WHY IMITATION IS SO IMPORTANT
Most young children are natural mimics. They copy what they see their parents do; they copy the sounds and the gestures their parents make and the words they say; they even copy how their parents walk and dress. They often favor imitating other children—especially their brothers and sisters, as well as kids who are the same age or a little older and whom they admire.
Imitation is a powerful learning tool for all of us. Our brains are set up to remember and learn from watching other people, and children remember what they see others do for a long time, even without practicing it. This means that children can imitate an action immediately after seeing someone else perform it, as in the often spontaneous games that even the youngest children play with siblings, friends, and parents. But they can also imitate it later, because they remember what they have observed.
This special capacity comes to us in part through brain cells called mirror neurons, which link actions that we see others do to our own action patterns. With the help of mirror neurons, in a way we actually experience what we see others do: Mirror neurons fire in the brain both when we perform an action and when we see it performed. This means that, at least to a degree, a new action becomes a part of an observer’s skill set before the observer actually imitates it. This is how we learn by watching and remembering. But we also learn by doing. So the seedling of a skill that resides in the child’s brain because the child has watched and remembered that skill in action becomes more fully learned once the child starts putting it into action herself.
Children’s neural capacity for imitation lets parents, siblings, grandparents, and others pass learning on to children without even trying or thinking about it. Skills of all kinds get passed from person to person, across generations, in an effortless fashion that allows each generation to start where the last one left off instead of starting over. Many people believe that imitation and language together are what have created the amazingly complex, rich cultures that people all over the globe have developed over thousands of years.
Imitation is an especially powerful tool for learning how to interact socially with others. This is because social behavior involves many complex and subtle rules, many of which we haven’t consciously thought about. For example, when we are interacting with others, we naturally know how far or close we should stand apart from the other person; we unconsciously imitate the other person’s facial expressions and gestures; and we time our responses so that the conversation has a natural ebb and flow. No one actually taught us to do this. We learned all of these social behaviors through imitation rather than through explicit instruction.
Children’s almost automatic imitation of other people affects them in countless ways. When children (and adults) see another person’s expression and emotions, their mirror neurons fire, allowing them to feel the other person’s emotion. When they imitate another person’s facial expression, they actually come to feel that emotion as well, allowing them to share the other person’s inner feelings. Have you ever watched people’s faces when they are watching an emotional movie? You can see the emotions of the actors played out on the faces of the people watching the movie. This ability to be emotionally connected to others through imitation happens even in toddlers. Children’s almost automatic imitation of other people enriches them in countless ways:
• It fosters empathy, which increases the capacity to learn from others. When children imitate someone else’s facial expression, doing so triggers the same emotion in them that they are observing. This happens even in toddlers, who can be seen to burst into tears themselves when they watch someone they know start to cry. You probably remember times when just seeing someone else in pain or distress has brought on the same feeling in you. You probably felt a wave of sympathy or empathy for that person and a desire to comfort or help. This helps people feel deeply connected to each other, which tends to increase the desire to pay attention to each other, which in turn increases the potential to learn from each other.
• It helps children learn language. When babies and toddlers imitate the sounds that they hear around them, using their own “baby talk,” they are practicing making the sounds of their own language. Their ability to imitate parents’ words allows them both to perceive and to express their native language.
• It promotes nonverbal communication. When young children imitate other people’s gestures and postures, they pick up all those extra cues that add meaning to speech—the ones we have talked about in Chapter 7. These nonverbal cues convey emotional meanings and let us express so much more than we can put into words.
• It teaches them how things work. When young children imitate others’ actions on objects, they learn how things work, what they are, and what they are used for.
• It helps them learn the social rules for conversations. In a conversation, two people alternate between the roles of speaker and listener: Person A says something while Person B listens; then Person B responds to Person A’s meaning, building on the topic; and so it continues. This kind of conversational structure also underlies imitation games. An adult bangs two blocks together and then pauses while the child reproduces this action, and then the adult does it again, and so forth, with variations added by either partner when the game gets boring. This is exactly what happens during conversations, and this kind of experience may actually help children learn the rules for conversation: Take turns, don’t interrupt, stay on topic, keep it interesting for your partner, and so on.
What’s Happening in Autism?
As you may have noticed, young children with ASD are much less inclined to imitate words, gestures, and actions than are other children their age. Even though they are very interested in objects and have lots of skills with objects, they tend not to imitate what other people do with objects very often.
There are a number of theories about the problems with imitation in ASD, but no definitive answers yet. Brain imaging studies have shown that although the mirror neuron system in children with autism is less active, it is not “broken”—meaning that, with proper experience, this system can become active and functional. This is one reason it is important to provide early intervention that promotes imitation skills. Possible reasons why children with autism don’t naturally imitate others’ gestures, facial expressions, and body movement are that they are not paying attention to others’ movements or simply aren’t motivated to imitate others (rather than being unable to). This is good news, because it means that by getting into your child’s attention spotlight and helping to motivate your child to imitate you, you can awaken his mirror neuron system and help this part of his brain develop.
