• To begin teaching this skill use a preferred item or activity and a timer with an auditory signal.
•  Allow your child access to the preferred item for a small increment of time, then stop access to the item or activity. Do this by using a key phrase that you would naturally use in his or her environment such as “wait” , “just a minute”, etc.
• Set the timer for a very short increment of time (2-5 seconds).
• Once the timer goes off immediately praise the child for waiting and allow him/her access to the reinforcing item or activity.

Typically, parents can expect their child to protest when he or she is denied access to the reinforcing item or activity. As the child continues to come into contact with contingencies of the timer going off and receiving access to the reinfocing item or activity the child’s protests should de-escalte in intensity.  As the child’s response to the denial of the reinfocing activity observably decrease, parents should systematically increase the duration of “wait” time.  Parents should heavily reinforce compliancies with waiting and eventually begin to use these key phrases and times in the child’s natural environment (eventually removing the timer).

Teaching your child to tolerate delayed access to reinforcers can assist in increasing his or her compliancy and decreasing problematic behaviors .

In many children with ASD, joint attention is a major skill deficit area which contributes to core characteristics of the diagnosis of the disability itself. To assist in developing joint attention skills parents and professionals should consider targeting objectives related to the following:

1) Attending to others

2) Tracking eye gaze of others

3) Sharing eye gaze of others

4) Monitoring and shifting attention 

5) Sharing emotional states with others  

6) Drawing attention too and sharing experiences with others

 Perspective-Taking Skills

 The ability to understand and predict how other people are thinking or feeling is a very complex and abstract skill. Teaching perspective-taking skills to children with autism is a necessary piece of developing appropriate social skills.

Quick Strategy: To assist in teaching perspective-taking skills use visuals of drawings or pictures of people in social scenarios, draw or insert “thought bubbles” above each person indicating what each of the people might be thinking.

Teach your child to reflect accurately on other people’s perspectives using context, clues and background knowledge to draw conclusions on other people’s thoughts and feelings.

Work with your child on developing his ability to “fill-in-the-blank” of people’s thought bubbles both in pictures and during or after social interactions in his or her natural environment.

 Developing the child’s ability to self-monitor targeted behaviors can also serve as a last phase of development toward generalization of new skill. Once a child has developed an ability to engage in a targeted behavior, try using self-monitoring procedures to assist in pushing the skill out into the natural environment. 

The first phase of self-monitoring procedures should work on developing the child’s ability to accurately “track” whether he or she engaged in a targeted behavior. For example, can your child accurately reflect on his or her ability to monitor engagement in perseverative topics of conversations? Or can your child accurately reflect on if he or she remained on-task during a 15-20 minute timeframe?

When teaching this first phase be sure to provide immediate feedback to your child after his or her reflection of their own behavior. Agree or disagree with their reflection and discuss the differences in your perspectives. Work with your child on developing an ability to accurately reflect on his or her behaviors.

Once your child has demonstrated an abily to accurately reflect on whether they have engaged in the behavior or not, work on goal-setting with your child. The ability to set goals and accomplish goals is a life skill. Work on developing this ability with your child related to targeted behaviors. If for example you are working with your child on developing his or her ability to regulate emotions, self-monitoring procedures could be used to set goals related to using de-escalation strategies when he or she  begins to emotionally escalate. 

The ability to self-monitor one’s own behavior is an important phase of skill development.

1) First, teach your child to begin to identify when he/she is beginning to escalate up the “emotional continuum”. Children need to understand “pre-cursors” to their escalated behaviors, or “little” behaviors that typically lead to “big” behaviors. Ask yourself, what are small behaviors (i.e. pacing, escalated vocals, grinding teeth, non-compliancy, etc.) my child engages in that help me to predict a “bigger” behavior may occur? If you can list specific behaviors, you have identified pre-cursor behaviors to your child’s bigger, acting out behaviors. Once you have developed an understanding of your child’s pre-cursor behaviors you can begin to teach your child to identify when he/she is engaged in these “smaller”, pre-cursor behaviors.
2) After your child is able to accurately identify when he/she is engaged in “pre-cursor” behaviors (Ex: Can share with others he/she is starting to get upset because he/she is engaged in “pre-cursor” behaviors), then parents can begin to work with their child on identifying appropriate de-escalation strategies to assist in “draining” off the emotion, or engaging in de-escalated behaviors. For example, creating a place in the home to serve as a “de-escalating area” for your child. Parents can assist their child in going to this area when he/she is beginining to escalate emotionally. This strategy is different from a “time out” and should not be used punitively, rather as a means to safely and effectively “drain off” from escalated behaviors, before they get too big. Effective de-escalation strategies will vary from child to child. Find specific strategies that work for your child.
3) Once your child is effectively identifying when he/she is beginning to escalate and can engage in strategies that de-escalate him/her strategies need to be developed to assist your child in independently initiating the use of the de-escalation strategies without adult assistance.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders can develop appropriate emotional regulation skills, but many times must be taught these skills directly. It is important to begin teaching these skills early to assist in developing appropriate social skills and independent functioning.