Teaching Imitation.....can anyone help with ways to do it?

[Joggeroo]

following on a little from recent threads, I would be really grateful for some advice about teaching imitation to my ds with gdd. He's sociable, has a vey short attention span, can be difficult to engage. He seems to have picked up few things from observing, eg sweeping and digging (big motor movements). He sometimes seems keen to have a go at games his sibblings are playing eg peekaboo with a blanket but seems lost as to where to start. Having just written this, am wondering whether sequencing could be a problem.
Any suggested places for info/ books to read/ experience??
thanks

[bullet123]

Does he like music? Singing and action rhymes can be an excellent way of teaching how to copy.

[Joggeroo]

He loves music ++++ and will clap hands if we sing ''if you're happy and you know it'. I think he needs some more structured teaching but don't really know how to do it/break it down as he wont automatically copy IYSWIM. Like the idea of using music though as am bit of a fan. He's just started some more music therapy at school.

[gess]

We did it using ABA. So 'do this" then we did something like calpping, or putting a toy in a box, then ds1 was physically prompted through the movement then rewarded. He quickly learnt to give the correct response at the table, but it took years before he generalised that into a concept of imitation. It has made the biggest difference of anything we've done though, so worth doing.

He could do some actions to songs (if prompted through them the first few times) but it never really became imitation.

[Joggeroo]

thanks.very interesting Gess, recommend any reading?

[moondog]

I like this very much.
Would strongly recommend you buy her dvds.

I am a salt with a particular interest in this area and I think Sing & Sign is terrific. (I have no commercial interest in it btw.)

[sphil]

Just to endorse both Gess and Moondog's recommendations, We've used ABA and Sing and Sign to help DS2 with imitation and both have worked well. The other thing that worked for us with singing is to pause at certain points to see if DS2 would fill in the word, sound or action. If he didn't, we would use ABA - prompt quickly at first, then after a while reduce the prompt (ie by just giving the first sound of the word) and then fade it completely.

Mind you, it doesn't work any more. He's just learnt to say 'no' and uses it when ever I open my mouth to sing . Strange, as like your son, he used to love it +++

[bullet123]

With Tom I will often guide his hands the first few times, moving them around to encourage him what to do and repeating a lot of things over and over.