Teaching 14 month old ds how to copy?

[MommyUpNorth]

Just got back from our paed appointment where I asked if anyone up here was running an ABA program or similar... or if anyone could steer me in the right direction for helping ds.

A little background... ds is now 14 months old. Neuro team for a long while thought he had a movement disorder as he had dyskinetic movements, but now back to just hypotonia which he's had since birth along with self stimulatory movements like scratching his palms/head/cheeks/etc... They basically don't know where we're heading with this, but one of the problems is his lack of imitation skills. He doesn't copy. We're trying to copy him if he does something. The best reaction we can get is when he starts flapping his arms and getting excited, we do it back and then he'll keep on for a bit... but this is still a way off from a 2 way conversation.

Verbal skills are also aren't there, and he doesn't understand more than he gives back if that makes sense. He doesn't go out of his way to reach for toys and doesn't play with much.

I suppose I'm looking for some sort of direction to help him out. His gross/fine motor skills are also lacking. He's now a bit more confident with sitting, but is nowhere near standing or walking yet.

They keep saying that he has a severe communication/language disorder, but then there isn't much help with what to do next. I'm thinking as he's still pretty young, if I get started with something it might help a bit more?

Does anyone know any good books or web resources to guide in teaching some of these skills?

When we started ABA, they started by saying "do this" (clap hands, or lift one arm in air, or stamp foot - some really obvious BIG movement). At first, you have to prompt the child in a hand over hand way to do the action, and when they do you give huge reinforcement (which could be cuddle, tickle or even chocolate, whatever is highly motivating for you child). After a while, if they even do a slight gesture to copy, you go mad and give even bigger reinforcements. They started with these gross motor imitations, then moved onto fine motor and mouth movements (eg stick tongue out, or hold up finger). Then one wonderful day they said - do this - "up" and he said "up", because he'd learnt that "do this " means copy whatever I do. Now he has 100 words. You could start doing some of this yourself? There is a VB (Verbal Behaviour) website which is the form of ABA we use, plus a course on it and DVDs etc. Imitation is key to it all, so I think you're right to start asap. Good luck!

We did it the same way as ancientmiddleagedmum but starting at age 5 - and ds1 finally got it properly aged 7.

I think the ABA may be really hard with such a young child. You could try the son-rise approach- to imitate him (and use mirrors as well, so sit in front of them with him imitating). There's a book called 'the boy who looked at windows' (or something like that!) which talks about a child 'picked- up' in babyhood so using really early intervention.

Thanks for this. Will try a bit more with the bigger movements. We've been hitting a brick wall with the hand over hand approach as he hates us trying to move his hand to try to do anything. So we're working on trying it at the wrist/elbow/rubbing his arm in the direction of where we want it to go. I think I might try letting him hold a bit of crinkly paper each time he let's me move his hand as he loves it so that could be the 'reward'.

I'll have a browse of the VB site later this evening, and I'll try to get hold of that book and look at the son-rise approach yurt1.

The mirror idea is good. The speech therapist recommended getting a nice big full length mirror so he could watch himself a lot of the time. He does like looking in mirrors so we might be onto something there!

Thank you both so much for the replies.

There is a new study at the University of Washington to find out if early (i.e. starting at just 12 months of age) intervention reduces the incidence of autism in siblings of autistic children. See here. There might be a way of finding out what techniques they use with children this young?

The Hanen book More than words has loads of ideas how to help children with social communication problems. Can really recommend that.

ds1 never 'got' imitation using the son-rise way I have to say, but I know children who have so I think it's worth trying.
The mirrors work well ime as well.

It's such a great idea to work on imitation first and so young. DS1 has changed enormously in the last year since he got it (he's 8 now).

Good luck!

The crinkly paper would be an ideal reward or reinforcer Mommyupnorth as my ABA tutors call it. My DS's was a DVD, which he used to carry around all the time but which we took off him and he had to sort of "earn" it back by doing an imitation.

