Autistic Children Can Learn Through New Teaching Methods

Autism has become very common in the US and a company with its exceptional reading system or a new teaching method for autistic children is hoping that they will be able to help parents who want new ways to assist their autistic kids to learn reading. Almost one and a half million individuals are diagnosed with autism in America and this is much higher than what was seen in the 1970s when only 1 out of 10,000 suffered from it.

Associate professor at Colorado State University, Dr. Temple Grandin, who has also written 2 books on autism, has done a lot of research on how to teach autistic children. He gives lectures on this subject all over the world.  Grandin, who is an autistic child herself believes that several autistic people are visual thinkers and don’t think in any language. Thoughts are more like videos playing in the mind. She also believes in a new teaching method for autistic children.

This is the idea at the back of the Readent learning method, which has been created by SFK Media Specially For Kids Corp. “Reading Movies,” are used in the program, which is an interactive film version of classic stories for children and comes as a DVD.  When the actors talk the words come up as text on the screen, giving written words to autistic viewer with the pictures which they can see. This helps in grasping the concepts of language as well as building the vocabulary. This is a new teaching method for autistic children and it helps.

A lot of recent research has been done to develop the Readent system to teach reading to autistic children. It also incorporates the observations of various experts like Dr. Grandin and other scientists. Len Anthony Smith is the, chief executive officer of SFK Media and believes that this will work very well with autistic learners with its comprehension quiz and games as well as interactive wordplay dictionary. A new teaching method for autistic children will help them learn faster.

Tips given by Grandin for teaching autistic children:

• Don’t give long verbal instructions as people suffering with autism are not able to remember the order. You can write them on paper instead. 

• Take help of tangible visual methods to teach the concept of numbers like blocks of different color and length or wooden “fruit” which is sliced in halves and quarters for teaching fractions. 

• The keyboard should be kept near the screen as few kids have a problem in remembering things on the computer screen, if they have to click the keyboard and look up.

• Children who don’t talk find it easier to link words with illustrations, when they see them on a flashcard. Some of them can’t understand line drawings and it is best to use photos and real objects initially.

These are very helpful and a new teaching method for autistic children is also doing wonders for autistic kids.