I read an article about a case study on a child with Autism named Joshua. It goes through his daily activities and how he deals with each transition and how it affects him emotionally. It appears that Joshua exerts less aggressive behaviors when he has a choice to what he’s doing, and is independently playing. He clearly has patterns or repeating behaviors that comfort him, and is thrown off by whole group, loud noises (song being sung for circle time). During outside play, typically plays on his own and does whatever he sees infront of him. Maybe being paired with one other student and shown how to play with one type of toy would be more useful to Joshua. This may help him develop some small social skills for he obviously lacks these. It doesn’t have to be for the whole time, maybe even schedule periods of time that are known ahead of time.
Before circle time begins with the song, maybe a symbol or notification that it’s going to start could ease his transition and eliminate his “drop and cry” behavior. Also, it seems like a lot of what Josh is “choosing” isn’t really being chosen by him. It says more than once, “hand over hand assistance” with the chosing of a toy or option. Maybe taking Josh to a different part of the rug to eliminate distractions and let him really choose his own plan would help him feel like he has more control over his enviornment. Then, he can possibly choose 1 friend to play with during this time, again to help with social interactions. During center-based activities, instead of allowing Josh to run around the room with a hammer and pound things, get him a drum stick (since he normally chooses long and narrow items) and a drum and channel his behaviors to a more socially acceptable activity. Maybe even invite another child to play the drums with him. Creating a more structured play time in which he is playing with a toy he likes may be soothing to him. Again, before taking the toy from Josh, let him know a couple of minutes ahead of time to ease the transition.
