Imitation — Another Important Skill To Teach Early
As we have mentioned, imitation is another important ‘learning-to-learn’ or ‘foundation’ skill. Like eye contact and pointing, once your child learns this skill, you can teach him many things by having him imitate your actions.
In fact, all children learn a great deal by watching those around them and imitating the things they do. And for children who have difficulties with language, learning through imitating others is an especially important skill.
The basic skill is that when you say, “Do this” or “You do” as you are making a movement, your child will copy what you are doing. In Module 9 (Special Learning Sessions), there are more specific instructions about teaching imitation. This includes imitating actions with and without objects and imitating sounds and words. For now, take advantage of opportunities throughout the day to teach simple imitation when you say, “You do,” or “Do this.”
For example, if you are having playtime or listening to music, you can take a spoon and give your child a spoon. Bang a simple rhythm on a plastic plate or the floor (for example, bang three times); then say, “you do.” If your child does not try to imitate you, help him by putting your hand over his and help him bang three times. You can do this several more times, trying to give less help each time. Make the activities enjoyable (as banging is for toddlers).
Let’s watch a video clip that we saw in Module 2. This video clip shows a teacher using prompts to help a little girl learn how to imitate or copy her movements. She holds her own arms up high and then helps the little girl to lift her arms too.
Notice how the teacher needs to use a full physical prompt the first few times. But then, the little girl begins to understand what the teacher is asking her to do and starts to do it all by herself! She is just beginning to understand what it means when the teacher says, “Do this,” or “You do.”
Be sure to find activities that your child enjoys. Then encourage her to try new things in these activities by imitating you. In the next video clip, the teacher is showing a little boy new things that he can do while playing in the sand box. Notice how the teacher does simple things like scooping sand into a mold and then patting it down before turning it over. Then he says, “You do,” and praises the little boy for trying to do the same thing.
Another example of activities toddlers enjoy is knocking things down. Stack 3 or 4 blocks while saying ‘up, up, up’ and then say, “down” just before knocking them “down!” Then do this with an extra block or two. If needed, prompt your child by moving his hand toward the stack. And you can make stacks out of lots of things!
In the next video clip, a teacher and a little boy are having great fun stacking toy ice cream scoops and knocking them down. Watch how the teacher models this for the little boy and then tries to get him to do it by himself by moving his hand toward the ice cream stack. When he pulls back, she just models it again but leaves one of the scoops on the cone. Then the little boy knocks the last scoop onto the floor with a flourish!
To stress the idea of imitation, you can make two stacks. Then you can knock one down and then say, “You do” and let her knock down the second stack.
During dressing or grooming, you can say “do this” while putting your arms up and then help your child to put his arms up and into his sleeves. Or you can show him things like brushing hair by running the brush through your own hair and then handing the brush to your child as you say, “You do”. In the following clip a teacher is beginning to teach a little girl to brush her own hair. Watch as the teacher models each brush stroke and then hands the brush to the little girl who tries to imitate her movements. For children who have difficulty understanding spoken language, learning to imitate others can be a great help in learning new skills.
Imitation is a really important foundation skill for learning to pretend. In the next clip, a teacher is teaching a little boy to pretend to feed a baby. She does this by showing the action with a baby doll and then handing the toy bottle to the boy and encouraging him to try. When he does it, she praises him and then tries the same thing with a spoon. He needs a little help with the spoon, but he is getting the idea!
Next, she models brushing the baby’s teeth and sure enough, he does a great job copying her.
Sometimes it is easier to start teaching the idea of imitation using objects. Once your child begins to imitate some of your movements using objects, try working on having him imitate movements that do not involve an object. To teach imitation without an object, you could hold your child’s hands and say, “Do this!” as you jump. If he doesn’t jump, repeat your jump and then help him jump by lifting him gently off the floor. Another example of imitating without an object is raising arms, as you saw in the earlier clip.
Teaching children to imitate sounds can be trickier because it is difficult to prompt a child to make a specific sound. This is especially true if they don’t yet have the general idea of trying to imitate others. Listen for sounds your child makes. This way, you know she can produce those sounds. In the following clip, the teacher notices that the child is interested in a toy microphone. Using the toy microphone, she tries to get the little boy to imitate some simple sounds. But when he doesn’t try to copy her, she switches to the sounds he is making. Notice how they go back and forth. They are taking turns making sounds into the microphone. This kind of turn taking is a basic building block for learning to talk with others.
There will be many chances through your day to work on teaching imitation. Remember to keep the activities fun. For example, you could blow bubbles and pop some. Then you could blow more bubbles and say, “You do!” Or you could put on a funny hat and hand her one, etc. We will give you more information about teaching your child to imitate in Module 9. But, for now, we just want you to introduce your child to the idea of imitation.
Now we are going to ask you to answer some questions about what you have learned. Some of the questions will have choices. Some will be true or false questions. Some will be fill-in-the- blank questions. A good way to work on these questions is to read each question, think about the answer, make your best guess and then read on to have the answer explained. There will be 10 questions and one bonus question! If you answer all of the questions correctly, you are probably ready to try out some of the suggestions we have made in this section. However, if some of the questions were difficult for you, or, if you answered them all correctly but feel you could benefit from going through this section one more time, you might want to do so before moving ahead.