaget, observed that a child first becomes aware of a concept and then acquires the words to convey that concept. Think about this for a moment: a child has to know that an apple is a distinct and separate item, before they know they should give it a name. They have to realize that the apple is different than, say, the cup. This is where matching comes in.

To help teach this concept using pictures of objects, place two pictures on the table in front of your child, one picture of an apple, and the other of a cup (or some non-apple picture). Hand your child an identical picture of an apple. Ask your child to “match” the apples, or to “put with same.”

When your child can consistently match the two cards, regardless of the position of the cards, they likely understand that the apple is a distinct object. Now we are one step closer to giving that object a name!

 

This is a part of a series of guest posts by Angela Nelson on building language in children with autism. As the creator of the acclaimed Language Builder Picture Noun Card Set, Angela received her BA and JD from UCLA where she studied and practiced behavior psychology under Dr. Ivar Lovaas. She has been creating autism and special needs curriculum products since 1997.