Stages Learning Materials, creators of the top-selling autism education product, the Language Builder Picture Cards, creates new Language Builder 3D – 2D Matching Kits to provide teachers, therapists and parents with all the tools they need to foster early language development for children with autism.
San Diego, CA – February 20, 2018
Stages has just released new Language Builder 3D – 2D Matching Kits in order to provide all the tools needed, in one box, for teaching children with autism language skills. Matching skills are essential for language development for children with autism. In ABA therapy matching skills typically follow a hierarchy from the easiest and most accessible matching activities using identical physical objects (such as two toy cars) to the more complex and abstract notion of matching representations of objects, such as those found in specially designed picture cards.
Research demonstrates that using a progression of matching activities using ABA therapy techniques provides children with scaffolding needed to develop language skills. As the child advances in matching activities they are able to connect physical objects with cards that represent the objects: This is a big leap forward in the development of language skill learning.
“We are really excited to announce our new 3D – 2D Matching Kits”, said Angela Nelson, CEO, Stages Learning Materials. “These new tools have been specially designed to foster identical and similar matching activities using objects and cards,” Nelson added.
The Language Builder® series of products is used widely by researchers and ABA therapists, and the new 3D-2D matching kits will provide researchers studying language development with new tools to use in their studies. Research already provides support for learning with real objects: In a study using different types of photographs, symbols, and objects to teach language skills to 40 non-verbal subjects with autism, the real objects proved to be much more readily recognized than any of the other representations of objects.
Typically developing infants and children under the age of three also learn from viewing 3D objects and often cannot process a 2D picture of an object until a later age. Researchers testing 5-month-old infants found that these infants could not understand 2-D images, but when presented with the same content in 3D representations infants were able to understand the objects. The researchers found that by examining 3D objects children naturally learn about objects in their world and that being able to examine a 3D object provides additional sensory information rather than just viewing a 2D image on a card.
The new Language Builder 3D – 2D Matching Kits provide everything needed to use manipulative and photo materials for ABA matching activities. The Everyday Object Matching Kit and the Food Matching Kit provide resources for learning early words that will help children with autism meet critical language development milestones.
About Stages Learning Materials
Stages Learning Materials was founded by a UCLA-trained ABA Therapist in 1997, when autism diagnoses first began to rise. Its top-selling autism education product, the Language Builder Picture Cards, was designed to specifically meet the learning needs of the individual with autism. The Language Builder Series has become a staple in home and school programs across the world. Today, Stages offers a full range of real photo-based products as well as numerous Apps including the Language Builder App. Visit www.stageslearning.com for more information.
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Media contact: Angela Nelson: (530) 892-1112; angela@stageslearning.com