Tutoring non-verbal child...

[everychildmatters]

I'm an experienced EOTAS tutor but totally lost!
Child I have been asked to tutor from home is 4.5 years but significantly below age-related expectations. Child is non-verbal and unable to follow all but very simple instructions (and even then not all of the time). She has accessed no educational setting.
I've formed a really good bond and child now very comfortable to play alongside me, but I simply don't know how I can "teach" her. She doesn't yet use language for communication at all, including sign.
An absolutely wonderful child, but I really feel I am letting her down.

So much you can do. Great that you have a bond.

• Use symbols for both showing what will happen and for choice making.
• Use First and Then boards ( directed task/ play based then choice activity
• Use a range of books including tactile, lift up. the flap, noisy books etc. Use repetitive and rhyming texts
• High interest activities e.g. blowing up and releasing a balloon, blow bubbles. Encourage requesting using PECS symbols or a choice board.
• Make a song sack containing items to represent songs eg wand for Twinkle Twinkle, Teddy for Round and Round the garden. Use anticipation rhymes to pause and see if she will insert a sound or look at you
• Look at Intensive Interaction and Attention Autism ( not just for ASD children)
• Lots of Multi sensory learning and activities
• Movement and outdoor learning e.g.shape hunt, colour hunt, sorting and matching.
• Have some trays with sand, cornflour and water etc for mark making/ fine manipulative
• Home made dough rolling cutting snipping with scissors
• Building towers, copying yours, turn taking, repeating or copying patterns with coloured bricks or large beads.
• Put together boxes or plastic wallets with items for concepts you are working on e.g. 1 to 1 correspondence, matching, sorting etc
• Lots of play based activities, parallel play basic small world play make animal and car noises etc
• Use EYFS curriculum as your guide for next steps
• Use photos to create personalised books with favourite people/ toys to name
• Use photos to record progress in a learning log/ journey
• If there are Sensory needs look at The Out of Synch Child Has Fun

Good luck. Just a few ideas for you to try.

@24Dogcuddler Thank you so, so much 💓
I've tried a number of these but she appears unable/unwilling to engage at all? It's almost as if she is "in her own world" and shows no interest in joint play whatsoever? I've tried lift-the-flap books as a way in, for example, but she is not at all interested. I've taken her blocks but again she isn't interested in copying me if I make one - she simply wants to stack her own. Dough - again she loves to touch (and often attempt to eat it) but only on her own. She will often turn her back on me and take herself off. It's almost as if I'm not there?
She really is such a lovely little girl but I just feel nothing is working. I strongly suspect she is autistic?
I feel like crap and a complete failure, I'm not helping her one bit 😞

I took her a threading block activity (large blocks so easy to manipulate) and modelled how to thread, but all she wanted to do was to stack them in towers. She stacks a lot, probably stacking every item that is physically stackable!
The more I write the more I see signs of autism and she's just not able to let me in, or have any interest in doing so.

You will get there all about finding the key and a way in. Intensive Interaction and Attention Autism will both help.
You are right to observe and go with her interests which can be used to help her to learn or offered after a directed task.
I’m assuming that her attention span is limited so any brief success is a step in the right direction.
Do you have targets from SALT?

Parallel play and self-directed tasks this early in the relationship may be all the child is able to do. It is a very different situation to in schools or nurseries. Have you read the child’s EHCP and spoken to the parents? For some DC, moving on from that won’t happen yet (or at all) so the approach needs to be different to other DC who are able to engage in directed tasks.

If the child is able to do other non-self-directed tasks, @24Dogcuddler’s list is good. Although before doing attention autism or intensive interaction and using first and then boards you should check that this is appropriate - it won’t be for all EOTAS DC.

If the child likes stacking, you can tap into this. Have a range of different type of things to stack - different sizes, textures, colours, shapes… let her explore how they stack differently and how they fall differently. Stack on different surfaces to see the effect of that. How stacking them differently alters how stable it is. The different noises they make when they fall… She doesn’t need to copy you to take something away from stacking items.

Please don’t tell EOTAS families you are an experience EOTAS tutor when you have been doing it for less than half a term. Lack of experience with EOTAS/EOTIS isn’t always an issue for EOTAS families, but, for most, lying is. If you lied to me, it would be the end of the relationship. I know that would be the case for many other EOTAS/EOTIS families, too. We would be concerned about what else you are lying about/what else you would lie about and it would highlight a lack of awareness about EOTAS when most of the time it is obvious who is experienced with EOTAS and who is not.

@BrightYellowTrain Apologies - I typed experienced teacher/new EOTAS* *tutor but my mobile is doing a weird thing on predictive text (need new phone but paying rent comes first!!)
I didn't "lie to you"; you seem stressed so hope you're OK?
I didn't type the stars either...

I am not stressed, and I didn’t say you did lie to me. I said “If you lied to me…”. Your OP claimed to be ‘an experienced EOTAS tutor’. I was pointing out if you tell EOTAS families that (i.e. lie), they (including me) would most likely terminate the tuition if they found out and that they most likely would find out because 99% of the time it is clear when someone lacks EOTAS experience (although that isn’t always a problem in itself).

@BrightYellowTrain Deep breaths lovely. Read my reply 💐 I'm off to work now. Take some time for you x

How patronising. I read your reply the first time. It doesn’t change my post. My reply was explaining to you my first post since you seemed to be under the impression I said you lied to me when that isn’t what I posted.

