Positive Pairing

If the person who is leading the intervention is not the child’s parent or other person whom the child knows well and likes, the intervener must first positively pair themselves with the child. In other words, a teacher, therapist, support worker, or respite provider, must be liked by the child. This means that before intervention begins, the instructor needs to get to know the child, build rapport, and be viewed positively by the child with autism. Several "sessions" of play should take place and during this time no demands should be placed on the child. He should be free to play with the toys and activities he enjoys and the instructor should play passively alongside him. The time invested in this exercise will be well spent. When instructors choose to "dive" right into instruction without this step in pairing, the results can be detrimental to the learning process.

Problems with Touch

In order to teach your child to sign, it will be necessary to touch his hands in order to shape and prompt signs. Many children with autism are very sensitive to touch and so it will be necessary to find ways to help your child become tolerant of someone touching his hands.  When children are exposed to hand touch during playful situations they may begin to de-sensitize to touch and therefore become less avoidant when you need to touch their hands during teaching.  Try tactile activities like playing with play dough, digging in a sandbox, water play, finger-paint, playing "patta-cake" and any other activity that involves touching different textures.  Also keep in mind that some children with autism are very sensitive to light touch but tolerate a more firm touch. As your child becomes more comfortable with his hands being touched firmly, he may become increasingly accepting of lighter touch. Get to know your child's preference for touch and incorporate touch into his play. It will be important to introduce these activities slowly and to never force your child to touch things that he is not yet comfortable with.

No more "MORE"!

The word "more" is often the very first sign parents will teach their young children who have autism, at the suggestion of a professional or sign-language resource.


Although teaching a typically-developing baby to sign "more" may be an easy way to teach your baby to request additional items, and is very easy to prompt, it does not have longevity. Signing "more" very quickly becomes over-generalized, especially for children with autism. Your child will discover that, at first, her sign for "more" was very quickly reinforced in a controlled setting (i.e. you provided fishy crackers one by one to increase the likelihood your child would sign "more" to obtain another cracker). However, it has really only taught your child that signing "more" gets her more of something. It does not tell her what the item is called or how to communicate which item she wants. For example, if you ask your child to choose between orange juice or milk your child may look at the items and sign "more" or your child may stand in front of a shelf of toys that are out-of-reach and sign "more". The tricky part is you may not know what it is she wants and therefore cannot quickly reward her for communicating with sign. If this happens too many times, your child may give up on communicating through sign because too much time passes between the sign and receiving the item. It is much more effective to just teach the individual sign for items that your child will want more of. When your child eats a fishy cracker and would like another fishy cracker, simply teach her to sign "fish" or "cracker". This teaches her that signing "fish" gets her more fishy crackers and it clearly expresses to you what it is she wants. 

Being "Lazy"

Hearing children who are immersed in sign-language are often one full year ahead of their peers in their communication and literacy abilities by the time they enter school. Like typically developing children who sign, sign-language can help children who have autism communicate and often acts as a "bridge" to verbal communication. 

I have been asked by many parents if teaching their child with autism to sign will delay their speech acquisition, or whether relying on signs will make their child "lazy" and not motivated to speak. There is simply no evidence to suggest that children who sign will take more time to speak. In my experience, and according to research, the opposite is true. Children with autism, who sign, actually speed up
the process of learning to speak. Time and time again, I have witnessed children with autism leap from signing to speaking in a very short period of time. Some will take longer than others, but I firmly believe that there is no down-side to signing with your child.