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Ninety-nine percent of the time I see parents or therapists speak to individuals with special needs in a loud tone or repeat dialogues multiple times. Is it necessary?
We might be thinking the child did not hear us, or won't listen to us until we shout or tell multiple times. But let me tell you unless they do not have any hearing problem the idea of speaking loud does not make any sense when repeating the same instruction or dialogue is nothing but insulting the person.
When we speak to children in a particular tone only they tend to respond only to those types of tones. Similarly when we tell the same instruction four times to make the child follow he also thinks I am expected to do something at the fourth repetition of commands.
Let’s go through some examples.
"Ajay is a child with special needs. His mother loudly tells him each instruction. Mother talks to everyone else in a normal tone. When Ajay's uncle comes home He said Ajay to get a book that was next to Ajay. Ajay knows what a book is, and he knows how to transfer as well, but he was taught to give the book only if the other person tells loudly. When mother turns to Ajay and tells him to provide the book to his uncle he immediately does it, Of Course, she did it loudly as usual.
Sometimes individuals with special needs tend to respond only to a few people or places etc. Professionals call it generalization issues. But the roots of Ajay’s issue lie in the teaching approach. We should keep the teaching setting for the children as closer to the real world as possible. Imagine the same shouting a random person does to your child, do you mind? The child might also be aware that everyone else is shouting at him. If he knew the words probably he would have told us to stop it by now. You wouldn't be surprised when children throws tantrum when their parents shout at them.
Now let's see another case. Vineetha, a girl with special needs was asked to get water for her mother. Vineetha's mother is sure that she knows how to get some water. The mother repeats the instruction two more times. Vineetha did not move. Mother said one more time "water", then Vineetha went to get the water. What is happening here?
Mother thinks Vineetha knows the water and she did not listen to her command. At the same time, Vineetha thinks maybe it's fun to test mother's patience ( if she is an attention seeker) or she thinks Mother tells everything 3 times to me then only I have to follow or she might be lazy to go around and can wait for the mother to repeat until she gets angry."
"What are the solutions then? Respect the child first. Teach him or her to say no if they don't want to do something. Teach them things in a natural tone, like how you wanted others to talk to you. Do you want others to tell you something four times before you do? Do you want people to come and make faces at you? We don't want that from others as much as the children do not want these discriminations from us as well.
The best approach is if your child did not follow your instruction the first time in the natural tone, repeat it one more time but be ready to add assistance to turn them into success at this time. For example, when uncle told Ajay to pass the book, Uncle could have repeated the instruction one more time and pointed at the book, and show a gesture to pass the book to him.
Similarly, Vineetha's mother can add assistance by pointing at the kitchen when she repeated the instruction a second time.
But what is the key here? The gesture (prompt) to get the item should turn into a successful response from the child, if not the assistance level should increase to get a successful response from the child.
Let's understand it one more time. If your child or student does not respond to you correctly after the first instruction what should you do? Shout? Repeat multiple times? No. Give the next best assistance to do that successfully. Or just teach them all again.
Beyond everything, we should remember the individual with special needs is also a human being, a citizen, who has all the rights to be respected and treated equally. In the urge to prove their skills to the world are we helping them? supporting them? or just testing them every day, for our own happiness? They can hear you, they may not know or forget it suddenly, let's be gentle.
DON'T SHOUT!!! THEY CAN HEAR YOU. If you want them to do what you say, just TEACH them again. Not just instruction again.
– Heart of a behaviorist
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