@BrightYellowTrain May I ask how long you've been EOTAS tutoring for? I'm requesting to LA I withdraw and they allocate someone who is experienced/multilingual(?) to support her. Requests put in for guidance but nothing ever comes of it. Hoping there are numerous such people out there who can go in 🙏
@24Dogcuddler She is supposed to have SALT intervention but nothing as yet. EAL which adds to difficulties (I am not multilingual). The family are receiving no other support except my daily visits. Child not accessing anything else. It's so difficult for her and her lovely mum.

Really sounds like you are trying to do your very best but just need advice and support.
Has Mum given you access to all the assessments etc? She should have been assessed by SALT in her first language if that’s what’s mainly been spoken at home.
If she’s not really interested in books or images yet then objects of reference may be the way to go ( cup for snack time, shoes for outside etc)
Is she quite passive generally?
Is there an advisory service with specialist teachers who could support? It is hard to give specific advice without observation.
I have previously done termly visits to advise and monitor the progress of a boy diagnosed with ASD who was home educated by a Tutor. He had attended Special and went back into a specialist setting after making lots of progress at home. He ended up using Proloquo 2 go really well.

I am not a tutor. I have 2 DC with EOTAS/EOTIS (one has had EOTAS for many years and one with EOTIS who has only had it a year) and have supported other families who have disabled DC (including those with EOTAS/EOTIS/with or without a C on the end) for many years.

If there is nothing other than tuition as part of the EOTAS ‘package’, it is a very poor package. Is there anything else detailed, specified and quantified in F of the EHCP? This is where SALT should be detailed, specified and quantified. It is also where training for anyone working with the child should come in and where input from professionals such as EP and the specialist teaching service should be. Is it? If other SEP is detailed, specified and quantified in F but isn’t being provided, the family can take enforcement action, via JR if necessary. If F doesn’t contain all the SEP reasonably required and the family still has the right of appeal, they should appeal. Once the child is CSA, the LA also has a duty under s19 of the EA 1996 to provide a suitable, full-time education, which they aren’t currently doing.

The problem is, from your other thread, the LA is paying you very little relative to what EOTAS tuition from an experienced SEN specialist costs, so of course the LA is going to try to get away without paying someone more expensive.

@BrightYellowTrain Unfortunately mum is not in a place right now to fight this. And she shouldn't have to. I'm sure they will find the right person for her eventually; there must be a huge pool of experienced EOTAS tutors so they will just have to pay. Unlikely though in reality.

I would signpost the child’s mum to sources of support, e.g. IPSEA, SOSSEN, the SN/SEN boards here, facebook groups because there is support out there who will help guide her through the process to force the LA to act (no, she shouldn’t have to but it is often the only way to get support). It sounds like she would be eligible for legal aid for an appeal. Legal aid in the child’s name is possible for JR.

@BrightYellowTrain And although the hourly rate isn't great (£30 ph), I'm earning more than I did as a class teacher 😀

As I and others explained on your previous thread, you can’t make meaningful comparison like that. They are totally different ball games.

@BrightYellowTrain Oh they are! And the work-life balance is just so much better with tutoring than with whole class teaching. I'm actually finding time for my own family at long last! 😀

What happens if you copy what she is doing? So if she stacks, you sit near her and stack.

@SalmonWellington I've tried that, and also "narrated" it whilst doing so; she shows very little response or interest.
She laughed today - a real belly laugh whilst she was stacking blocks alongside me to make towers - it made my heart sing with joy!
I'll miss working with her 😞

Relatively speaking, this is very early in the process. For many DC whose needs are significant and complex to meet the legal threshold for EOTAS, it takes a long time to build the relationship and trust to a point where DC can engage in sessions. That’s before you consider some will always need self-directed learning. So, showing little interest or response doesn’t mean it isn’t the right thing to do.

It isn’t uncommon for e.g. the tutor/mentor/whoever to bake whilst the child lays on the floor playing with cars or the tutor/etc. to paint whilst the child sits on the sofa watching a programme or the tutor to plant flowers whilst the child is on the trampoline or the tutor to be reading a magazine whilst the child swings upside down on the trapeze doorway kit. You get the idea. In the early days it is about building a relationship and trust.

@BrightYellowTrain She is now so trusting of me which is incredible. From our first session in January in which she wouldn't leave mum's lap to now - she runs to greet me with a beaming smile, comes to jump/sit on my lap, touches/guides my face to "ask" me to look at things, and is happy for mum to go and do her work in another area of the open-plan space for the entirety. Mum says every morning the first thing she does is put her shoes on and takes her hand to come and find me 😭
But I'm not enough for her sadly and I've accepted a new student from after half-term. I really hope she finds someone who can give her all of the right support that she so richly deserves ❤️

Obviously it is a bit different in the beginning when many DC require their parent’s presence in order to start to build a relationship, but I hope the mother knows the LA can’t compel her to facilitate the provision and that includes being around as a second adult.

@BrightYellowTrain If I'm in her home 1:1 I can't be on my own with a child surely? Safeguarding.
Also safety. I'm not First Aid trained.

LAs cannot rely on parents to deliver, facilitate or organise any provision in EHCPs. It is the LA’s responsibility under s42 of the CFA 2014. That includes providing a second adult where necessary for safety or safeguarding or any other reason it is required.

@BrightYellowTrain I absolutely wouldn't tutor without a second adult present. It's completely unsafe from a safeguarding/safety pov.
Do you leave your children on their own with just a tutor?