Sasha explains why autistic children may seem not to listen: they often have receptive language delays, not defiance. When you give multiple instructions at once, their brain can't process it all. Use simple language, visual supports, model steps, and give them time to respond.
Hi, this is Sasha from The Autism Helper, and in this episode of the mini video training series, we're going to talk about situations where it seems like your child or student isn't listening to you. So maybe you've been in this situation as an educator or as a parent where it seems like the words that you're saying to your child are just kind of going in one ear and out the other, and you're thinking, oh, maybe they're ignoring me or not listening to me, but there really could be more to that. So there's two types of language. There's expressive language, what we say, and receptive language, what we understand. Children with autism can struggle with both expressive and receptive language. Struggles with receptive language are going to be a little bit more difficult to identify because struggles with expressive language, what we say, are very obvious. Some of our kids may have limited verbal skills or be non-verbal, so it's pretty obvious what skills they have and don't have when it comes to expressive language. On the other side, it's harder to identify those deficits or those struggles when it comes to what we understand, or that receptive language piece. And for some of our kids that are extremely verbal who maybe don't have many issues with expressive language, we may mistakenly assume that their receptive language is just as high, but really they're talking all the time, but they're not understanding the same level when it comes back to them. So when it comes to receptive language challenges, it's important to identify that some kids struggle to understand and process the verbal language that we give them. And let's be real, we give them a lot of verbal language. We talk a lot, and some of our kids just might not have the processing speed to keep up. So when we give a laundry list of instructions or we give a bunch of questions in a row, our kids are struggling to process and understand and then figure out how to respond to all of that language. So let's say a student walks into your room and you say, "Hey Johnny, how was your weekend? Come in, sit down, open your book to page 10." And then you carry on with your group or whatever you're doing and you look back and Johnny's just sitting there. He hasn't opened his book, he hasn't gotten to page 10, and you might feel frustrated. You might think he's not listening to me, he's ignoring me, but in reality he didn't have the processing skills to keep up with all of that language you gave him. You greeted him, you asked him a question, and then you gave him a 4-step command. You asked him to sit down, you asked him to— or you asked him to come in, you asked him to sit down, you asked him to open your book, and then you asked him to find page 10 in his book. That's a lot of steps, and he was maybe just processing you're saying hello, how was your weekend, and then you were on to come in and sit down. So he's processing come in and sit down, and before he he knew it, you were on to step 4, and then you were off to the next thing. So it's important to identify the receptive language challenges that a lot of our kids have and not label kids as not listening or naughty or I don't want to do that, because really it's just a lack of skills that we need to work on building up. So what are some ways we can teach and build up receptive language skills? So the first thing we can do that will make everyone's lives a lot easier is use simple and direct language. So maybe instead of saying, "Hey, would you mind going over there and grabbing me that blue bowl?" You could just say, "Bring me the blue bowl." So kind of eliminating some of that unnecessary language to let our kids be a little bit more successful. Then you might wanna use visuals to support all of that verbal language that we're giving. We rely on visuals all the time. We use visuals at the grocery store or at the airport. We're always looking for visuals in our lives and responding to those quickly. We can respond to visuals very quickly, all humans. So we want to really be adding visuals into our kids' lives if they struggle with receptive language processing. Then we also want to add in some modeling. Modeling is a really great way to help our kids understand the world around them in a way that's easy for us. We don't have to laminate, print anything. You can model the steps very quickly. So in the example with the student entering the room, if the teacher had kind of modeled that process and walked with Johnny and said, "Hey, I want you to sit down," and then she sat down, "I want you to open your book and I want you to find page 10," and then she opened her book and found page 10, he would have been able to follow maybe that modeling, because modeling really is a visual, that modeling of those steps a lot easier and more successfully than just the verbal language alone. So modeling is a great thing to use that I think we really don't use enough. And last, we want to allow that wait time. I mean, I talk fast. If you guys have watched a lot of my video trainings and things like that, you know I talk a million miles a minute. So this is definitely something I have to work on. But we want to watch the speed that we present tasks, the speed that we present demands, and then we want to give that wait time. So when we ask a question or when we give a demand or request, that we're not jumping to a prompt or jumping to repeating it again. Because when we repeat again, now the child has two things to process. Even if it was the same thing, if you said, "How was your weekend?" and he didn't respond, and you're like, "I said how was your weekend?" Now they're responding, they're processing both of those steps. So you want to give that wait time. And if you're someone like me who's just always going, force yourself. Like, count to 3 and like with the Mississippi's: 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi in your head so you can actually give that wait time and not just jump on to the next. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of the mini video training series. To check out more, head over to our YouTube channel, The Autism Helper, or just go directly to theautismhelper.com.
