How I Teach Critical Communication

Learning new skills is so important for our students!  Requesting "Help" "Break" "Stop" or "Wait" is a huge skill on its own.

How to Teach students to use a "Break or Help" card

1. Help your student to realise when they need to use the break/help card, before they get too frustrated or loose concentration. At the start of any activity, show the student the break card and place the card where they can easily reach it.

2. Point to the break/help card and tell them, “This is your break/help card. You can use it to ask for a break.” When your student starts to get frustrated or lose interest, You say “If you are getting upset, use your break card to tell me you need a break/help.” 3.Immediately allow the student to take a break/help from his tasks, or allow the student to move away to the "break area." I found that self regulating visuals on the bottom of the card is a fantastic way of calming your student while on a break. 4. Requesting is an important part of teaching the student to trust and use the visual support, once they are consistently asking for breaks, you may begin to extend the time between the request and the actual break.

5. I added visuals to the bottom of each card in order to redirect the student to what he can do instead, or while using the card and  popped all four cards onto a keyring for easy access!

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