Ming @ Agents of Speech explains why "following a child's lead" backfires with autistic kids: the activity often isn't rewarding for them, and their play sequences don't make sense to adults. What looks like following the child's lead is usually just the adult's agenda in disguise.
Maybe you have been searching on the Internet about following child's lead. Does it really work for all kids? Not all. The reason is because autistic children or people, they don't care and it's not rewarding for them. Let's say that you are trying to engage your child in throwing balls. Does the child care about throwing balls? No. Are you following the child's lead or are you teaching a new play? Usually when parents are trying to follow the child's lead, they. They're trying to set up a game where the child is having fun with them. But that doesn't really happen most of the time because if a autistic child is doing their own thing, they're doing their own thing. You don't understand what, what the sequence is. You don't understand what they're doing and you're trying to follow. Therefore, when you're trying to follow, you don't get what they do. What you're going to do is you're going to start showing things around and see what sticks. That means like rolling them cars, so and so forth. Are you really following the child's lead then? Not really anymore. Right. That's why it's hard and it's not rewarding for either of you because you guys are not having a good time together.