Why Is It a Problem?
If you look back at the list of enrichments that imitation makes possible, it’s easy to see how much children who don’t imitate others much can miss out on. We think, in fact, that the decreased motivation to imitate may be responsible for a significant part of the delays most young children with ASD show in all areas of development. Imitation is one of the most important skills a young child with autism can learn, because it is such a learning tool by itself and helps children learn so many different types of skills. Children who do not imitate may miss much of the learning that just observing the goings-on in the social environment makes available. Without imitation, kids have to figure everything out anew, rather than learning from others the easiest and most effective ways to do things. For example, imagine how a child would learn a group game like hide and seek or “Red Rover” without using imitation to learn from other children. But even in a structured educational setting, the lack of imitation makes it harder to learn new skills, because children won’t necessarily be able to pick up on quick, efficient modeling from teachers or therapists (or parents).
Imitating others also enhances social relationships. You know the saying “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”? Imitating a person we admire or enjoy (dressing or styling one’s hair a particular way, playing with a certain toy, saying a funn
y word) creates a moment of sharing or connection between people. It elicits positive feelings in both partners. By extension, imitation is crucial for developing the ability to identify with important others and to share meaning and emotion with them.
What You Can Do to Teach Imitation to Your Child
Fortunately, it’s clear from research that young children with ASD can learn to imitate others well and naturally when their own motivation and attention to imitate are increased. Several studies have shown that early intervention can increase the imitation abilities of children with autism. As with other behaviors (such as making eye contact and using gestures and words), when children with autism start paying attention to others’ actions, are shown how to imitate others, and discover that imitating others is rewarding, they become more motivated to do it. In Chapter 4, we have discussed imitating what your child does as a way of joining your child and gaining her attention. In this chapter we are going farther and focusing on how you can teach your child to imitate different skills and behaviors inside your ongoing play and caregiving routines. There are five specific steps you can carry out to increase your child’s imitation:
Step 1. Imitating sounds.
Step 2. Imitating actions on objects.
Step 3. Imitating hand gestures and body/facial movements.
Step 4. Imitating and expanding on actions.
Step 5. Putting imitation games into the joint activity frame.
In the following pages, we describe how to carry out each of these steps, give you some ideas for activities to try, and suggest what you can do to solve problems that may come up.
Step 1. Imitating Sounds
Rationale. Children who have not yet learned how to use words to communicate need to build a large repertoire of sounds, to learn how to make a sound intentionally, and to learn how to make specific sounds in order to get something they want (in a goal-directed fashion). Finally, they need to understand the full power of their voices as a way of achieving a variety of goals. Although we deal in depth with developing verbal communication in Chapter 13, here we focus on parents’ use of imitation to achieve three things: (1) to help children notice their own vocalizations, (2) to increase the frequency of the sounds they are making, and (3) to increase their intentional production of sounds and specific vocalizations.
Activity: Increase Your Child’s Sounds by Echoing Them
You may hear your child vocalizing, sometimes in response to something that has happened and sometimes “out of nowhere.” Even if you’re not sure what a sound means, imitating your child’s sounds conveys to the child that you have heard him and that his vocalizations are meaningful and important. You’re saying, “I heard you,” to your child and assigning importance and meaning to the sound with your actions. Begin by positioning yourself so your child can see your face. Then imitate whatever vowel or consonant sounds or other sound effects your child emits (except for crying, screams, or whining) while playing with his voice. Now wait to see if your child makes the sound again. If he does, you now have the opportunity to imitate him again. With this back-and-forth interchange, you’ve created an imitation game! If he doesn’t make the sound in return, try again, waiting expectantly. Eventually your child will repeat his sounds after your imitation. Developing some vocal imitation games is worth your persistence, since it’s a critical step on the road to speech development.
Activity: Sing Songs and Play Rhyming Word and Finger Games
Singing songs and highlighting a key word or phrase in each verse helps your child start to hear the pattern and the important parts of the song. You might sing or say that target word or phrase a little louder or even slower, to help your child attend to its meaning. Add gestures and facial expressions to mark the targets. After singing the song verse in its entirety over a few days, so your child begins to recognize it, start to make a little space in the song for your child to join in. Come to the target word or phrase in the song and then wait, looking expectantly at your child, to cue the target. Your child might start to put in the missing word by making a sound. If so, great! When you hear it, continue the song. Or, instead, when you pause, your child might make a small gesture, wiggle her body, give you a quick look, or provide some other cue that shows she wants to participate. If she does this, add the word after your child’s cue and continue the song. This skill marks a milestone in speech development, and it is a very important type of activity for fostering verbal imitation. Develop a whole repertoire of songs, chants, and finger plays with your child.
