Teaching Students w/ASD 4.2: Teaching the Core Competencies

The core competencies are the soft-skills that everyone needs to be successful in life. These are the building blocks. These are particularly important for students with ASD because students with ASD may find challenges with communication and/or social situations and relationships, so providing opportunities to work on these explicitly are extremely beneficial. (Tarbox, Sturmey, Dixon, & Matson, n.d.) For instance, teaching how to communicate with someone through, turn-taking, listening, and replying back to the speaker are skills that are important for everyday life and that through explicitly teaching the core competencies we can help our students with ASD build these fundamental skills.

This reminds me of a video I once watched at a pro-d event that I LOVED, that briefly emphasizes the importance of these skills. 

I start teaching the language for the core competencies at the beginning of the year. Because my students are so young, and the language is difficult to comprehend, I don't introduce them all at once and I break them down to a few simple "I can" statements and label a bucket with them. I teach what the "I can" statements look like and we discuss them. Then, I have popsicle sticks with students' names on them and recognize students throughout the week for demonstrating an "I can" statement for a particular competency. This will sound like, "Today I noticed, __________ can listen to friends and share his/her/their ideas respectfully. Thank you, _________, for being a great communicator."

Reference: 
Tarbox, J., Dixon, D., Sturmey, P. and Matson, J., n.d. Handbook Of Early Intervention For Autism Spectrum Disorders. Springer, pp.3-19.