Let’s learn to add space in between words! Activities for children with Autism!
Here find enclosed a set of instructions to act as a guide for parents/caretaker/teacher for a child with autism. Each autistic child is unique and problems faced by the child would be different for each child. Some children need not to undergo all the activities while a few others would need the complete learning set. Each child will have a different learning time as well as pace. Hence, parent/teacher/caretaker has to calibrate the activity list accordingly and ask the child to perform and practice the same.
Apart from the material provided in the kit, you may also use your judgement and understanding to try other materials to strengthen the concept. However, the learning goals and nature of activities should be more or less similar to the ones provided here for best results. After each activity, writing exercise is very important to test the grasp of concepts. An activity book should be maintained and the progress of the child should be closely monitored for feedback and improvement.
Activity 1
Tiny Island Once upon a time, across the seven seas, in the beautiful blue water was an emerald green tiny Island of Pilaari, filled with golden beach, tall mountains, evergreen trees with exotic fruits!
Task 1.1 1. Take a paragraph which is easy to understand for the child; prefer ably a children's story. 2. Ask the kid to read it aloud.
Tiny Island Onceuponatime, acrossthesevenseas, inthebeautifulblue waterwasanemerald greentinyIslandof Pilaari,filledwith goldenbeach,tall mountains,evergreen treeswithexoticfruits!
Task 1.2 1. Use the same paragraph as done in Task 1.1. 2. Remove the spaces in between the words and rewrite the text as shown. 3. Ask the kid to read it aloud. 4. Try and show him/her difference between both the paragraph.
Activity 2
Tiny Island Once upon a time, across the seven seas, in the beautiful blue water was an emerald green tiny Island of Pilaari, filled with golden beach, tall mountains, evergreen trees with exotic fruits!
Task 2.1 1. Take a paragraph which is easy to understand for the child; preferably a children's story. 2. Take out the square blocks that are provided along with the kit. 3. Hand over those blocks one by one to the child; and ask him/her to place them in between words.
Tiny Island Once upon a time, across the seven seas, in the beautiful blue water was an emerald green tiny Island of Pilaari, filled with golden beach, tall mountains, evergreen trees with exotic fruits!
Task 2.2 1. Take out the transparent blocks that are provided along with the kit. 2. In this task, the child has to replace the colored blocks with the transparent blocks. 3.Hand over the transparent blocks to him/her one by one in exchange for the colored blocks. 4. Once complete, do a writing exercise for the same text. 5. Instruct him/her to copy the sentences, one word at a time. 6. Simultaneously, ask him/her to transfer the transparent blocks and keep them after each word.
Activity 3
Tiny Island Once upon a time, across the seven seas, in the beautiful blue water was an emerald green tiny Island of Pilaari, filled with golden beach, tall mountains, evergreen trees with exotic fruits!
Task 3.1 1. Take a paragraph which is easy to understand for the child; preferably a children's story. 2. Ask the kid to fill the space between the word with coloured pen or marker.
Task 3.2 1. Use the same paragraph as done in Task 3.1. 2. This is a writing exercise. 3. Read it to him/her; ask him/ her to write down the sentence. 4. Once he writes a word, ask him/her to color wherever a space should be there.
Activity 4
Task 4.1 1. Take a paragraph which is easy to understand for the child; preferably a children's story. 2. Read it to him/her; ask him to write down the sentence. 3. Once he writes a word, ask him to sketch a square box wherever a space should be there.
Task 4.2 1. Use the same paragraph as done in Task 4.1. 2. Read it to him/her; ask him to write down the sentence. 3. This time, however, there would be no square boxes. Ask him/her to put space instead.
Activity 5
ABCDEFG HIJKLMN OPQRSTU VWXYZ
abcdef ghijklm nopqrs tuvwxyz
Task 5.1 1. Take the letters provided in the kit; These have magnet attached to them. 2. For this exercise, you need a clean flat metallic surface for e.g. fridge, scale or the kit’ s tin cover box. 3. Order the words on the metallic surface and ask him/her to adjust words as to have correct spacing. 4. In case of any doubt between the different letters provided in the set, refer to these alphabets, shown in the picture for clarification.
Task 5.2 1. Using a web-enabled device, open <http://12bubbles.com/projects/autism/>
This game tests the understanding of the concept of space in writing. 2. Ask him/her to drag and drop the right sentence from the given choices into the box. 3. Once done correctly, ask him/her to write sentences without any aid.
Concept and Design by:
Puja Vanarse
Visual Communication IDC, IIT Bombay puja.vanarse@iitb.ac.in