Leo, aged 9 years with non verbal Autism

Leo is a young man of 10 years, whose learning has been significantly affected by his autism. Leo is non verbal, he uses signs to communicate and has never shown any natural curiosity in letters, and fine motor skills, but loves exploring and having books read to him.

For Leo to show motivation towards a subject it is important that he first builds an understanding of the 'concept' of handwriting so he has a 'hook' from which he can hang any future learning. After the HTW was introduced to Leo, he soon began to build an association between the animal characters and their respective movements. Character hooks were established with consistency, matching the animal movement and starting shapes we're built up for the cow and the pig categories. Leo moved on to associating the animal character, its movement with the starting shape.

The pace of Leo’s learning meant that time and effort focused on two categories the cow and pig to help consolidate his learning. Over time and with repetition Leo has begun to 'understand' and 'link' together letters, with early motor patterns of formation. Leo can with some support now write his name, and we are positive that with a consistent and regular level of exposure to the HTW Leo will learn to write more letters and words.

How did the HTW help Leo?

The HTW helped Leo to:

• Develop a ‘cognitive hook’ from which activities and games can be used to build a concept and understanding of simple handwriting skills.
• Match animal character to motor response and Makaton signs.
• Match together animal character with the correct starting shape.
• Discriminate between two different items, with decision-making.
• Increased his awareness of fine motor skills
• Link his understanding with the fine motor skills for mark making
• Form the letters for his name