Teaching a child with autism is a very formidable task when you take into account the abnormal symptoms of autism. The behaviour pattern of autistic persons are always different and they differ from person to person and due to which you cannot just apply one single treatment commonly for all autistic persons.
The main symptoms or the behaviour of autistic persons will be that they will be very sensitive to loud noise, show interests in unusual topics and get fascinated towards relatively inconspicuous movements such as finger movement of others.
It has been proved beyond doubt that an early treatment schedule can in fact assist autistic children regain their lost attributes and help them to lead a near normal life. As the symptoms of autism can never be the same, the treatment methods also can never be same.
Due to the uniqueness of autism there is no standard or standardised treatment method that can be applied on autistic people. When it comes to types of treatment, there are three methods of teaching a child with autism and they are physical therapy, verbal communication therapy, and applied behavioural analysis.
Physical Therapy
Teaching a child with autism is a demanding job due to the complexity involved in making the autistic child understanding the techniques and in making them to follow. The main aim is to make the autistic children learn to live within the environment instead of changing the entire behaviour.
One more barrier that one could face in educating the autistic children is in the area of making them to overcome their physical difficulties experienced. As majority of the autistic children will have malfunctioning motor abilities in one way or other, physical therapy sessions should be so designed so as to assist the child to get back their coordination skills and better physical movement.
Verbal Communication Therapy
The verbal communication technique used in teaching a child with autism is to instill confidence in the autistic child’s mind for better communication. Normally any autistic child will have great difficulty in communication and hence they fall silent and never express their desires or their thoughts.
Technicians teaching verbal communication techniques use novel methods so as to evince interests in the minds of the autistic children and kindle their awareness and tongue usage. Children learn to use the movements of tongue towards understanding the meaning of a word and start using the technique for putting forth their thoughts.
Applied Behaviour Analysis
The third method that is used in teaching a child with autism is applied behavioural analysis. This particular educational technique was evolved based on the foundation that autism is a neurological disorder. The technique aims in customisation of instruction sets based on the case by case analysis as the autism disorder symptoms are unique and are not similar for any two persons.
This customised or individualised technique helps the autistic child to accomplish the task accurately and they will be in a position to repeat with accuracy and start enjoying the rewards. This technique will instill a positive outlook in the minds of the autistic children and help them to overcome their communication disability.
Teaching a child with autism by resorting to applied behavioural analysis has resulted in success and the autistic children have started to show their flexibility in the place of rigidity and friendliness in the place of perpetual hostility.
[tags]Autism, Physical Therapy, Communication Therapy [/tags]