At some point, I noticed my three boys had a hard time coming out of their own little worlds, respectively. I wanted to help them become more observant. They seriously could not find things right in front of them, even if I was pointing to it. Over the years, I have made up games to help them overcome this struggle and thought it would not seem like therapy if I made it fun.
First, I started out selecting books like, "where's Waldo?" that were age appropriate. We would sit together and look at a page and I would say, " I spy a (finding an item)" and I would point to it after a minute after I paused. They got the idea. At which point, I could next take their pointy finger and have them find it with me. At first, I was silly about it and intentionally selected a different item (or two or three) each time saying is that the (item we are searching for)? and say "no, that's not it"...by this time they are giggling. Finally, I would point to the right item and say, " yeah, we found it!". I would prompt them to find it on their own by taking their pointer finger and touching the page while saying, " your turn" and "find it" and as they attempted to do it I would say, " that's right, go on "... Until they completed the task.
It was a " hand over hand" thing at first, but then I would drop my hand back and just prompt them by touching their hand or taking their pointy finger to the page. Eventually, they did not need the prompts anymore because they started to recognize a pattern of words said, like "find it" they could expect and connect to this little game. All I had to do at this point was say verbally "find it" or in my case "I spy" and they would. We started to play this game later outside of books and into our environment. In a previous post (trait #1), I talked about generalization. One would think, all I had to do was say, "I spy..." and the kid would know you are ready for the familiar game. Most kids would make the connection and find item in new setting, but autistic kids usually do not. At this point, you would be back at the starting point, in the new setting, going over the SAME EXACT teaching method. You would need consistency. It takes them awhile but they do eventually connect that the game they know so well is being played outside the book and in a new setting. It becomes fun to play in the car and when your outside taking walks. It is a rather slow transformation, but they get there if you are consistent and constantly presenting it to them. I expounded this game to give them a simple direction to find something that belonged to them, like "I spy shoes" and next instruction " go get shoes".
Once they located object, we would go over new instruction. It helped to have another adult they have worked with often in a similar way at this point take over the next instruction(using same method of "hand over hand, then prompts, then verbally using same words they know) to teach them the "go get..." game. At this point, you would stay stationary in your spot, while the other adult lead them to you each time. The little ones might respond better to positive reinforcement, like food treats each time they get it correct, like tiny marshmallows or gold fish crackers(things they enjoy).
This method would be considered a discrete trial using an A.B.A. Approach to teaching. When they were much older, I introduced those hidden object games on the computer, the same EXACT way I did in books and in our environment. It is very redundant but in the long run, it works! It takes a lot of time and patience. Let's not forget consistency!
