Teaching Child Communication Skills

I have a student on the Spectrum who will not follow directions to come in from recess when it is over. During recess he is monitored by my classroom paraprofessional. He will run and say ‘no’ when it is time to come in while the other students and adults leave the playground, resulting in my paraprofessional being alone with him. There are instances when he has become aggressive, making this an unsafe situation. Although he is verbal, he typically communicates with short phrases; most often only to make requests. What may I do to prompt him to come inside without causing his behaviors to escalate, keeping in mind that I am not typically there to assist?

I have a 3^rd grader with Autism who is fully included. He is trying to gain attention from his peers by imitating their actions. His peers are becoming frustrated. How can we encourage him to interact better with his peers?

I have some students who continually get into arguments or fights. Many times I don’t know who did what. I don’t like to give consequences without having enough information and they of course blame each other. Do you have any suggestions?

My son is non-verbal. Recently he has begun screaming. This is not out of anger, but to hear his own voice. It is quite loud and can be very distracting at home to his siblings and out in public. I don’t want to discourage his trying to communicate, so I am not sure how to handle it.

I am a family member of a teenage girl with autism. She regularly walks around repeating the same phrases over and over again, much to the dismay of her peers and family members. Repeating it back to her or saying we heard her does not stop it. How do we reduce this? Is this a form of echolalia? Ex: Her cousin is coming to pick her up for an appointment. “I have an appointment at 10:00, my cousin is coming at 10:00 to pick me up, at 10:00 we are leaving for the appointment…” Help!

My son has issues with receptive language. When I tell him something, like this morning I was trying to tell him we would have cheerios for breakfast and eggs for lunch, all he could hear was he wasn’t getting cheerios right now. I kept repeating “we will have cheerios and then eggs after” but he still was not hearing me and continued to cry and scream. I then put him on the table at eye-level and validated him by saying “I will get you cheerios” but I couldn’t explain to him that we would have eggs after. My son will be 4 in May and this is probably the most frustrating thing we deal with on a daily basis…

I am a regular education science teacher that has a student with autism in my class. He communicates very little and will not participate in most class activities. I’m looking for some ideas of how to get him to participate more meaningfully in class routines.

I have a client with difficulty with turn taking. The child is four years old. What kind of intervention strategies or games could I play with the child in order to help him comprehend turn taking in both play and conversation?

I have a student in my class who becomes upset over the smallest problem at recess. He’ll cry or throw things when something doesn’t go his way on the playground. The other kids have obviously noticed this and are starting to stay away from him. How do I help him understand that what he says and does directly affects his relationship with others?

I have a new student who has extremely limited communication skills and many challenging behaviors. He can imitate some sounds and words but does not use them functionally. He will hit, scream, or scratch to get something he wants or to get out of something that he doesn’t want to do. Also, when he wants something he will just go and get it on his own. His parents report the same behaviors at home and that they often give him whatever he wants just to stop the screaming.