ASA's 36th National Conference on Autism Spectrum Disorders (July 13-16, 2005)

• Recorded Presentation

Students who are referred to as “classically autistic,” i.e., nonverbal, self-stimulatory, anti-social, or non-communicative, especially need skills that enable them to attend to other people and to stimuli in their environment. Our circle time plan targets those skills necessary for group instruction, with video and photo examples and demonstrations.

Classroom circle time is a prime opportunity to teach cooperation and socialization, imitation, joint attention, receptive language, requesting, labeling, choral responding, observational learning, play and leisure skills, attending and responding, and following classroom routines. Circle time should be embedded with numerous skills that lead to an environment that is more closely aligned to a general education setting. An effective circle time includes plenty of reinforcement such as stimmy toys, bubbles, small food items, all paired with verbal praise. An important part of reinforcement is teaching students that there is work-reward routine. This includes giving back the reinforcing objects or waiting for the next opportunity to be reinforced. Once the group has practiced the work-reward routine, it is time to move on to the circle routine.

Start with a routine activity that all students recognize. Some teachers start with a certain song, such as “Good Morning,” or with a game, “Simon Says.” The teacher should make initial demands easy and reinforce for compliance. Next, the teacher should lead the group in imitation drills. Imitation serves as the foundation upon which other important skills are based, such as verbalization, play, social, and self-help. Imitation also serves as the basis for modeling, which is an important type of prompting. Imitation drills can be incorporated into fun circle time songs, such as “Wheels on the Bus.” Students are learning to model their peers as well as the teacher, and increase their observational learning.

After the imitation drills, the teacher should move on to more demanding, team building activities. These can include an attendance routine, such as counting each boy and girl that is present at school. An intermediate skill is knowing your gender and following conditional directions, “ boys raise your hands.” The teacher can lead a discussion about who's at school, why a student is absent, where they could be, therefore leading to pragmatic reasoning. For nonverbal students picture symbols could represent possible solutions to the questions.

