Just Like Me Activity
For this activity, gather all of your students together on the floor so they can all see each other. Have each child take turns sharing something about themselves, like:
- I have a pet dog.
- I can play the piano.
- My birthday is in September.
- I love to play soccer.
- My favorite color is yellow.
If a statement also applies to other students , instruct them to raise their hands. This will help remind students that they share more similarities than differences with their peers and that they can always find something to talk about.
What Does My Body Say
For children on the autism spectrum, nonverbal communication can be especially difficult. They may have trouble interpreting the facial expressions and gestures of other children, which can lead to social and emotional difficulties. Specifically teaching the meaning of common gestures can help when kids encounter those movements in their daily lives.
This worksheet shows children performing different common gestures. The child can draw a line from the gesture to the meaning of the gesture. For children who cannot read, you may need to state the gesture meaning out loud. As you work with the child, you can discuss the situations where he or she may encounter this type of gesture and the appropriate response to the gesture.
Autism Activities For Children
Whether you host a play group, want to keep kids busy on summer or winter break, or need a fun activity for kids in school these ideas are sure to come in handy:
You’ll also find plenty of find ideas for language development using the printables and instructions in the article Activities to Promote Language with Autistic Preschoolers, and plenty of social skills activities, complete with instructions and printables, in the article Social Skills Activities for Kids with Autism.
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Free Homeschooling Resources For Children On The Autism Spectrum
This free e-book explains how to involve your child in everyday tasks and home and teach your child valuable skills in the process. Mihaela, the mom behind Best Toys for Toddlers, recommends simple materials that will help you make the most of your space.
First published May 7, 2018. Last updated April 29, 2021 with more information, additional tips, and better readability.
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Social Skills Worksheets For Autism
Social skills are the ability to behave in an acceptable way in social situations, for example, knowing how to interpret body language, emotional cues, and facial expressions. However, evenbasic social interactions are often challenging for children with autism. Social skills worksheets are a useful tool that can help autistic children become more aware of themselves and the people around them. Keep on reading to find out more about the different types of social skills worksheets and how they may be helpful for your child with autism.
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Sensory Activities For Children With Autism
Because children with autism are often hyper aware of sensory input, its helpful for educators to provide accommodations so their students can focus in class. These activities involving sensory stimulation can keep kids with autism grounded in the present and comfortable learning with the rest of their classmates.
Offer Accommodations For Students With Limited Motor Skills
Some students with autism may have more trouble with activities that require fine motor skills than others. In an article with the Indiana Resource Center for Autism, renowned scientist and advocate Dr. Temple Grandin suggests offering accommodationslike typing on a computer instead of writingto mitigate these challenges.
When it comes to specific accommodations, it may depend on the individual. Its always a good idea to reach out to a students family to determine the best resources for their child.
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What Should I Say
Functional communication, or verbally expressing wants and needs, can be very difficult for children with autism. Often, kids will simply become frustrated because their needs have not been met, even though they haven’t communicated those needs to someone who can help. Working on functional communication can give a child the verbal skills he or she needs to request items or activities.
This worksheet shows children with obvious practical needs or wants. Examine the picture with the child, and then have the child write or say what the person in the picture needs to communicate. You can work with the child to refine the phrasing of the statement to make it clear. Talk about how the child might use these phrases in his or her daily life.
Free Number Tracing Worksheets For Kids With Autism
Use these free number tracing worksheets to teach your child or students the numbers one to nine and build your little learners handwriting skills. There is one large number per worksheet that is easy to trace. Also, included in this post, are tips on how to use these with autistic learners.
If you love this activity, you will also love my free printable love bug printable activity! For the best autism activities for parents, teachers and therapists, get my autism activities workbook bundle.
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How Would It Feel To Be : : : :
Next time you read a book to your class, try asking your students how it would feel to be the main character in the story. If youre reading a picture book about Cinderella, for example, you could ask how they would feel if they had two evil stepsisters who were mean to them. Or if youre reading Peter Pan as a class, you could ask them what happy memories they would think about to fly with magic pixie dust.
