Teaching scanning skill to children with Autism

Children with autism often exhibit abnormal scanning responses, or lack entirely. It has been observed that in spite of knowing the things or concepts, they are not able to complete the task due to lack of scanning skills.

A simple example is an identification activity. When an array of 3 or 4 objects are given for identification, it has been seen that many times the kid can’t select the right one. It is not that they don’t know the correct response but lack of proper scanning skill and poor eye tracking stop them from choosing the correct option. Matching to sample procedure is an example of another activity where performance of the kid is affected due to lack of scanning skill. Scanning is an essential part of many functional skills like reading. Without this ability, reading would be quite difficult for school goers too. By intervening early in the children’s life, they can be taught scanning response, which can lead to improved perfomance. Kids should be taught to do complete scan prior to making a selection. Studies have indicated that scanning may be a behavioural cusp. A basic ABA design can be used for this purpose. Initially, the kids are taught to track a preferred edible across three blank cards, then preferred tangible objects, and next a finger point. For older kids, some visual scanning activities like completing mazes, word searches, cutting shapes with scissors, tracing lines, visual scanning games, visual scanning occupational therapy activities and other visual scanning exercises that teachers, therapists, and parents can use to develop the skills