What We Do

“Being lazy”

One day, Pak Chun was reclining on a chair lazily and totally ignored his therapist. Pak Chun’s level of compliance and language skills were quite weak, therefore the therapist induced him to speak by using his favourite toy train and then taught him to say “(I) want”. At the beginning, Pak Chun could only make an “e” sound. With more practices, Pak Chun has gradually said the word more accurately and has even talked to people actively.

【A “gall” pit】

Ho Sen loved ball pits very much, but he could not pronounce words which start with the consonants “b” and “p”. He said “ball” as “gall”. Our therapist broke down the pronunciation of the word “ball” into several parts, then started with teaching Ho Sen to keep his lips tightly closed and to say “um”. When he was able to say “um”, then learnt to pronounce “ba” and “bo” step-by-step. After a series of training, Ho Sen has been able to say “I want to play in the ball pit!”

“No More A Recorder”

Ho Hin’s comprehension was quite weak. He always repeated what other people said or imitated sounds. Our therapist reminded Ho Hin not to copy others’ words and purposely gave him longer instructions, so that he was hard to copy. Ho Hin’s self-control ability has been getting better. He has been able to follow instructions and even describe actions. At the end of his training, Ho Hin could also answer questions about his name, age and the place where he lived.

“Speak louder”

Appropriate voice volume is very important for communication, but some children with autism do not know how to manage. Yee Fan tended to speak very softly. Our therapist first taught him to distinguish between loud and soft sounds, then leaded him to say after the therapist at a higher volume. Yee Fan has gradually learnt to greet people and ask questions with an appropriate volume. He has also become talking to peers more actively.

“Sequence/Random”

For many children with autism, order is important. On this day, our therapist arranged number building blocks of 1 to 10 randomly. Nam immediately shout at the therapist when he saw the blocks were listed 1, 2, and then 4. The therapist then always presented numbers in an order of 1, 2, 4 purposely during the training to teach Nam to stay calm. Nam has gradually accepted the random order of numbers and has even been able to count and write random numbers.

“I am between Peppa and George!”

Many children cannot differentiate spatial concepts like “on”, “under”, “left”, “right”, etc. How can we improve their spatial ability?

Before training, Yau only said “here” or “there” to explain where objects were. Our therapist made use of treasure hunt games to teach Yau about spatial concepts. He has gradually understood the meaning of “on”, “under”, “left” and “right”, then he was also able to find the treasures by following directions given by his therapist. Near the end of the training, Yau had better understanding of spatial relationships of objects. He was able to describe the position of the characters on the whiteboard, “I am between Peppa and George!”

Pak Chun, Ho Sen, Ho Hin, Yee Fan, Nam and Yau were invited to present their experience in receiving ABA services with Autism Partnership Foundation (operating in Hong Kong) (APF, HK). Pak Chun, Ho Sen, Ho Hin, Yee Fan, Nam and Yau are past beneficiaries of APF, HK.