This can help students with autism learn empathy as well as how to see situations in their lives from another perspective. It can also teach them how to recognize emotional cues by encouraging them to put themselves in the perspective of another person.
Calming Activities To Prevent Autism Meltdowns In Class
When students with autism are feeling overwhelmed, the intense response that they feel may cause them to lose control of their emotions. This is called an autism meltdown and is different from when students without autism act out in class. While the best strategy for autism meltdowns is to seek help from a school specialist, these calm down activities can help to de-escalate stressful situations.
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Visual Organizers For Task Sequences
Any activity that requires several steps to completion can be broken down into steps and placed in a visual organizer for an autistic kid to follow. For example, a morning routine could be organized as follows:
- First: Turn off the alarm
- Second: Get dressed
- Then: Brush teeth
- Finally: Get on the school buss
All of these steps would have a visual representation that can be placed on a task board using velcro to fix it in place. Any task can be put into a visual sequence. This activity is helpful in teaching multi-step skills to kids with autism. The pictographs are especially helpful to toddlers and preschoolers.
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Hold A Professional Development Session On Autism
Its so important to teach faculty about autism awareness, too. If youre a school administrator, consider holding a professional development session on teaching students with autism or sharing a few resources.
For example, the Regional Educational Laboratory Program has put together a helpful resource for administrators on how educators can support students with autism during remote learning.
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What Would You Do
For a take-home activity you can share with families, try this What Would You Do? game. Families can go through different scenarios together and decide how they would react with questions like How would you help? or What would you say?
This activity keeps social skills sharp and reinforces relationship-building skills.
How Will Worksheets For Students With Autism Help
This worksheet will help you to keep your child busy if he is expressing distributive behaviors and also it will help him learn productive behaviors in a fun way. This worksheet is for caregivers who want to make their child learn some simple behaviors. Children with autism learn through fun ways otherwise, it becomes difficult for the caregivers and the child himself.
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Worksheets For Social Skills
Social skills impairments affect most children on the spectrum. Many therapists believe these difficulties are partly due to the Theory of Mind. This is the idea that children with autism spectrum disorders struggle with the concept of perspective. They may have difficulty imagining themselves in another child’s place. Worksheets that focus on shared attention and perspective can be tremendously helpful.
List Of Social Skills For Kids With Autism
This list is by no means definitive but a great place to start. 62 social skills you can begin teaching in your home or classroom today.
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Other Worksheets You May Be Interested In
Below are links to a few more worksheets which are closely related to the worksheet above.
On this page, we provided you with a Math Worksheet for Autism It hopefully helped you make your kids learn the basics of maths.
If you have any questions or comments, please let us know.
What Is An Autism Spectrum Disorder
Autism refers to a disorder which is a condition related to brain development that impacts how a person perceives and socializes with others, and this may cause problems in social interaction and communication.
This disorder may also show repetitive behaviors.
Teachers and ABA therapists sometimes use a behavioral analysis to determine the level.
Autistic individuals mat lack the proper social skills to handle stimulus that other children may be accustomed to. Temper tantrums are common in reaction to loud noises. Sometimes, anxiety disorders can begin.
Problem behaviors can begin simply with anger rumination.
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How Can Hidden Talents Aba Help
Hidden Talents ABA provides treatment for children with autism spectrum disorder from birth to age 12. We focus on enhancing your childs ability to understand how their behavior affects those around them and improving their social skills.
Currently the most effective form of autism treatment, applied behavior analysis is an evidence-based approach that focuses on changing unwanted behaviors in autistic children while reinforcing desirable ones.
ABA therapy can help your child to build and strengthen social skills, for example:
- Improve communication skills
- Increase attention, focus, and memory
- Follow directions and instructions
- Understand facial expressions and body language
- Initiate conversations
- Respond to questions
- Reduce problematic behaviors such as aggressivness and meltdowns.
