Using Daily Routines To Teach Toddlers Quiz
1. For toddlers, between 18 and 30 months of age, who need extra help with language and social development:
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The correct answer is D: You can help stimulate your child’s development through learning activities that can be part of daily routines. There is a lot that you can do to stimulate language and social development in the context of your regular, daily routines. If you interact with your toddler as much as possible and make yourself fun to be with, by turning daily routines into learning activities and games, you can teach a great deal and also increase your child’s attention and compliance. Once your child is attending to you more, and more inclined to follow your instructions, you will have a better chance of success with more structured, special learning sessions.
For answer A, If you are concerned about your child’s development, it’s not a good idea to wait for months or years. The games we suggest in this program should be fun and educational for every child. They will give your child a head start, even if it turns out that he doesn’t need extra help. If you are concerned about your child’s development and can get a formal evaluation and professional intervention for your child, no matter how young he is, you should do that.
For answer B, some 2-year-olds may be able to sit for a few minutes at a time in special sitting and learning sessions, especially if they have a professional early intervention provider. If you can get consultation from a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) you should do that as soon as possible. A good BCBA should have the skill-set to begin with very structured teaching sessions even for toddlers. However most 18 to 30 month old children are likely to get frustrated and bored when a parent tries this, and it’s important to make learning and interacting pleasant. For this reason, we suggest teaching your very young child skills in the natural environment, in the context of daily routines.
For answer C, of course, it is simply not possible to keep your child engaged every minute of the day. However, you should try to do so for as much of the day as you can. If your child likes to be alone, especially if he becomes involved in self-absorbed activities, it’s not a good idea to just let him do that. It’s like any bad habit – the more you do it, the more you want to do it. Try to gently interrupt these activities by joining into the child’s play and redirecting the child to interact with you.
2. Which three of these behaviors are signs that a young child has a strong attachment to a parent?
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The correct answers are A, B, and C. These are all signs of a child being attached to a parent. There is nothing at all wrong with a 2-year-old who likes to do things for himself – many 2-year-olds are interested in learning how to do things for themselves and are very proud of themselves when they can. However, this should go along with the signs of a strong emotional attachment to parents.
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The correct answer is TRUE. If your child tends not to be very engaged with you, giving him lots of toys that he can play with all by himself will not help him to be more engaged with you.
4. Your child is lying on the floor spinning the wheels of a toy car and staring at them, and has been doing this for several minutes. A good thing to do might be to:
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The best answer is D. By joining his play and making it an interactive game, you are encouraging him to interact with you while he plays with toy cars. You could do this by building two little ramps out of blocks and books, or just rolling the cars on a bare floor. Try to make the game as much fun as possible. And use the game to distract him from staring at the wheels and redirect him to interact with you instead. Answer A, just letting him keep doing it, is not a great idea, since the more children do these solitary activities, the harder they can be to interrupt. Answer B, scolding, is also not a great idea. It is much more successful to replace a non-desired behavior with a constructive one than to scold the child for the non-desired behavior. Finally, answer C, taking the car away, might be all right if you give the child something else to play with. However, it would probably be more interesting, and possibly less upsetting to the child, to use the car in a different way. After all, he chose the car to play with. Also, letting him find another toy to play with by himself doesn’t encourage him to interact with you. That said, there are some children who can become so fixated on playing with a certain toy in a certain way, that they become very upset when you interrupt them or try to change their routine. In that case, it’s best to distract the child with another toy or set of toys, preferably toys that you can share with him, while removing the toy that he plays with inappropriately. Then it might be a good idea to put that toy away for a while.
5. It is useful to get other family members to play fun games with your child because
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The correct answer is D, all of the above. Each of these statements is a good reason why if possible, you should encourage other members of the family or close friends to do fun activities with your child.
