Or, how your mother taught you tie your shoelace.
Or, how you watched your friends playing hopscotch and joined them by doing the same.
In all of the above situations, beside listening to the spoken instructions, you learnt the skills by attending to the persons demonstrating the tasks and imitating their actions in an immediate or deferred manner. You would pay attention to the timing of each action, the number of repeated times of action, duration, magnitude, how the object or tool is manipulated, etc. You would notice the sequence of actions and carry out the chain of steps in order.
However, children with ASD often have great difficulties with imitation. Even when they do copy actions from others, many of them do not attend to the various components of an action, hence producing a sloppy, inaccurate imitation. And weak imitation skills often lead to deficits in language, pretend play, social interaction and emotional exchange. Furthermore, it slows down the acquisition of skills in many other areas like self-help skills, group skills, learning effectively in both academic and non-academic subjects, and community skills.
Yet, it is a common phenomenon that imitation training is only seen at the initial stage of therapy, targeting imitation of sounds, body actions and manipulation of objects, like musical instruments and simple toys. Contexts are often very structured and limited to desktop and therapy room. It may improve a child’s ability to understand the instruction of ‘copy me’, but the overly simple and non-daily samples of actions do not facilitate the child to attend and imitate various aspects of demonstration seen in natural settings.
At the beginning stage of training, it may be necessary to choose simple actions that do not require physical prompting from teacher like clapping hands, stomping feet, or banging drum to help the child understand the contingency of imitation, i.e. when the teacher does an action, the student should do the same. However, the training dos not stop when a child is able to copy numerous simple body actions or manipulation of items. Instead, imitation training continues with the goal of perfecting the skill in our children. The following are some aspects to consider when refining imitation skills:
1. Performing chain of actions, like how it is done in nursery rhymes or warm-up exercises for swimming class.
2. Varying duration of an action, e.g. continuing shaking a maraca or banging drum for a song.
3. Varying magnitude of the same movement, e.g. how hard you throw a ball.
4. Increasing distance between the teacher and the child.
5. Increasing number of components copied in an action, e.g. copying sound and movement at the same time.
6. Deferred imitation, i.e. the child copies the action sometime after the demonstration.
Some daily imitation examples are movements in nursery rhymes, self-help routines like brushing teeth and washing hands, pretend play with props and figurines, exercise routines, and art-and-craft activities. And, sometimes, specific breakdowns may be required because of the child’s specialized needs and abilities. For example, when a child intends to learn to play piano formally, the child may first have to learn to attend and copy movements of fingers on piano keys.
Since our ultimate goal is for our children to learn in natural environment, ranging from playground to classroom, the contents and contexts of teaching, regardless of the stage of training, should be as natural and meaningful as possible. By doing so, we also don’t have to worry about spending extra amount of time to generalize the skill in natural settings.
Information provided by Autism Partnership
Autism Partnership (AP) is one of the most established Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) service providers for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in the world. Formed in 1994 in the United States, AP is run by professional clinicians and specializes in providing one-on-one therapy, group interventions and overseas consultation for children with ASD and their families.
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[:zh]先讓我們花點時間回憶一下你的體育老師怎樣教你翻筋斗。或者，母親怎樣教你綁鞋帶。
又或者，你是如何從觀察同伴玩跳飛機並加入他們的遊戲。
在上述所有情況中，除了聽口頭指示外，你還通過留意別人的示範並以即時或延遲的方式模仿他們的行為來學習新的技能。你會注意到每個動作開始的時間，重複的次數，維持動作的時間，動作的強度，操作物件或工具的手法等。你也會留意到技巧中步驟的次序並順序執行整套動作。
然而，患有自閉症的兒童通常在模仿方面遇到很大的困難。即使他們能夠大概模仿別人的示範，大部分人也沒有注意到別人行為的各個組成部分，因此做出草率、不準確的模仿。而薄弱的模仿技巧往往導致語言、假裝遊戲、社交互動和情感交流的缺失，也拖慢了許多其他領域的進度，如自理技巧，小組能力，學術和非學術科目的表現以及社區技能。
可是，普遍的現象是模仿訓練往往僅在治療的初始階段出現。其目標通常是模仿聲音，身體動作和操縱物件，例如樂器和簡單的玩具。而訓練的環境通常只限於桌面和治療室。這些高度結構化的訓練可以提高孩子理解「跟我做」的指令，但是過於簡單和非日常的模仿目標不利於孩子在自然環境中留意和模仿複雜的行為或技巧。
訓練初期，由於要令孩子理解模仿的原理 (即是當老師做一個動作時，學生應該做出相同的動作)，老師可能有必要選擇簡單的動作作為訓練目標，如拍手，跺腳或敲鼓等不需要輔助完成的動作。當孩子能夠模仿許多簡單的身體動作或操作物件的手法時，訓練不會停止並朝著提升模仿能力的方向繼續進行。以下是在提升模仿技能時需要考慮的一些方面：
1.演示一連串的動作，例如唱童謠時不斷跟隨老師的動作，或在游泳課中跟教練熱身。
2.延長持續一個動作時間，例如為一首歌繼續搖晃沙搥或敲鼓。
3.改變動作的強度，例如輕輕的還是大力地扔球。
4.增加老師和孩子之間的距離。
5.增加需要模仿的元素，例如同時間發出聲音和做出動作。
6.推遲模仿，即在示範過後一段時間才模仿動作。
一些日常的模仿例子包括童謠中的舞蹈動作，自理規律如刷牙和洗手，用道具和玩偶玩假想遊戲，運動規律和手工藝活動。有時，由於孩子的特殊需要和能力，他們的模仿技巧需要更針對性的分析及訓練。例如，當孩子有意跟正統的老師學習鋼琴時，孩子可能首先必須學會觀察並模仿鋼琴鍵上的手指動作。
由於我們的最終目標是讓孩子們在學校、遊樂場等自然環境中學習，無論訓練階段是甚麽，教學的內容和情景都應盡可能自然和有意義。通過這樣做，我們也不必擔心花額外的時間在自然環境中的泛化模仿技巧。
資訊由Autism Partnership提供
Autism Partnership （AP）於1994年在美國成立，是全球最具規模為自閉症患者提供『應用行為分析』(ABA) 治療的專業機構。AP是由多位專業臨床心理學家、應用行為分析治療顧問及治療師管理，為患有自閉症譜系障礙（ASD）的兒童及其家庭提供一對一治療、行為干預小組訓練及海外諮詢服務。
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