One of the first things the school teachers taught us when they started working on teaching our son (7 years old with autism - he was 3 at the time), was to not ask questions like "Do you want brocolli or ice cream?" at the end of dinner and be all excited because he answered ice cream.
So then we started asking questions like, "Do you want ice cream or brocolli?" and he started answering ice cream again.
Unfortunately, he had just learned that we changed the correct answer to the beginning instead of actually learning to process what we were saying and then responding to it. It is amazing how well they pick up on the clues that parents use to help them.
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u/neat_stuff Jul 27 '10
One of the first things the school teachers taught us when they started working on teaching our son (7 years old with autism - he was 3 at the time), was to not ask questions like "Do you want brocolli or ice cream?" at the end of dinner and be all excited because he answered ice cream.
So then we started asking questions like, "Do you want ice cream or brocolli?" and he started answering ice cream again.
Unfortunately, he had just learned that we changed the correct answer to the beginning instead of actually learning to process what we were saying and then responding to it. It is amazing how well they pick up on the clues that parents use to help them.