At AP, we frequently use “Communication Temptation” to create multiple opportunities for students to use spontaneous language. In this video, Ms. Reshani will explain the principles of “Communication Temptation” and demonstrate how to effectively encourage students to speak spontaneously.

To improve your child’s ability to speak spontaneously, parents can use a technique called “Communication Temptation” to create opportunities for your child to actively communicate. As the name suggests, “Communication Temptation” involves creating an environment that encourages children to communicate. In this video, Mr. Toby Mountjoy will share how to train your child’s spontaneous communication skills at home during daily activities such as mealtime, bath time, playtime, and dressing time.

In Module 2, Mr. Toby Mountjoy shared various ideas on how parents can create opportunities for their child to speak spontaneously at home. In this module, Mr. Toby Mountjoy will highlight some techniques for effective teaching.

Requesting Temptation is a type of Communication Temptation. In this video, we will demonstrate a series of examples, including the use of fun objects and activities that students enjoy, to encourage students to make spontaneous requests. This video is intended to inspire parents and teachers on how to choose tasks and activities that encourage children to make requests.

This module will demonstrate a series of examples of basic Communication Temptation with activities that require students to request continuation. The teacher will use objects or initiate a play routine, then pause and wait for the student to make a verbal request before continuing.

In this module, we will demonstrate how to set up “impossible tasks”—situations in daily life that students cannot complete on their own. We will show how to encourage students to use language spontaneously and flexibly to ask for help from others.

In this video, we will demonstrate a series of examples of Completion Temptations, focusing on setting up tasks that students are motivated to complete. This includes omitting words while singing a familiar song or reading a familiar book and then pausing to encourage students to fill in the gaps. If a student provides the correct word or sound, the song, story, or activity will continue.

This course focuses on teaching students commenting in structured tasks. The goal is to enhance students’ ability to independently share their observations and opinions with others.

This course focuses on teaching students how to give instructions, and in this example, guiding the teacher to deliver items to a truck. The goal is for students to take the initiative in directing the teacher to complete a task.

Teaching children with ASD to speak is crucial as it provides them with an opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings. In this video, Mr. Fung will demonstrate how to set realistic goals and establish clear and effective communication intentions.

When teaching children with autism to speak, we also aim to prevent disruptive behaviors used as a means of communication. In this video, Dr. Raymond Fung will demonstrate how to create an optimal environment for children to learn and use language spontaneously. He will also discuss common mistakes that teachers and parents often make during the teaching process.

