Helping children with disability learn skills: practical strategies

Helping children with disability develop skills

This article takes you through 3 practical strategies for teaching skills to children with disability:

instructions: teaching by telling
modelling: teaching by showing
teaching step by step.

Teaching skills to children with disability is an important job, and getting support can help you feel confident about it. The professionals who work with your child will probably have great ideas and strategies for helping your child learn.

Choosing skills to teach to children with disability

If you choose appropriate skills to teach to your child, it can motivate your child, build their confidence and make it more likely that they’ll learn successfully.

Appropriate skills are skills that your child:

is physically and intellectually capable of learning
wants to learn
will benefit from – for example, skills that will help them be more independent.

When you work out what skills to teach your child, you can choose the right strategy to help them learn.

Your child is likely to learn more successfully if you focus on teaching only one thing at a time. For example, a child with cerebral palsy might use a lot of physical and mental energy just to sit upright in a chair, so it can be hard for them to learn anything else while sitting.

Instructions: teaching by telling

This is helping your child learn by explaining what to do or how to do it. This strategy works best if you plan the learning before you start.

Before you start

Think about how long your child can concentrate for and whether they can do the task in that time.
Make a simple plan of the task you want your child to learn. If the task involves several parts, break down your instructions into a series of simple steps.
Think about how to explain exactly what you want your child to do. For example, say, ‘Clean your teeth, and then get dressed for school’, rather than ‘Get ready for school’. Try starting with 1-2 specific instructions, and then add more steps.
If your child has trouble understanding words, you could use a poster or pictures to explain what you want your child to do.

As you go

Make sure you’ve got your child’s attention.
If your child can make eye contact, encourage your child to look at you while you speak.
Use language that your child understands. Keep your sentences short and simple, and keep checking that your child has understood.
Tell your child exactly what you want them to do. For example, ‘Put your clothes in the hamper’ is clearer than ‘Don’t leave your clothes on the floor’.
Aim for a calm and positive tone of voice. Your child can be distracted if you sound frustrated or upset.
Allow plenty of time (up to one minute) for your child to respond, and then give plenty of praise when your child follows your instruction. Say exactly what your child did right.
As your child learns, give fewer instructions and prompts, until you can phase these out completely.

When instructions aren’t working
Children might not follow instructions for many reasons. For example, they might not understand. They might need more opportunities to practise before they can do what you’re asking them to do. They might be tired or distracted. Or they just might not want to do what you’re asking.

You can try watching your child to work out why they’re not following an instruction and whether you could change things to help them. For example, is it a practical task that you could model for your child? Is it a complex task that needs to be broken down into smaller steps? Or could you try again in a few days or at a different time of day?

You can help your child learn successfully by reducing distractions and making sure that the environment is set up for your child to learn. It’s also important to keep an eye out for when your child is losing interest or getting tired.

Modelling: teaching by showing

Teaching your child by showing them what to do is called modelling. For example, you’re more likely to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ your child how to pack toys away, wash up a cup or feed a pet.

You can also use modelling to help your child learn how to interact with others – for example, asking a teacher for help, or introducing yourself to another person. And modelling is a great way to teach skills that are hard to explain in words, like body language and tone of voice.

Modelling might also be a good option if your child finds it hard to follow verbal instructions or make eye contact with you. Modelling means your child can watch your actions and behaviour as you show them what to do, rather than your face as you tell them.

Modelling might work for your child if they can see and imitate what others are doing.

Before you start

Make sure you’ve got your child’s attention.
Get your child to watch first, and then move slowly so that your child can clearly see what you’re doing.
If your child struggles to copy your actions while facing you, let your child sit alongside you, or copy you while watching from behind.

As you go

Break down the task if it’s complicated. Start with the easiest part and give your child time to try it before you move onto the next part.
Point out the important parts of what you’re doing. For example, ‘See how I’m …’.
Use ‘thinking aloud’ comments. For example, ‘That wasn’t quite right – I think I’ll try that again’.
Give your child the chance to practise after watching you, and give them prompts to remind them of the steps.

When the task is finished

Repeat the modelling if needed.
Praise and encourage your child.
Give your child plenty of opportunities to practise the skill, including in new places or situations.

It’s important not to model behaviour that you don’t want your child to learn – for example, giving up when it’s hard, or raising your voice when you’re angry. You might like to try our ideas for managing stress.

Teaching step by step

Some tasks or activities are complicated or need to happen in a specific order. For these, you can break the task down into smaller steps, and teach your child one step at a time.

For example, here’s how you might break down getting dressed:

Get clothes out.
Put on underpants.
Put on socks.
Put on shirt.
Put on pants.
Put on a jumper.

Each of these steps can be broken down into parts as well. For example, you could explain ‘Put on a jumper’ like this:

Face the jumper the right way.
Pull the jumper over your head.
Put one arm through.
Put the other arm through.
Pull the jumper down.

The idea of step-by-step teaching is to teach one step at a time. When your child has learned the first step, you teach the next step, then the next, and so on. You keep going until your child can do the whole task by themselves. You can use instructions and modelling to help your child learn each step.

A poster or picture cards showing each of the steps can help too.

Teaching with backwards steps
It’s often a good idea to teach a complicated task like getting dressed by starting with the last step, rather than the first. This is called backwards teaching.

For example, if you want to use backwards teaching for putting on a jumper, you might help your child put the jumper over their head and put their arms in. Then get your child to do the last step – that is, pulling the jumper down.

Once your child can pull the jumper down, get your child to put their arms through and then pull the jumper down. Go on like this until your child has mastered each step of the task and can do the whole thing.

Most of the time, it’s better to teach the last step first. This is because often the most rewarding thing about a job or task is getting it finished. Also, there’s more likely to be a natural reward for finishing the last step – for example, ‘I finished putting on my shoes, so I can play now’. These natural rewards keep your child motivated.

Helping your child complete the steps
You might help your child by gesturing, reminding them of the next step, or helping physically – for example, putting your hands over your child’s hands and guiding them through the movements. You can gradually phase out your help as your child learns the new skill.