Please click "Follow" before reading, and we will regularly send autism-related articles every day, let us care for the children from the stars~accompany them to grow~
What is imitation? In the public perception, many people think that it is nothing more than clapping their hands, stomping their feet, and doing "the same" together. There is no difficulty at all, so they are often ignored. But in fact, for the innate imitation of normal children, children with autism are often difficult to learn. Therefore, imitation skills have far-reaching significance for children with autism, and their importance cannot be underestimated.
So what is imitation?
Imitation can generally be divided into sound and action imitation. Gross movements, fine movements, gestures, and expressions are all action imitations. Sound imitation includes monophonic, vocabulary, sentence and tone imitation. Imitation can also be divided into immediate imitation and delayed imitation. In terms of speech, delayed imitation is better than immediate imitation. Why does
need imitating ability?
1. Improve children's language expression
Xiaobian has come into contact with many children with autism who are reluctant to open their mouths. They can often follow instructions to bring items, but when asked "what is this item", they are always reluctant to speak. Even when the answer was spoken, they remained silent. In fact, these language problems are often closely related to imitation, and mastering the ability to imitate can help children pay attention to oral pronunciation to a certain extent. Therefore, it is possible to train to imitate gross movements, fine movements, and then transition to imitating sounds, such as imitating his simple vowels, uttering some meaningful words, and then imitating complete sentences.Thereby promoting their spontaneous language and enhancing their desire and interest in language expression.
2. Cultivating empathy in children with autism Mirror neurons allow them to observe other people's actions and imitate what they see, while allowing us to imagine other people's behavior by replacing ourselves with other people's behavior and speculate on the psychology of others. This can also explain why people are infected when they see other people yawning, and they can't help laughing when others laugh. In fact, these are all related to empathy. However, studies have shown that mirror neurons in children with autism are often damaged, which makes it difficult for children to imitate others, not to observe words and expressions, and to develop emotional and social impairments. Therefore, improving children's imitation ability is crucial for "mirror neuron activation".
3、Help children learn skills
Ordinary children will continue to observe and imitate other adults or children in the environment as a means of learning skills, but children with autism do not have this cognitive model to learn, so we will find that with Not only are children with autism slow in learning new skills compared to ordinary children, but they often lack a learning ability. Therefore, instead of constantly teaching children knowledge and skills, it is better to teach them to master the ability to learn, and these are closely related to imitation.
4. Helping children improve social rules and adapt to society
Improving social rules is a prerequisite for children with autism to adapt to society. Therefore, observing others and making imitations is the most effective and direct way to cultivate the awareness of social rules in children with autism.For example, keeping quiet in the library, queuing up for bathing and eating with children in kindergarten, and obeying social rules such as order in the bus all need to improve the ability to imitate.
So what needs to be paid attention to when training imitation ability?
1 Follow the step-by-step principle
Many parents are eager to get their children to imitate speech, but in fact all pronunciation and imitation involve the movement of lips and tongue. In fact, children who have not yet developed language only have very weak imitation skills, so these Vocal imitation is even more difficult for children who are reluctant to speak. Therefore, it is best to start with the imitation of gross motor movements first, and then transition to the imitation of fine movements, expressions, mouth shapes and pronunciation. In this way, children can gradually learn the basic process of imitation and gradually improve their imitation ability.
2. Start
Imitation training is often boring for children with autism. Therefore, before the imitation training starts, parents need to observe the children with autism to find the points of interest for the children. If children are interested in music, they can practice adding musical instruments and songs. If children are interested in touching objects, they can choose tactile objects such as sand and foam.
3. Mechanization to avoid imitation
When many parents train their children to imitate, they think that children only need to imitate and do some single actions to master it. In fact, it is easy to avoid mechanization. In addition to mastering the basics of imitation, we can complicate the action of imitation and generalize the skill of imitation to life. For example, imitate two actions and three actions.Or a child who likes to eat sandwiches, we can teach him to make sandwiches, adults put a piece of bread, let the child imitate it; if the child can do multi-step imitation, we can make a series of steps for making juice, see if the child can Follow the imitation.
For children with autism, impaired imitation is an important indicator of autism diagnosis, and the development of language, games, and social skills in autistic children is related to the ability to imitate, so imitation training is a "persistent" war". Parents should imitate their children anytime and anywhere, and generalize "imitation" into their lives, so as to help children with autism to further integrate and adapt to society.
Image source: Photo Network Genuine Gallery
Responsible editor: Mijianxing Xiaobian
Article layout: Mijian carotene
Literature reference:
1. A comparative study on the imitation ability of autistic children and ordinary children [Wei Yuxin, Wang Zhidan, Zhou Rui, Kang Qin, Bi Ruoyan]
2. A study on the imitation characteristics of children with autism [Yu Xiaomeng]
