How do you Teach a nonverbal child?

❤️💛💙 I do get a small commission for the links clicked on in my blog at no additional charge to you. All of these links are things my family has tried and given their stamp of approval. Thank you in advance ❤️💛💙

Recently, we began our homeschooling journey. My youngest is currently three years old with no spoken words. He also has an autism diagnosis. Although I wish the rest of the world could see everything as he does, we do have to perform schooling differently than most preschool age children.

https://www.autismworks.com/a/11992/BFTDDD9p

Maxwell has no way of verbally telling me if he understands. He also has a very short if not non existent attention span for any table top work.

Finding activities to keep him engaged is difficult. In order to get Maxwell to participate I first have to find things that we likes to do.

https://www.autismworks.com/a/22038/BFTDDD9p

For example, Maxwell enjoys heavy work, sensory bins and any type of movement!

HEAVY WORK

For those of you that don’t know what heavy work is, it is exactly what it sounds like. It means carrying heavy loads, putting on heavy back packs etc.

https://www.autismworks.com/a/22089/BFTDDD9p

This is important for our kiddos because it helps their muscles and joints to “communicate” to their central nervous system. As a mother I have noticed when Maxwell is under stimulated (If we do not do heavy work Maxwell just sits in a corner and could stare off into space for hours) or overstimulated overstimulated (mostly occurs at home during table time activities) he needs heavy work!

For example, the socks in the above picture are full of rice as well as the jug. We often have him jump from our mats with one of these in hand and place it in the dump truck. After carrying the heavy load we have him push the heavy load.

https://www.autismworks.com/a/8655/BFTDDD9p

When we started homeschooling he was already doing this routine daily, so we added some letters! Every time we dropped the socks in the bucket or made a pass down the hall with the bucket we would sing “every letter makes a sound, the L says “l”.

He does all of this while wearing a weighted vest. Below is a link to the one that we have. We have used a couple different ones, but this is our favorite.

https://amzn.to/3A0Gj1S

Introducing him to letters at this point is still a win in my book.

SENSORY BINS

Another way to get Maxwell to participate in school time is to add it to his sensory bins!

For this one, I take the letters out of the bin. I use the hand over hand method and have both of us point to the letter and say it’s sound. We do this for each letter and put them in the sensory bin. I typically let him play for a couple of minutes and then repeat the above process 3 times. Exposure, exposure, exposure.

https://www.autismworks.com/a/11989/BFTDDD9p

MOVEMENT

This could look like hundreds of different things. For Maxwell this is music or playing in our “gross motor area”.

This is our gross motor area! The “mats” are over to the left and what we do most of our heavy work off of. We got these off of Amazon and I put a link to the ones we purchased. I bought these 2 years ago and after much wear and tare they are still in great shape! We bought 3!

https://amzn.to/3K9ab0p

One of the things I will do when learning letters or numbers is simply just put letters and numbers around the room. Much like the sensory bin, I will have him pause every few minutes and find a letter and say the sound or find the number and count the objects.

You could also just do this on the playground or in your backyard with a flash card! So much time we try to take movement out of learning. But did you know, that children, particularly those on the spectrum need that movement. Sometimes these kiddos are so focused on trying to sit still behind a desk that they close their minds off to learning anything else?

https://www.autismworks.com/a/11991/BFTDDD9p

Teach how they learn. If movement is what they need, teach while they move!

We have recently begun incorporating music into Maxwell’s schooling. This allows him to move and hear his academics in a new way. This week we learned about the letter F. I was surprised at how much he enjoyed hitting the “F” on the drum while listening to “the F song”.

There is no “one way” to teach. Watch your children for a day. What do they like to do? How can you incorporate learning into their daily routine? Sometimes we have to get creative. If you need help with a goal/lesson. Reach out! I’m always up to meeting other moms who are trying to win at this parenting thing.

If you would like to reach out to us check out our Instagram/tiktok/Pinterest at Asdmama1017 and our Facebook group- Supporting Autism Mama