To encourage your child to talk more, it’s essential to ensure they understand and experience the power of language. In this video, Dr. Raymond Fung will demonstrate how to provide immediate rewards when the desired behavior occurs and how to support the development of more accurate pronunciation during the teaching process.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often have deficits in communication. Some of them may be non-verbal, while some can speak, but seldom speak spontaneously. They may not ask questions or make comments on their own, and may also have difficulties using language effectively or in appropriate situations. Most parents feel stressed when they face these situations. To improve your child to speak spontaneously, you can create opportunities for your child to initiate communication using a technique called “Communication Temptations”. What is Communication Temptations? Communication Temptations means just what the wording suggests: we set up the environment to tempt children to communicate with us. A child is much more likely to communicate if there are reasons to do so. Described by Wetherby & Prizant (1989), communication temptations are used to increase a student’s desire to communicate, and make communication fun. It also enables to establish the power of communication and increase children’s use of spontaneous language. Additionally, it can help the children to speak in the appropriate situations. There are a few types of communication: Requesting is often the easiest form of communication for children with ASD and here are the few steps to teach your child to make request for a specific target. 1. Decide a target. a. At the beginning, we can choose targets for the child to request for (his favorite food or toys.) If you child love cars, “Car” can be your target. b. If your child is able to speak in single words, you can expand his language into longer sentences. (For example, “I want the car.”, “I want play with the car.”) c. If your child is able to make a request, you can now make your child to ask questions “Can I play with the car?” The targets you decide are based on your child’s needs. Again, you need to choose the target that he has motivation to speak or request for. Otherwise, he/she may not speak spontaneously or be dependent on your help or prompting. 2. Set up the situation. a. Choose an activity that is related to your targets (example: if your child likes toy trains, you can then set up the train track together). b. Create a fun atmosphere to increase the child’s motivation to play with the toys, and let the children enjoy the fun. (Example. you can run the train on the track and imitate train sound together.) When you see your child aims to reach for the train, you can grab the train and slightly move your hand further and teach your child to make request for the train. Example “Train” or “I want the train.” c. If the child is able to make a request, you can make your child ask questions “Example: Can I have the train?”Again, you need to choose the target that your child has motivation to speak or request for. Otherwise, he/she may not speak spontaneously or be dependent on your help or prompting. 3. Understanding the power of communication If your child does not know how to say the target word, then we need to provide a modeling prompt and let the child make an association between the actual item and the sound of the word. Provide a modeling prompt by saying the word or phrase you want your child to repeat, and give the items to the child. The timing of this procedure has to be accurate; once you provide the modeling prompt, we need to let the child access the item immediately. Otherwise, the child may not make the association between the sound of word and the actual items. After the few trials of free access to the item with your modeling prompt, we can require the child imitate what we said. Once he grabs the item, we hold it and provide the modeling prompt. We pause and wait for him to imitate the word. After he says the word, we give him the items immediately and re-articulate what we want him to say.For instance, “Car” is our target. a. Play the car with him, once he wants to get the car, we hold the car, and say “Car”. b. Then, we pause and wait for him to say “Car”. (Notes: It is ok if the sound he makes is off, what we now focusing is to make him to speak spontaneously. c. When he speaks, we re-articulate what he said “Car”. Remember re-articulation is important because it lets the child hear what word or phrase we want him to speak. Furthermore, we do not give any negative feedback when the student cannot exactly say what we want him to say. Otherwise, the motivation to speak may be reduced and we may discourage the child to speak. 4. Fade the prompt After your child understands the power of communication and starts to speak the target word, we can gradually fade out our modelling prompt. This can help the child to do the target independently. Avoid providing too many questions (example: What do you want? Is this what you wan? You tell me!), otherwise your child will be heavily dependent on your questions. 5. Practice makes perfect! Providing more opportunities and increasing the repetition for your child to practice the target. Whenever you are playing with his favorite toys, activities or having his snack with him, you can practice communication temptation (10-20 mins each time) with your child! 6. Generalization After you child can spontaneously use the target word, you can find different family members/teacher to practice with them. Also, you can set up different situations for him to practice the same target.

Lack of initiation to communicate is a core issue in individuals with ASD with various levels of language ability and various functioning levels. Although some autistic children have age-appropriate language skills, it’s typical for them to talk to others only when they need to fulfil own needs like requesting items and asking for help, rather than communicating for social purposes. And it causes parents always find them quiet and passive, and sometimes feel frustrated as they repetitively ask them questions, wishing them to share their feelings, thoughts and opinions. Some strategies are listed as below for your reference. 1. Create Needs and Obstacles One strategy to increase spontaneous speech at home is to create needs and obstacles that our children cannot fulfil or solve by themselves. It is often the case that our children are very independent to complete routines and chores without asking for assistance. Therefore, from time to time, we need to create noticeable disruptions in routines, for example hiding one shoe away, no water in his/her cup, and giving mismatched socks to the child, and guide them to say the right words to you to fix the problem. When they can spontaneously say the right words, we can teach them different words or sentence structures to ask for the same type of assistance, or we can create new needs or problems that they need to solve. 2. Tempt Children to Comment We can also tempt children to comment on absurdities and asking why things have gone wrong or different. For example, playing their favourite movie with a different language, preparing a special snack box for school, putting a birthday cake out without announcement, etc. When they are aware of these differences and comment on or ask about them spontaneously, it’s necessary to give a consequence that is meaningful to the children to reinforce their responses, like adding a snack of their choice to the special snack box, and having a bigger slice of the birthday cake. 3. Create Novelty in Various Situations Another way to facilitate spontaneous language is to create novelty in various situations. Placing a new book in his school bag, downloading a new game on his electronic devices, putting a new snack in the snack box may elicit curiosity in children and tempt them to comment or ask questions. 4. Give an Unexpected Response Beside manipulating the environment, when a child makes a request, ask for assistance or ask us a question, we can try giving an unexpected response to them, or playing “dumb” to tempt them to make a further response. For example, we can deliberately get a wrong item after their requests, do a wrong action after they ask for help, or answer a question in a fun or silly way, like using a different voice or giving a wrong and funny answer. 5. Let the Child to Explore and Lead the Activity Lastly, play is essential to increase spontaneous language. Unlike teaching play skills, real play should involve letting the child to explore and to lead the activity. When appropriate, parent can join in and model comments, initiate dialogues, and encourage children to do the same and reward them with more exciting and fun ways of playing.