Teaching Directional Prepositions

An absolutely necessary foundational skill is understanding and using directional

prepositions.  These include "next to", "above", "under", "in-between", "on top of",  "below", "top", "middle", and "bottom".  In my experience, not only are these concepts often absent from my young clients' skill repertoire, but they can also be the source of frustration leading to behavioral issues.   While neurotypical kids may pick this skill up naturally, many kids with ASD may need a little more help with these concepts.  

Narrating your behavior and the child's can help teach these terms.  If you use these terms frequently and deliberately in a variety of situations, they are more likely to generalize these skills.  Try the following to help develop this skill in the natural environment.

Playing with blocks or legos-  "Hm, what block did you put under the orange one?  Oh it's the green square".  You can even sing a song like, "The red block is under the blue block that is under the orange block that is under the green block and the green block is on top."  

Narrate your actions - "Let's go up to the top of the slide."  "Look, you are sitting in between Tommy and Susie."  

Pretend play with Little People or action figures -  "I see that you put the farmer in the tractor.  Where is he going?   He's going around the barn.  Look, the cow is next to the pig.  You just put the chicken under the table.  I'm going to put the pig in the barn."  

I created several automated PowerPoint apps that work on these skills.  You could also use them as a simple assessment.  This free app has a jungle theme with moving animals and sounds.  You have to have a subscription of PowerPoint to use it even though it runs like an application.  If the child you are working with does not read, you can read the questions to them and they can click on the animal or object.  If they choose the correct animal, it will move or make a sound.

Here is another app with a different theme to work on these skills.  It is very similar to the one above but gives the student more opportunities to practice these skills in a fun way while also practicing using a mouse.  These are a great alternative or addition to Discrete Trial Training.  You can also change the order of the slides to make it different each time.

This automated PowerPoint app works specifically on "top, middle, and bottom" in various different situations. This app has 24 opportunities for skill building with eight different situations for finding the top, middle, and bottom including three cartoon dinosaurs on a hillside, princesses in a castle, and more realistic situations like three blocks, and items on shelves.  Like my other PowerPoint apps, you can open the app in edit mode and change the order of the slides to make it different each time.