Teaching Essential Discrimination Skills to Children with Autism : A Practical Guide for Parents and Educators

"Discrimination skills enable us to tell one object from another, understand that different things have different names, and use those names to perform a wide range of cognitive and language skills, including following spoken instructions, communicating, and reading.

Teaching Essential Discrimination Skills to Children with Autism outlines a systematic, evidence-based curriculum to promote childrens learning.

Based on the authors thirty years of research, the user-friendly text and illustrative case studies cover: Delivering effective instruction (repeat trials, brisk pacing, childs active participation, reinforcement); Types of discrimination skills (understanding differences, matching like to like, matching words to objects, following spoken-word instructions); Prompting and prompt fading; Prerequisite skills (imitation, readiness to learn); Overcoming barriers to learning (lack of scanning, low motivation); Assessing a childs entry level to the curriculum; Curriculum sequence, specific discrimination skills instruction, and remedial strategies.

Parents and educators can use this book to teach the foundational discrimination skills that help children become more proficient and independent in a variety of waysusing picture activity schedules and augmentative and alternative communication systems such as PECS, mastering more complex academic skills, and applying learning across many situations in their daily lives."