Dr. Becky MacDonald, Senior Program Director, and Susan Langer, Chief Program Officer, recently published Teaching Essential Discrimination Skills to Children with Autism: A Practical Guide for Parents and Educators. 
Discrimination skills enable us to tell one object from another, understand that different things have different names, and use those names to perform a wide range of cognitive and language skills, including following spoken instructions, communicating, and reading. The book outlines outlines a systematic, evidence-based curriculum to promote children’s learning. Based on the authors’ thirty years of research, the user-friendly text and illustrative case studies cover:
- Delivering effective instruction (repeat trials, brisk pacing, child’s active participation, reinforcement)
- Types of discrimination skills (understanding differences, matching like to like, matching words to objects, following spoken-word instructions)
- Prompting and prompt fading
- Prerequisite skills (imitation, readiness to learn)
- Overcoming barriers to learning (lack of scanning, low motivation)
- Assessing a child’s entry level to the curriculum
- Curriculum sequence, specific discrimination skills instruction, and remedial strategies
Parents and educators can use this book to teach foundational discrimination skills that help children become more proficient and independent in a variety of ways, such as using picture activity schedules and augmentative and alternative communication systems, mastering more complex academic skills, and applying learning across many situations in their daily lives.
To purchase please visit Amazon.