mirrors and imitations

[Guest guest]

one to asked me about mirrors.

Mirrors are good for self awareness skills, for language skills such

as speech. for some imations of emotions expressed on face for eye

contact of self.

But to teach of sings it will reverse the movement just as much as

if another person was facing you and signing to you so it might not

work in signs in the same fashions . but was thinking that it can be

part of a program of teaching but not being the beiggest prompt or

it might become a ritualized prompt causing the child to be unable

to perform if the prompt is not there.

to teach signs it might be good to teach side by side for ones that

require movement that flows away from the body or face. model to

them how to do the sign and then if need be teach it hand over hand

so they can FEEL the movement more correctly within their brains to

process how it flows as it is signed . for some animate the sign so

that is is overly expressed but not excessively . Just as young

children need more space to write some with ASD might need more

space to sign to understand the visual and movement of it.

Some children of ASD will not have the motor dexterity to make the

signs correctly so you to need to allow room for modified versions

and or exceptions to the rules. If a child makes up their own sign

and it is used by them consistenly then it should become part of

their vocabulary expressed as they have expressed it and will be

need taught to others along the way. Because something aobut the

made up sign makes logical sense to them therfor they modified it to

fit their understand of the word.

When I to use to work briefly for one little boy of ASD who was of 3

and much aggressive to any in hims space. I to went into hims space

and he to clawed and kicked and such to get me back out. I to held

of him in a calming fashions and not reacted to hims bites or

pinches even if they to hurted me. I to sat infront of mirror and

showed him how he to looked when angry and helped him to see of hims

self , I to say B is angry.................. he was of a non verbal

little boy but he looked at self and pointed to self and sayed angry

back to me. I to say yes, B is angry. I to want B to play blocks

with me. he to say " B angry " . I to say I to know and I to wait

until B is calm. I to continued to hold him. A few minutes later he

is of calm and played for two turns of blocks with me . I to not be

of able to invest into the work I to wanted with him because of

distance but felt he was of much reachable little boy with proper

interventions but he to needed to feel safe with people in hims

space and world. over time he was of more willing to accept me there

to play with him. Due to hims age was not expecting interacting play

but parallel play and he could do that once we to helped him work

through hims emotions of the intrusion in the begin. He did begin to

see self more in mirror and observed himself more as he to played

via the mirror. I to think the mirror did help ofhim to discover

hims phycial being more so in self discovery. I to think mirrors can

be an important tool in most all kids programs to enhance teaching

and learning for both. But like all tools it needs to be used wisely

and correctly.

sondra