How to teach them the time conceptMy 5 year old NT kids still use time concepts pretty loosely. I am not sure if this is due to truely not understanding the concepts or more due to syntax problems- which is typical for 5 year olds. Some things that have helped us: learning the order of the weekdays and daily meals in sing-song version. Anything sung seems much easier to remember. For shorter amounts of time -like our 15 min evening clean-up I put out the time-timer which is a clock with a visual red window that counts down the time. Works great for all my kids in visualizing time. http://www.timetimer.com/products.php All in all I think understanding time is a tough concept for kids and not something a 3.5 year old typically has mastered. Any actvities that you do to help learn sequence events will help this. I have read that some people on the autism spectrum have a hard time understanding events a related to each other or as following a particular order. They experience life as a bunch of jumbeld up snapshots with little rhym or reason. Visual aides that show our kids in which order their day progresses or using language like 'First you....then you...' does help. I have in my hands the Early Developemtal Milstnones (A Tool for observing and measuring a child's developement) written by Jean Scott. He mentions under; Understands simple time concepts: 2.9 day., night 3.0 before, after 3.0 now, today 4.0 yesterday, tomorrow 4.6 morning, afternoon, evening 4.6 sooner, later, in few minutes So as you see, guess that it is a little early even for NT kids, to know that
My little 3.5 PDD-NOS is so confused with "yesterday, this morning, today, tomorrow, last time"....anyway he mixes everything and doesn't seem to get it yet. I don't know if it is the age and he needs more time to process and understand that or is it related to his condition. And how can i teach him those concepts? Thank you Our daycare began teaching days by calling SSSSaturday and SSSunday "SSSStay-at-home days!" Days were divided by FOOD (what else?). But I was told by the school autism coach that time perception like that often does not begin until age 6 or 7! And not to worry excessively. We STILL have to remind the kids, Yesterday is the day before today, tomorrow is the day AFTER today! I like Kelly's suggestions, however, in the mean time! We used to have a chart with pictures of the sun going down, coming up, going down again. We also had pictures of activities that were from the previous day--Each day, we had a sun come up. the day before had a sun go down and a moon picture--under yesterday, we had a pic of swimming, or karate, or whatever had been the previous day. I had a day, a time (like, they got up at 7 am), picture of breakfast, lunch, etc....it's kinda complicated and was a big board--the kind you see in offices that do presentations. We had before, during, after...First we have breakfast, then dressed, then...etc...going right through the day routine until night. At night, the moon was there with the date..and next day was a sunrise again..only I had the day of the week under the new day, and started back with routines. It sounds like a lot but, it was only thing that worked in my house. As for time--cable boxes were our friend. They showed the time. So, I would tell them time by putting numbers up, and they would match the numbers to the ones on the cable box. RE: 7:00 with sunrise...get up, then dressed at 7:30, get on bus 8:00, etc. As they got older, analog and digital was taught at school with a dollar-store cardboard clock with a face on it and plastic hands. Time, I noticed in our family, seemed to not make sense until functions to days were added--especially as they get older and, school has certain days for computer, art, music, pe, computer lab--weekends are routines that involve things like church, respite, etc. I even had pictures of what was on the menu for the week--cut them out of magazines, prior to having a good printer for pictures. That way, they also remembered what they had to eat the day before. Took forever but, I took coaching classes for organizational-routine planning, helping other mothers of twins and...just kinda improvised on the adult version, making it more detailed for the kids. Our almost 6yo is much better with time basics, but we definitely noticed a delay in her abiity to conceive of and express time. When she was 3 and 4, anything that happened in the past was "last night." We're still dealing with hours of the day. C didn't fully grasp these concepts until kindergarten. Prior to that, he grasped the concept of "today" pretty easily but would use "yesterday" to refer to any past event and "tomorrow" to refer to any future event. Example: "Mommy, I played that when we were on vacation yesterday" instead of "Mommy, I played with that when we were on vacation 3 months ago" LOL. I think the best way is to teach days of week first, then the calendar, before the more abstract concepts of today, yesterday and tomorrow. The days of the week and the calendar are drilled in during kindergarten. For example once C could see that "today" was Tuesday the 4th, he could understand that "yesterday" was Monday the 3rd and "tomorrow" would be Wednesday the 5th. Having the names and numbers, and the visual model of the calendar in front of him, made this all click for him right around age 5. Hi i am new to this site and my daughter hasn't been dx'd yet but she is 6yrs old and her time concept still hasn't developed she still says things like last year for things that happened yesterday and the other way around. Then i will say a few minuites time she will say that is long then i will say a couple of hours and she will say that is not enough, then she will say is today tomorrow, she is at moment just at the beginning of the process or being dx'd but i have known from the age of 18mth to 2yrs something wasn't right, i have told the speech and language therapist my concern she is going to talk to her colleagues. Nice to meet you all anyway Sharon xWelcome to the board! My dd is almost 3, and has absolutely no concept of any of it, so far as I can tell. She never mentions anything in the past, or anything that may be coming up (unless it's something that day), so I don't know what she thinks of time. My ds is 5 1/2, and kinda-sorta gets some of it. We have one of those school style bulletin board calendar sets. It has the calendar, a days of the week thing (where you velcro on the "yesterday was", "today is", "tomorrow will be" things), and a weather thing (today it is _____ and ______). He is forever asking when things are. I made a thing using a "teaching clock" underneath a regular, analog clock. We set the arms to when something is going to be, and he can see when the clocks match. I also do this w/ his clock radio in his room - just write down the numbers. The only thing with that, is if he misses it by one minute - then it doesn't match. With the analog, there is more wiggle room for it to still match up. But, none of that helps him w/ how much longer. Same goes w/ the digital timer we use. I'm constantly telling him "when you hear the beep" - but that doesn't help w/ how much longer until the beep. I absolutely LOVE the red-timer thing!!! I think that just might do it. [QUOTE=samsam11209] My little 3.5 PDD-NOS is so confused with "yesterday, this morning, today, tomorrow, last time"....anyway he mixes everything and doesn't seem to get it yet. I don't know if it is the age and he needs more time to process and understand that or is it related to his condition. And how can i teach him those concepts? Thank you [/QUOTE] i still have no cocept of time .it a hard thing to learn .but i cant do math .or tell time on a reg watch i have to use a digtal watch Colin LOVES calendars! That came from the board, first..then the school having one at the front of the room, when he first got to Kindergarten...He is in charge of changing the dates at school now..and he can tell me what day is what, even if it is 2 years ago! It is kinda amazing! Daniel loves to have his own calender just for his things. The agenda books works great for him also. The best way to educate our kids these days is with educational computer software todays kids love the technology. I do as well I did dishes while Daniel did his Lexia that was great. |
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the only concept that he should be able to know for now is today (in the list you mentioned).