Simple Steps for Teaching Prepositions to Students with Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities

The acquisition of receptive and expressive language skills by students with autism and developmental disabilities (DD) is often delayed, thus making the process of communicating with others challenging. Some students develop language skills incidentally through conversations with their families and peers, but others require instruction in specific aspects of language to build their communicative repertoire. Preposition comprehension is a critical component for the development of language that is meaningful for both academic and functional purposes. The use of a direct instruction script may be a way to improve preposition comprehension for students with autism and DD. This column provides an overview of this script, materials, and procedures and additional tips for efficiently teaching prepositions to this population of students.