Description of the video:
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hi I'm Amy Gaffney I'm an educational
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consultant and a speech-language
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pathologist with the Indiana Resource
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Center for Autism
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today I want to give you a few tips on
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working with your child to help increase
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their communication skills children
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learn communication from their parents
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and caregivers so what we communicate
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with our children is very important some
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ways to support communication are the
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following
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we want to gain our child's attention
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using favorite toys and activities if
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they're carrying around their favorite
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Disney characters you might come up and
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say oh hi Mickey how are you today or
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howdy partner when you see Woody you
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might offer if if your child is holding
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Mickey and Woody maybe you're going to
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offer Rex and say hey can I play can I
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join in
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what are we going to do today and see if
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they will respond in some way either by
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taking
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um Rex to add to their collection of the
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little toys or maybe say something back
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to you to answer a question being silly
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is also a really good way to get kids
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attention and to get them involved in
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talking while they're playing
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we want to point out people and things
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that we see throughout the day and make
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comments so that we're modeling for our
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children some things that we can say if
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we're eating oh something tastes sour or
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oh that was really crunchy mmm yum yum I
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like that if we're playing with a ball
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or we're shooting some hoops we're we
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can say great job or oh swish oh bummer
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maybe next time
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we use lots of gestures and we can be
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very animated well during play while
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we're outside taking a walk we can point
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to things and look at that and see if
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your child will look at you and look at
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what you're pointing at and then we can
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show them different things and we want
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to communicate how we feel about things
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that are around us
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talk about what you're doing if you are
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in the kitchen and you're making muffins
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and your child is helping you mix and
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stir the batter you can say mix mix mix
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mix the batter for our blueberry muffins
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mix mix and we want to emphasize those
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verbs and those action words we're
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mixing or maybe we want to emphasize
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those blueberries are yummy ah blueberry
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muffins yum yum
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we also want to listen and respond to
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when our child makes attempts to talk to
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us
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you want to make sure that you're giving
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your child good eye contact
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when we're talking with each other we
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naturally do some non non-verbal um body
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language so we nod our heads when we're
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talking we smile oh
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really tell me more
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hmm and we really want to get engaged in
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what they're talking to even if we're
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not quite sure what they're saying but
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they are really trying to communicate
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something with us we want to encourage
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that
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we can also play games with our kids
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some fun games that work on
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communication skills are what's in Ned's
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head you can you put your your hands in
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this big plush head and pull different
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things out you could say oh that feels
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soft or ooh that feels prickly that
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feels slimy yuck
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um another one of my favorites is pop-up
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pirate we push the little swords in and
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we wait for the pirate to pop up so
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there's a lot of anticipation so we're
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looking at each other looking to see
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what's going to happen
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is it gonna pop here he goes pop up and
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you put the sword in and you say oh
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bummer he didn't pop up or he popped
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um we can go fishing and you can talk
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about my turn your turn go fish I caught
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one I caught a red fish
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I caught a blue fish
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we know that many of our children with
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autism are visual Learners so we also
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want to include using pictures and
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offering choices to help them be able to
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communicate things to us so one of the
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ways that we can do this is by having
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some kind of a board and we can
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communicate choices like a snack time or
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you know what we want to tell the child
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you need to go get dressed it's time to
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get dressed
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maybe we want to give them some choices
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of you know do you want to watch TV or
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do you want to have snack now
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so those are different ways that we can
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use pictures to communicate with our
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children and it's a way that they can
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communicate back to us
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another thing that we can do to help
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really work on communication and
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comprehension skills for our kids
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because we want to make sure that they
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are understanding what we're
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communicating to them so we can do a
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first then schedule and I'll say first
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we're going to go to the park
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then we're going to go to Dairy Queen
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and get some ice cream and if I don't
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have a picture of Dairy Queen or some
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ice cream I can just draw it on a sticky
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note and put it on my card so first go
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to the park then go to Dairy Queen I
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might say when we get to Dairy Queen or
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when we get to our favorite ice cream
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place maybe it's Baskin Robbins and you
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want to say what flavor do you want
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you want to teach your child to either
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point to the flavor that they want give
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them a few choices or have them say you
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know chocolate vanilla strawberry
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whatever their favorite is maybe it's
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the Superman
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um so there's lots of different ways
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that we can communicate and teach
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communication to our children
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we want to be very interested and very
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excited about any op any attempts that
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they make to communicate with us because
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we want them to do with that more and
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more so making sure that we take the
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time to be very purposeful and think
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about are we giving them the attention
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that they need are we helping to support
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their communication and if they're not
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wanting to communicate with us very
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often how can we gain their attention
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how can we use some of their favorite
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things to maybe if you want to to play a
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little ball
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a little toss game with them you want to
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roll the ball over to them or you hand
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them the little paddle and then they'll
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look to you like why are you giving me
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this and then you can say
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couch couch
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and then see wait a second and offer
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them the ball and see if they will
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respond back and say catch or yes or
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let's play
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fun okay let's go
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um also using repetitive phrases like
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Ready Set Go
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and when we say that many times over and
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eventually all of a sudden if you listen
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real carefully sometimes we start
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hearing those little voices say go
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Ready Set
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and then we wait and they'll say it all
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by themselves go
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there's lots of fun ways that we can
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interact with our children and work on
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their back and forth communication
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skills I hope some of these tips are
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helpful to you and your family
