Red Flags of Autism

The following red flags may indicate a child is at risk for an autism spectrum disorder, and is in need of an immediate evaluation.

In clinical terms, there are a few “absolute indicators,” often referred to as “red flags,” that indicate that a child should be evaluated. For a parent, these are the “red flags” that your child should be screened to ensure that he/she is on the right developmental path.

Red Flags of Autism Spectrum Disorders:

***If your baby shows two or more of these signs, please ask your pediatric healthcare provider for an immediate evaluation.

#1 Impairment in Social Interaction:

• Lack of appropriate eye gaze
• Lack of warm, joyful expressions
• Lack of sharing interest or enjoyment
• Lack of response to name

#2 Impairment in Communication:

• Lack of showing gestures
• Lack of coordination of nonverbal communication
• Unusual prosody (little variation in pitch, odd intonation, irregular rhythm,
  unusual voice quality)

#3 Repetitive Behaviors & Restricted Interests:

• Repetitive movements with objects
• Repetitive movements or posturing of body, arms, hands, or fingers 

Early Literacy Skills That Predict Reading and Writing Success: Phonology is Important!

Some parents think their child’s success in reading and writing depends on getting the “right” first grade teacher, but his/her success really depends on how much he/she learns at home about reading and writing before entering school. Early experiences with books and language are most critical for future success in literacy. Parents must be responsible for providing experiences at home that promote the following skills:

• Print Motivation: is taking an interest in and enjoying books. A child with print motivation loves being read to, plays with books, and pretends to write. Trips to the library are fun, motivational, and FREE! Exchange books with other parents with children of your child’s age. Encourage print motivation in your child by making reading a special shared time with you. Make books accessible to your child. Let your child see you enjoying reading. Talk to your child about how we use reading and/or writing almost every minute of the day.

• Vocabulary: (knowing the names of things) is the most important skill for children to have when learning to read. By the time your child enters school, he/she should know between 3,000-5,000 words. Help develop your child’s vocabulary by reading and rereading a variety of books (fiction and nonfiction) and teaching the names of all the objects in your child’s world.

• Print Awareness— is a child’s ability to point to the words on the page of a book. It includes learning that writing (in English) follows rules: print moves top to bottom and left to right, and that the person reading is someone that knows what all the letters and words say. Point out and read words to your child everywhere you see them: on signs, advertisements, labels, stores, candies, products, etc.

• Narrative Skills: help a child understand and tell a story and describe things, like what happened at a birthday party or about a trip to Grandma’s. Parents can help strengthen their child’s narrative skills by asking him/her to tell what is happening in a story or book,  instead of always listening to you read. Ask your child to tell you about things he/she has done or will do that involve a regular sequence of steps: getting ready for school, what your family did/will do on vacation, how to play a particular game, etc.

• Letter Knowledge: is the ability to recognize and name letters (upper and lower case) and produce the sounds they make. Develop your child’s letter knowledge by using lots of fun reading and/or writing activities: pointing out and naming letters in a book, on a sign or on a label; drawing letters in sand or shaving cream; painting letters on paper with brushes, etc. Talk about letters and how some are similar in shape (l, H, F, E, and T or W, M, N, V). Teach the child how to write the letters in his/her name (one letter at a time) when he/she begins using a crayon to draw or “write”. As your child learns each letter, have him/her practice producing the sound the letter makes.

• Phonological Awareness: is an understanding of hearing and manipulating sounds in words. Phonological awareness includes the ability to hear and create rhymes (bat, cat, gnat, hat, mat, and sat), say words with sounds left out (bat without b is at), and put two word chunks together to make a word (fl + at = flat). Most often, children having difficulty with phonological awareness have trouble learning to read. An understanding of phonological awareness begins with a child’s exposure to and practice with the previous five steps. Phonological awareness is one of the final steps in preparing children for actual reading instruction that begins in kindergarten.

Tips for Topic Maintenance

How Kids Can Stay On Topic

 Use comments and non-verbal gestures to show you are listening.

