By Tahirih Bushey M.A.C.C.C.
Speech and Language Pathologist
more games
How do I teach my child to point?
Learning to point and, even more importantly, learning to understand a point, can be a tricky skill to teach young children with ASD.
I teach a child to follow a point before I teach a child to follow my eye-gaze. It is easier to teach in that order. But it is important to remember that you are teaching the child to watch nonverbal gestures in order to understand what you are seeing, thinking about, or about to do. If you see your child starting to use a point when no one else is around, then you know you still have work to do. Your child may still understand a point as a cause/effect game. I make sure that the child is shifting attention between my face and my point in these games. If your child is looking at YOU to see what YOU are pointing at, then your child understands pointing as communication.
The basic idea for all these games is to make pointing interesting and useful to your child. You also want your child to understand that pointing is used in different ways and in combination with different words. Children learn to understand a point where you touch the object with your index finger before learning to understand a pointed finger that directs attention across a distance.
What developmental level is learning to point? At the Social Partner Level, I at least start children reaching toward things they want and show children a lot of pointing. All these games can be taught to children at the Language Partner Stage except the Caribou Game at the end of this page which is a Conversational Partner level game. Click here for an explanation of these levels.
Pointing to request an item
I often start by putting my collections of puzzle pieces, Winnie the Pooh characters, cookies, stretchy snakes, animal noses or any other group of small desirable things into clear bags.
Holding the bag closed, I teach the child how to touch whatever he or she wants with an index finger. I often have to help the child isolate the pointer finger at first!
A plastic bag puts just enough distance between the child and the desired item to make it necessary to point and also make it possible to discuss the choice prior to giving over the item.
You may want to teach your child to point in the direction that he or she wants to go, in order to teach pointing that is not about things but rather about movement. Stop at every corner when taking a walk with your child. Then point in the direction that you intend to turn. Or have your child point to the direction that he or she wants to turn! Sometimes, I use a rolling desk chair to make this pointing game interesting. The child sits in the chair, points, and I push the child in that direction.
Pointing to direct attention
In the clip above, pointing is used to direct attention. Pointing is followed by a comment such as, No, this does not go here or Yes, this does go here.
Many children with ASD understand color matching so the game makes sense once the pattern is understood.
Point at many interesting things for a few days or even weeks so that your child will notice that you are pointing. You may have opportunity to point towards items such as airplanes flying by, tractors, or the moon—particularly if these things are interesting to your child. Point and look at these wonders together for a bit.
Pointing to ask a question
Point at the object and ask, Is this the one you want? Play dumb and point to the wrong thing at times. Bring down the wrong toy, pick the wrong food item from a high shelf, or put on your child's foot the wrong shoe. Make your point meaningful from your child's perspective, as in the clip below where the little girl asks the question: Is the hidden object in here?
In this game, a surprise is hidden under one of the cups. The child points at the cup to find out which one holds the surprise.
Here is another game that kids love, using a box that we call a point box. We use this video as a video model to demonstrate how pointing works before playing the game.
