ABA Everyday: Learning Recall

Here are some tips on working on your child's recall ability:

Create a nighttime routine of reviewing the day. Together, go through the day listing the main events and talking about the child’s impressions of them. This can be adapted in many ways based on your child’s individual needs. Try to keep the number of activities around 5, with no more than 10. Also, encourage your child to illustrate their story.

Non-verbal

Provide your child with a picture schedule showing the day. Review it with them and let them choose between a happy face and a sad face (or thumbs up/thumbs down) for each event.
Emerging Verbal: Gather pictures or words for each major event of the day. Help your child put them in order. Help your child choose an adjective to fit each by giving them two choices.

Minimally Verbal

Create a madlibs style journal entry. If necessary give the child a word bank or word choices for the blanks.
i.e. Today is _________. I rode the __________ this morning. At school my teacher, _____________, taught us _____ and _____. After school _________ came over. We played ______________. Then I ate ______ for dinner. It was _________! Finally it was bed time. I read ____________ with _________. What a ________ day!

Verbal

Have the child list what they did that day. Under each event, ask them to write two details. Help them incorporate the list into sentence form. Keep a daily journal so they can look back on their adventures.