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Power Cards: Using Special Interests to Motivate Children and Youth with Autism

11/10/2016

An easy-to-use strategy for teaching and motivating children with autism using their special interests.

I've been using the "Power Card" Strategy with my students for years, so I was looking forward to reading the new edition of the book. Power Cards are a simple, but powerful, tool that uses a child's interests to motivate positive behavior.

When you include a child's special interests into teaching, it makes learning more meaningful, relevant, and motivating. A Power Card blends a simple story about a child's favorite characters, musicians, animals, etc. with instructions for the social skill or classroom behavior the child is learning. The Power Card provides a visual cue of strategies or steps for the student to use for behaviors such as staying on-task, greeting others, and dealing with difficult emotions.

This book tells you about:

Why special interests are such powerful teaching tools,
What the Power Card Strategy is about and how to use it,
Research on the Power Card Strategy,
Lots of Power Card examples (this section is incredibly helpful).

I would highly recommend this book for both parents and teachers.

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Videos for Teaching Tacting (Labeling) Actions

11/7/2016

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Below, you'll find a series of videos with embedded prompts to help children learn to label (tact) actions. Each video shows a different action. You will show each video to the child, and have him or her label the action in shown in the video.

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Using Mirrors to Help Teach Motor Imitation

11/4/2016

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Many intervention programs for children with autism include teaching imitation skills. When a child learns to attend to and imitate the actions of others, it can open the door to learning many other skills.

Some researchers have suggested that using a mirror may help children with autism who are having difficulty learning motor imitation. A mirror provides visual feedback to the child about how his or her body looks when imitating motor actions. This may be particularly helpful when doing movements that are hard for the child to see on his or her own body, such as facial expressions.

In a 2015 study, researchers worked on imitation skills with a young child with autism. Attempts had been made to teach him imitation, but they had been unsuccessful so far. The researchers compared his imitation skills when they used a mirror and when they didn't.

For the teaching sessions with the mirror, a free-standing mirror was placed standing on the floor in front of the child. A therapist sat behind and to the right of the child. In the teaching sessions without the mirror, the therapist and child sat at a table facing each other.

The study found that use of the mirror was associated with more rapid learning of imitation skills. It is important to keep in mind that the study was conducted with just one child, so this method may not work for every child. The authors did say that there was a previous study that also had success using mirror to teach imitation, so that gives some additional support to the strategy. The authors also discussed some other limitations to the study, and those can be found by reading the article. For a more detailed description of the methods used in the study, please read the complete study:

"Do Mirrors Facilitate Acquisition of Motor Imitation in Children Diagnosed with Autism?"
By Scott A. Miller, Nicole M. Rodriguez, and Ami J. Rourke
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis
2015, Volume 48, Issue 1, Pages 194-198

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Power Cards: Using Special Interests to Motivate Children and Youth with Autism

An easy-to-use strategy for teaching and motivating children with autism using their special interests.

Videos for Teaching Tacting (Labeling) Actions

Using Mirrors to Help Teach Motor Imitation

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