ABA therapy uses positive reinforcement in the form of rewards and incentives. When a desirable behavior is rewarded by a special treat or activity, the child is more likely to repeat the action. Over time, this method will encourage positive behavioral changes in children with autism spectrum disorder.
For more information on Hidden Talents ABA services, call us at 404-487-6005 or send us an email at .
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Free Resources For Families Of Children With Autism And Other Special Needs During The Coronavirus
With schools and learning centers staying closed indefinitely due to the coronavirus, families and students are finding themselves having to adapt to learning from home.
Here is a list of fun, free resources and subscriptions to engage your child and support their learning during this time!
Stages Learning Materials is now offering free autism resources for download, print and immediate use! Stages Learning Materials resources will enrich your childs social/emotional and behavioral development. You can also join our new Autism Learning Line online community to receive support, guidance and camaraderie during these challenging times
Explaining COVID-19 to Your Child
Using social narratives (sometimes referred to as Social StoriesTM can help children know what to expect and manage their anxiety during these changing times. These links will take you to narratives that explain COVID-19 and help kids understand why their routine is different.
Arts, Exploration, Social Emotional and Movement
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How Do I Feel
Part of taking another person’s perspective is understanding how that person may be feeling emotionally in a situation. First, the child needs to assess the situation, and then he or she needs to pretend to be in that situation. This can be very difficult for children on the autism spectrum. However, having social relationships with peers requires this type of emotional perspective-taking.
This worksheet involves interpreting a picture and assigning emotions to the child in the picture. Talk about the picture with the child. Have the child describe what he or she sees, and then ask them to say or write how the person in the picture feels. For children who are unable to write, you can verbally go through the worksheet.
Teach Students About Historical Figures With Autism
Although the disorder wasnt discovered until the twentieth-century, people with autism have made important contributions to history, and its important to educate students about themnot just in April but throughout the year. Here are a few well-known figures who are diagnosed with or believed to have had autism to get you started:
- Greta Thunberg
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Worksheets For Identifying Objects
Worksheets for identifying objects are used to teach children to recognize common objects and increase their visual memory, in addition to helping them practice reasoning and pre-reading skills.
To complete this worksheet, your child will need to use reasoning skills in order to determine where an object belongs. As the child matches each object with the right location, he or she is also learning to recognize the words written under the pictures.
These cards prompt your child to identify common objects by choosing the correct alternative among several options. The objects were chosen for their short names that are easy to say, such as dog, ball, or car, so that your child can also work on their pronunciation. The set of cards with 30 objects can be purchased for $2.50.
This series of sorting worksheets is designed to help your child improve observation skills by identifying and circling the picture of one or more objects. Registered users can download the worksheets for free.
Try A Smart Goal Challenge
If a student with autism is having a hard time with school, sit down with them and pick a SMART goal to work on over the next month or semester. SMART goals are an effective way to help children with autism reach their potential, and they are:
- Specific
- Relevant
- Time-bound
Suppose, for example, that your student with autism is having trouble learning how to recognize emotions. You could make a goal with them to practice flash cards with emotions on them every day for five minutes and for the student to recognize each card by the end of the month. As long as the SMART goal hits all of the criteria, it can help your student focus on ways to make progress.
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Board Games With A Twist
Teaching children manners can be a helpful way to boost social skills and explain the importance of being polite. This simple, but effective activity puts an etiquette-related twist on a simple game of chess, checkers, or mancala by requiring players to wish their opponent good luck or good game before and after they have played.
How To Use The Activity To Build New Skills
- Teach the numbers : have your child or students say the name of each number .
- Build fine motor skills : tracing builds fine motor strength and precision. Have your little learner use a wider pencil or marker if his or her fine motor skills are currently a bit weak.
- Provide a calming activity : tracing is a great quiet, sensory activity to put in place between other learning activities or as a fun, quiet time during the day.
- Build social skills : take turns to complete the tracing pages with your child.
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