6. For a child who speaks only one word at a time (for example, “juice,” “up”), a good part of what you say to him should be:
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The correct answer is B. It’s fine to sometimes use sentences you would naturally use, or to use one word at a time, but at a good part of your language should be geared just slightly above your child’s current level. So if he is using one word at a time, you could model two or three words combinations. It’s also fine to use mostly words you know he understands, but you want him to learn new words too. So, use new words in contexts that will help him understand. For example, you could ask him if he would like some cheese by holding up a slice of cheese while saying “Cheese?”
7. Dressing and undressing might be a good time to work on which three of these concepts?
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The correct answers are B, C, and D. On and off, and the words for body parts and clothing are all great concepts to teach while dressing and undressing. To teach the words “on” and “off” you can take an item of clothing that is easy to put on and take off, like a hat or a sock. Put them on and take them off repetitively while saying “hat on, hat off,” or “sock on, sock off.” Make it fun by saying “I found your foot!” when you pull the sock off and then tickling the child’s foot. Or, you could hide the sock behind your back and pretend you can’t find it, saying, “Oh no! Where’s the sock? It’s lost!” Then pull it out with a flourish, saying something like, “Here it is! I found it!” And then put it back on his foot again while talking about his cute little “foot” or his “toes.”
8. When your child is first learning pretend play, which might be a good pretend play action to start with?
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The best answer is B. Eating is an action with which every child will be very familiar. For this reason, pretending to feed a baby is a nice, simple action that children just learning pretend play might be able to understand and imitate. Answer A, pretending to play school, would be great for an older child who is already good at pretend play, and who is familiar with the idea of a classroom because he goes to school. For Answer C, any pretend play should involve the child attending to you. Finally D, playing with bubbles, is a great way to encourage communication, but it’s not pretend play.
9. Mrs. Brown is planning to do laundry with her 2-year-old son, Lester. This might be a good time for them to work on which concepts?
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You can work on any of these concepts while doing laundry, and lots more, too. Just keep the concepts and the language simple, and be sure to prompt (if needed) and reinforce your child’s participation in the activity.
| 10. Mrs. Smith was trying to get her 2-year-old daughter, Laura, to help clean up her toys. She held up a piece of a cookie that Laura particularly liked and said she could have it after they put away all the books, dolls, blocks, and cars. What is the one thing she might have done differently?A. She could have promised Laura a trip to the park if she helped clean up.
B. She could have given Laura something healthier like a piece of an apple. C. She was asking Laura to do too much at one time. She could have asked her to put away one or two things and rewarded her for doing so with a piece of cookie and praise for each thing Laura cleaned up. D. She should not have offered a reward for something the child should have done anyway |
The correct answer is C. Putting away all those toys may be an overwhelming task for a two year old. It’s best to start out with only 1 or 2 things at a time that need to be organized. Then you can slowly increase the number of toys and books that need to be put away. For answer A, a trip to the park is certainly a nice big reward. But young children won’t connect the reward to the behavior with a long delay between them, so the immediate reward of cookie is better than the bigger but delayed reward of a trip.
For answer B, it is also true that Mrs. Smith could have given Laura a healthier snack as a reward. However, it is important that the rewards are things that the child likes a lot and doesn’t get very often. For answer D, some parents do feel that their children should do as they ask without any rewards, and we certainly understand this, but if you want to teach in the most effective and successful way, it’s best to use rewards. In fact, use rewards often, followed by praise, so the child will know that you are happy that he did what you wanted him to do, and so that he will be more likely to do as you ask in the future.
We really hope that you will enjoy using these ideas to help your child learn new skills and concepts during the course of your regular daily routines. Most important of all is to use these activities to keep your child happily engaged with you for as much time as you can during each day. Have fun with it!
Now we’re going to move on to Module 5- More Daily Routines. In this module, we will go through the day, describing and showing you more learning activities you could do during the various parts of your daily routine. All of these are just examples and suggestions. With a little practice, you will be able to come up with more. Just use toys and activities your child is interested in, and focus on encouraging engagement with you and other adults and children. Don’t forget to use prompting to help your child do what you ask of him and also remember to reinforce your child immediately after he does something you want him to do.