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Angela Nelson received her BA and JD from UCLA where she studied and practiced behavior psychology under Dr. Ivar Lovaas. As Founder and CEO of Stages Learning Materials, Angela has created autism and special needs curriculum products since 1997.
Not Just Why… How? – Get them Engaged!
Just using realistic pictures to interact with and teach children is not enough. The key is in the specific ways that you use the pictures to build vocabulary, communication, literacy and critical thinking skills. The following chapters will introduce many techniques and teaching ideas across broad instructional categories, but one thing is clear: Interaction is paramount.
Why Real Photos? What about cartoons?
Iconicity refers to the degree of resemblance between a picture and the object that it depicts. A cartoon image, for example, would have a low degree of iconicity, while a photograph would have a higher degree of iconicity. Research demonstrates that the ability to generalize from a picture to a real object is directly related to the iconicity of the picture. In a 2008 study, different groups of children were taught the name of a novel object using pictures of the object.
Background on Teaching Language with Pictures
When very young children first begin to learn language skills, they learn new words by hearing the spoken word tied to the actual object (Richards & Goldfarb, 1986). For example, if parents repeat the word car every time they take their child to the car, the child will quickly learn that the word car represents the real car.
Learning new words is not limited to pairing a word with an actual object. As children get a little older, they can also learn new words when the word is paired with a picture of the object.
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Puzzles: Playing or Learning?? Puzzles are classic toys that come in many forms... Read More |
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New Language Builder Software I am happy to report that Stages Learning... Read More |
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Building Language for your Autistic Child Emerging Language and Building Vocabulary... Read More |
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Back to School Success for Students with Autism New routine, new teachers, new classrooms... Read More |
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Language Milestones How many professionals have been asked: “... Read More |