I did try some ABA with ds3 when he was 16 months old and we were concerned about him (he ended up being fine). He did have imitation skills, but it was still quite difficult.

Actually although I know little about it it might be worth looking at some of the early RDI stages as well, as I think from reading some of the things Saker's said on here some of the early stages are quite passive- in that the child doesn't have to 'do' something. I did find that hard with ds3 as he resisted physical prompting at 16 months too.

To find out about RDI type RDI/connections into google or perhaps hijack Saker if you see her on a thread. Or RnB I think she's doing it too.

Hello here I am

My Ds2 has a lot of problems with his motor skills and motor planning (organisation) and so it is quite hard for him to physically copy. As you say your Ds has hypotonia and motor problems bear in mind that it might be hard for him to physically copy even if he did want to, especially at such a young age.

In terms of RDI, it is a therapy aimed at autistic children, however we do it with Ds2 who has no diagnosis of autism though has "social communication" problems. This is jumping you right in at the deep end but there is a 2 day workshop in London in May if you are interested in hearing about it from the horse's mouth. It is an American therapy so it doesn't happen over here very often which is why I mention it straightaway. Google "RDI connect" for details about RDI and the workshop.

RDI doesn't aim to teach imitation specifically - the idea is to help the child through the stages of normal development. Typically with ASD children you are taking them back through stages of development that they missed some years before - you would have the advantage that you wouldn't have so much catching up to do because of the young age of your son. Usually with RDI you sign up with a certified consultant (which can be expensive) and they guide you and assess your child. They are supposed to find activities that are suitable for your child and provide you with specific objectives. The child doesn't necessarily have to participate physically - for example, you might try peekaboo type games with a little one, with the aim of making an emotional connection with your child. The child wouldn't have to participate at all to start with - you could do it all by covering your head with a blanket and pulling it off, but you would hope that the fun of the activity would gradually lead the child to try pull the blanket off himself. I give an example to try and illustrate - however I always find that someone will say - it won't work - my child would never have done that - but the point is that it is the consultant's problem and if it doesn't work they are supposed to find something that does, so don't be put off if the activity seems unsuitable.

Gosh I do go on don't I and you didn't even say you were interested in RDI. Sorry.

Gosh, thanks so much for all the replies! It looks like I still need to do quite a bit more research on this. I'll have a google day tomorrow and try to find out a bit more about the different approaches and see what I might be able to adapt for us.

The RDI does sound quite interesting in terms of ds perhaps not participating quite so much in the beginning.

I really just need to start laying the foundations of something so that we can build on it when he's a little older. Plus it will give us something to focus on rather than dwelling on everything that isn't happening.

Does anyone have experience of doing a program through a distance learning type of thing? We're quite remote (northern Scotland) and I don't see too many of these things being mentioned or done up here. I'm going to start making enquiries about people a little further afield using any of these approaches to see if I could find out about tutors or maybe just sit in on some training sessions.

A lot of people (including ourselves) do RDI with American consultants as there are not many consultants in the UK yet. Some consultants will visit in Britain and do the assessments etc in your home. There is an online system which has just been set up where you can log in and exchange video clips and emails with the consultant as well as have access to electronic learning, webinars, parent forums etc.

We did Growing Minds who use 'anything that works' but mainly ABA/VB and Son-Rise as a distance programme. They do like you to have some experience in running programmes etc first of all, or they like you do to go to a parent workshop. They happen in the UK every now and then and the youngest child who was represented on the one I went on was only just 2 so they do work with young children. They have a huge amount of experience which I found to be very useful.

We did Growing Minds who use 'anything that works' but mainly ABA/VB and Son-Rise as a distance programme. They do like you to have some experience in running programmes etc first of all, or they like you do to go to a parent workshop. They happen in the UK every now and then and the youngest child who was represented on the one I went on was only just 2 so they do work with young children. They have a huge amount of experience which I found to be very useful.

here's my Growing Minds review. All the links you need to find out more about them on there as well.