New Book: 'Helping Preschool Children with Autism'

This book provides parents and teachers of children on the autism spectrum (aged 2-5 years) with strategies for promoting children’s optimal social, emotional, language, and academic competence.  It includes verbal and nonverbal strategies to help caregivers to enter in children’s attention spotlight and expand their interest and joy in relationships with others.  The book includes sample adult-child social and emotion coaching scripts for interacting with children and suggestions for modeling, initiating, and prompting social behaviors and joint activities.  Also included are other connection and communication strategies such as sensory games, visual prompts and pictures, gestures, pretend and puppet play, and intentional communication.

This book is a great resource for parents and teachers, even if they are not in an Incredible Years group. The book includes scripts of the naturally occurring parent-child and teacher-child interactions found in the IY Autism program vignettes. We hope that these scripts will give parents and teachers ideas for how to get in children’s attention spotlight to communicate, model, prompt, and set up joint attention practices in everyday activities. Below are sample pages from the book featuring the scripts.

Being Child-Directed & Getting in Your Child’s Spotlight

Descriptive Commenting and Visual Prompts to Build Language

Spotlighting tips for parents and teachers

Just like the Incredible Years Autism Programs for parents and teachers, this book includes spotlighting tips to help parents and teachers expand and enhance children’s attention and communication skills.

Please visit our website for information on ordering the book Helping Preschool Children with Autism: Parents and Teachers as Partners