The following are activities with learning objectives that participants will be able to duplicate in their own classrooms: 1. Cooperation and Socialization: a. Pass an object from person to person, like the “Hot Potato” game, or just use as a warm up exercise to practice holding an object, then giving it up. Students should be taught to say, “Here, Jack,” as they pass it to the next person. b. Give back the object to adult or peer while remaining calm. Reinforce sharing and cooperation. c. Reinforce appropriate behaviors such as: coming to the group when called, sitting in chair, looking at the teacher, answering with the group, raising your hand, staying calm, etc. 2. Imitation: a. Imitate actions of adult or peer with object, “Everybody, do this” (pretend to drink from a cup, put an object in a box, stack a block, etc.) b. Imitate gross motor actions of adult or peer, “Everybody do this” (clap hands, bend forward, etc.) “Do what ________ is doing.” c. Imitate pretend actions: “Pop, pop, popcorn!” (start in crouching position, popping up more and more until you reach standing position); “tick, tock, tick, tock, RRRIIIIINNNNGG!” (rock back and forth, shake for the alarm); or “Show me how Batman flies” d. Imitate speed of actions: “go sloooooooow”, “now fast!” e. Imitate oral motor actions: blow a kiss, open mouth, close, tongue side to side, “mmmmm” f. Imitate fine motor actions: okay sign, peace sign, wave, make pancakes (clap together and flip over), g. Imitate vocalizations: “beep-beep”, “meow”, increase to words, phrases, sentences, rhymes, phone numbers, h. Imitate prosody: talk fast/slow, loud/soft, deep/squeaky i. Imitate a sequence of actions, “clap hands, then tap thighs” j. Imitate for social interaction: give no verbal directions, just do an action, wait for students to imitate 3. Receptive Language: a. Stop/Go game: hold up a “go” sign and begin stomping your feet or clapping your hands; hold up “stop” and expect everyone to stop; repeat with varied lengths of time so students must watch and listen b. “Simon” Says: “Jump!” “Put your hands on your head!”, or allow a student to select a picture of an action for the group to do (great reinforcer for a student who wants to control the circle activities) List of simple instructions: Arms up, clap, hop, knock, pat lap, sit, shake head, arms out, arms in front, arms down to sides, wash hands, cross hatch hands c. Hold up picture of body part or a piece of clothing for students to point at, “Show me _______,” or “Where's the _______” d. When using props for stories or songs, ask students to touch one: “Touch book” or “show me apple” e. When using props or pictures, ask a question about a function: “Which one do you cut with?” f. Ask a question about its feature, “Which one has a tail?” g. Ask a question about its class, “Which one do you wear?” h. Place 10 objects or pictures on the floor; ask one student to find the train, another student to say its name, all students to make its sounds, “choo chooo” i. Everybody pretend to: sleep, yawn, laugh, cry, scared, draw, read, run, etc. j. Follow group instructions with discrimination, “If you're wearing a green shirt, stand up.” 4. Requesting/Communication Temptations: a. Hold up reinforcers or circle-time objects; wait for reaction; say name of object to prompt if needed b. One student asks others to: “Stand up,” “come with me” “sit down” “help me”, “put this away” (can be done with pictures or signs) c. One students calls role; delivers reinforcer to those who responded d. When playing a game, deliberately leave out an important prop – students should ask for what they need, “I need a maraca” e. Student leads the “Stop/Go” game f. When asking questions, expect chorale responses, i.e., “Can we eat a shoe?” Everyone answers together, by voice, picture, or sign 5. Labeling: a. Anytime an object is brought out, ask, “What is it?” Expect choral responses to increase attention, not sequential, one-at-a-time responding – do sequential responses at the table away from the larger group setting. b. Do the same activity with who, what, when, where questions: “Who is your teacher?” “Where is your daddy?” “What are we having for lunch today?” expecting choral responses. c. “Everybody touch your nose.” “What is it?” everyone answers, “nose” d. Repeat with toys, people, clothing, school supplies, etc. e. Label objects or pictures with “yes/no”; “Is this a dog?” when showing a pencil. 6. Intraverbals: (for choral responding) a. Fill in words from a song “The bear went over the ____________.” b. Fill in blanks from a familiar phrase: “We're jumping up and ____,” or “Winnie the ______” c. Familiar sounds, “A dog says _________.” d. Words to common actions, “It's time to wash our _____,” or “Everybody, sit down in your _______.” e. “Let's name some animals, everybody, dog, cat, cow,…..”, teacher starts with picture prompts, pointing to each one and naming, then turns over one picture at a time, starting with the last one, until students can name the animals without seeing them. Correlate the naming lists with current class theme: list foods, animals, community helpers, colors f. Put several unrelated picture prompts on board, asking, “What swims in the water?” Group answers, “fish”; follow the instructional theme. g. “What did we see outside?” Students name objects or people seen outside the classroom – a slide, Mrs. Jones, a firetruck, a dog, etc. h. “How do you get to school?” Students individually choose a picture to answer the question, graphing the results on the board. Together the group counts the number of people who ride in cars,or take the bus. Write the numeral for each group. Students pretend to write the numeral in the air, on someone's back, etc. Make an addition problem on the board, “Six buses plus two cars equals eight vehicles.” Read chorally. i. Show students pictures of items that are offered for lunch today. Ask them to say or sign them together in a choral response. Sing the song, “Oh, we're gonna have some pizza today, hooray. We're gonna have some pizza today, hooray. Pizza for our lunch…..Pizza to-oo-day! Yummy, yummy, in my tummy, hip, hip, hip, hooray!” j. List a sequence of activities completed during circle time. Picture them on board, then turn over as they are completed. When circle time is over, ask students to list what we did today, “first we sang “Good morning,” then we played stop and go, then Simon Says, and last we sang the lunch song.” k. Count, with the group in choral responding, all the girls, all the boys, all the chairs, people wearing shorts, etc. Use a picture prompt for each category, and write the number of things on the board. Write a number sentence, “4 girls + 2 boys = 8 children altogether.” Students read the number sentence aloud together. 7. Play and Leisure Skills: a. Begin or end each circle time with acknowledging one another: shake hands, say Hi, etc. b. Watch a video together or listen to a book being read. Reinforce students for appropriate listening, looking at tv or book, appropriate behavior next to others, etc. c. Play musical instruments together. Practice different beats, play in rounds, swap instruments, etc. d. Play “Duck, Duck, Goose,” shoot the basketball, pull each other in a wagon. Practice taking turns, and reinforce for waiting appropriately. e. Give each other “High Fives,” hold hands, help one another carry something heavy. Reinforce appropriate social interactions. f. Teacher(s) should look for a “star” of each circle time or during each activity. Give the “star” pom-poms and ask him/her to stand up front. “You are a star, that's what you are, ______ is a star!” or chant the student's name while he/she shakes pom poms. g. Give one student (or adult) an item that another student needs. Prompt and reinforce the second student to ask for the item. 8. Following Classroom Routines: a. To practice transitioning: At the end of circle time, give a direction, “Everybody line up.” If students do not do this appropriately, break the instruction down by giving only 2 students at a time the direction, “Joe and Suzy, line up.” “Annie and Elaine, go to table 2.” Teacher can use picture prompts to give the direction more clearly. Wait for the smaller groups to follow through before you give the next group their directions. Slowly add more students to each small group direction, until finally the entire group follows the direction together. b. Give each student an item from the classroom. When you tell them, they take it to its place in the classroom, “Go put that away, please.” Start with short distances from the circle area, then as students progress, stretch it out to the farthest place in the room, to taking it to the teacher next door. Give a direction to one or two students, then say, “Go back to your seat, but wait until I tell you,” or “Wait” – with a hand signal. Reinforce those who wait until you say go. This activity is for practicing waiting, remembering the direction, and following through.