For example, you could sing a song like “The Wheels on the Bus,” emphasizing a key phrase: “The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round (of course with the accompanying hand actions). The wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town.” “Round and round” is your target phrase. After singing the song a time or two, this time you would sing, “The wheels on the bus go [pause] . . . ” and wait expectantly for your child to make a sound or at least some kind of nonverbal cue. Once he does, quickly and happily continue the song, singing, “ . . . round and round, all through the town!”
Summary of Step 1
If you have followed along and carried out the preceding activities, you will have developed a new habit—that of imitating your preverbal child’s sounds—and you and your child will be making progress in developing some vocal imitation games. These activities serve as a starting place for increasing your child’s vocal imitation skills, and we will develop the next steps in a later chapter. For now, see if you agree with most of the statements in the following checklist. If so, you are now armed with important skills for teaching imitation—knowledge you will use in Step 2. If not, start experimenting during play and caregiving routines until you have found some methods that work for each statement.
Activity Checklist: Imitating Sounds
____ I pay attention to my child’s sounds.
____ I imitate my child’s sounds back to him or her when I hear them.
____ I have a repertoire of songs, finger plays, and other language activities that my child enjoys.
____ I know when to pause and wait in these games for my child to cue me or vocalize to continue the game.
Claire, age 3, has autism and occasionally makes sounds, although these are not directed to her parents. Her parents describe the sounds as more like exhales (e.g., “haa”) than like attempts to communicate a word, and they haven’t been sure how to respond to them. During one of Claire’s favorite activities—making shapes out of play dough—her dad begins to name the cookie cutter shapes and describe the actions as he makes animals out of play dough. He also adds sounds to the animals as he shows them to Claire: “Look, Claire, a doggie,” “Doggie says ‘woof woof,’ ” or “Bird goes ‘tweet tweet.’ ” After repeating this theme a few times, Claire’s dad pauses as he holds up the next animal and waits for Claire to imitate the sound. She doesn’t, but that’s okay, and Dad continues the activity anyway. But then, as Claire is looking down at the table and picking up the animal she’s just made, she makes the exhaled sound.
Dad remembers what he has read in this chapter and imitates the sound right back. After a few seconds, Claire’s dad repeats the sound again, but this time makes it a little deeper. Claire looks up and smiles slightly. Dad repeats the sound, exaggerating it even more. Claire’s smile widens. Now Dad asks Claire, “Again?” and when she looks at him intently, he makes the sound again. This time he says to Claire, “You do it,” and models the sound again. Claire opens her mouth slightly, but no sound comes out. Dad fills in the sound, and Claire continues to smile. Dad goes back to the play dough activity and holds up the dog, making it say “woof woof” again. As Claire reaches to take the dog from Dad, she makes the exhaled sound. It doesn’t matter that she didn’t look at Dad while making the sound. Her father imitates her sound, and she repeats it. He imitates it again, and she repeats it again. Vocal turn taking! He is delighted and imitates her sound, and then has the dog go “woo
f woof,” which she loves.
Malik is a 26-month-old boy with autism who does not make sounds or speak and seems to drool constantly. His mother says he doesn’t seem particularly interested in toys and prefers to suck or chew on them rather than engaging in play. She’s not sure where to start in teaching vocal imitation to Malik, given his lack of interest in toys and his very limited speech and communication skills. After reviewing the Step 1 activity checklist, Malik’s mother reads about the use of silly mouth games to stimulate motor movement and elicit sounds. She decides to try this, since toys or objects may not work with Malik right away.
She sits Malik in his chair and sits in front of him to ensure good face-to-face positioning. She starts a game by saying “oooaaahhh” while patting her mouth. Malik watches with curiosity, but he does not reach out. She makes the sound again on her own mouth and then pats Malik’s mouth. He doesn’t make the sound, but he does open his mouth slightly to stick out his tongue. She makes the sound for him as she pats his mouth and then goes back to her mouth, exaggerating the pitch and intensity of sound. She keeps alternating between her mouth and Malik’s, pausing when it’s Malik’s turn to see if he’ll imitate the sound.
Although Malik doesn’t make the sound, he does continue to stick his tongue out, so Mom decides to vary the game and sticks her tongue out to wig-gle back and forth while saying “aaahhhhh.” She’s added a different action to see how Malik will respond. He continues to stare intently at Mom’s face and show interest in the game. He sticks his tongue out again. Mom takes a turn wiggling her tongue, and he repeats it. She adds an “ahh” sound to her tongue movement, and he puts his tongue out again and makes a little noise. She is very excited about this development. She decides to practice these mouth games in other caregiving activities when Malik and she can be face to face, such as diapering and meals. Within a few days, he is reliably imitating her when she sticks out her tongue.
An Early Start for Your Child with Autism: Using Everyday Activities to Help Kids Connect, Communicate, and Learn Page 20