Tell students that comments and non-verbal gestures, such as nodding your head, agreeing with comments, and making eye contact, can help keep a conversation going. Let students know that these behaviors are all ways to show that you are listening and following the topic of conversation. Have students practice these non-verbal skills while role-playing, then see what other comments and non-verbal gestures they can come up with to help move conversations along.

Add information about the topic to the conversation.

Remind students that conversations require both speaking and listening. Discuss the importance of sharing what you know about a topic during a conversation, but also talk about the importance of listening to others’ comments and ideas. Be sure to tell students that what they have to say and contribute is important… we all have something to share!

Let everyone have a chance to talk.Make sure students understand that a conversation is meant to allow everyone to have a chance to give information, ask questions, or comment about the current topic. To help with this, students can practice the self-talk statement, “I will not dominate the topic and will let everyone have the opportunity to talk about it.”

Wait to talk about unrelated topics.

Instruct students in the difference between comments that are on topic and those that are off-topic. Remind them about the importance of turn-taking in conversation, and that they need to wait until everyone is finished talking before introducing a new topic.

Practice identifying others’ off-topic remarks.  

Help students identify off-topic remarks by focusing on listening to others’ comments. Provide them with opportunities to focus on conversations they are not part of, and then provide feedback for what remarks were on topic during the conversation and which ones were not. Role-playing or watching videos are great ways to do this.

Normal Language Skill Development

The following list of milestones is the result of current research in the field where studies continue to analyze how and when children learn and begin to present certain language skills. As you look over this list, keep in mind that children vary greatly in how and when they develop and learn these skills. These skills do not follow a concrete order.

At age 5, most kindergartners become able to:

• Sound as if they are reading when they pretend to read.

• Enjoy someone reading to them.

• Retell simple stories.

• Use descriptive language to explain or to ask questions.

• Recognize letters and make letter-sound matches.

• Show familiarity with rhyming and beginning sounds.

• Understand that reading print goes left-to-right and top-to-bottom.

• Match spoken words with written ones.

• Write letters of the alphabet and some words they use and hear often.

• Write stories with some readable parts.

At age 6, most first-graders can:

• Read and retell familiar stories.

• Use a variety of ways to help themselves read and comprehend a story (rereading, predicting, asking questions, or using visual cues or pictures).

• Decide on their own to use reading and writing for different purposes.

• Read some things aloud with ease.

• Identify new words by using letter-sound matches, parts of words, and their understanding of the rest of a story or printed item.

• Identify an increasing number of words by sight.

• Sound out and represent major sounds in a word when trying to spell.

• Write about topics that mean a lot to them.

• Use some punctuation marks and capitalization.

“Remember that while babies aren’t born book lovers, they are born learners. The more you read to them, the more they learn.“ Kate Jack – Parent & Child Magazine Resources

AUTISM… is a developmental disorder.

It impairs an individual’s

ability to interact socially, communicate clearly and effectively, and behave appropriately.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 
Fourth Edition 
lists several factors that can lead to a diagnosis of  AUTISM.....

Social Interaction

Impairments can include:

**difficulty using nonverbal behaviors such as eye-gaze, facial expressions, body postures, and gestures.

**difficulty forming peer relationships.

**difficulty seeking out others for the purpose of sharing enjoyment, interests, or achievements.

**difficulty with the “back-and-forth” nature of relationships for social or emotional purposes.

Communication

Impairments can include:

**delay or lack of development of spoken language.

**difficulty starting or maintaining a conversation.

**using stereotyped (“repetitive, often seemingly driven, and nonfunctional,”) or idiosyncratic (odd or peculiar) language.

**lacking variety and spontaneity in make-believe play or social imitative play.

Behavior

Impairments can include:

**being preoccupied with an interest—intensity or focus is abnormal.

** being inflexible and sticking to specific routines or rituals that may not be “purposeful.”

** using stereotyped or repetitive motor movements such as hand or finger flapping or twisting or whole-body movements.

** preoccupation with parts of objects.

If you are interested in speaking with me about any concerns, please contact me:

Jennifer.praytor@spartanburg2.k12.sc.us

1-864-592-1211