Mastering individual tasks but difficulty chaining them

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Hi All,

Could you help me with this situation ? Why would a child be able to independently perform individual tasks that comprise an activity, but be unable to chain them together ?

For example, the task of washing hands. My son is now able to turn on the faucets by himself, can soap his hands, rub them together, independently turn off the faucets and towel dries his hands, but is unable to chain the series of tasks together to independently wash his hands by himself, needing gestural prompts to assist him with completing the series of steps. We took especial care to not verbally prompt each step when teaching the individual tasks, to prevent just this outcome, but it has been to no avail. Without some gestural prompting, my boy is unable to independently wash his hands when requested to do so.

What can I do to help him independently learn to chain individual tasks of an activity together ? Washing hands is just one example - there are currently more than a few activities where he can independently perform individual tasks but cannot complete a entire series by himself.

Please help / advise ?

Thank you all in advance !

This sounds to me like an executive functioning issue. This is a common issue because this is a much more complex thing than it appears. You basically have to have an internal memory and focus that allows you to keep track of the sequencing of multiple tasks. It is easy to do one of the steps and lose track of where you are in the process and think you are done, or get distracted by what is in your head and lose track, or just want very badly to do something better.

Visual schedules are the usual way to help with this. Also, I have found for certain things, practice helps because then it transfers to being a habit, which has a stick-to-it-iveness for lack of a better word that persists better.

if your child is motivated by small rewards then you could reward each sub-part and maybe have a slightly bigger reward for completing all the steps. Scaffolding with prompts by you is fine, and then try to scale the prompts down once you have a very good probability of success.

We seem to have issues with this a lot. Even when we solve it for one set of tasks it will creep up anytime we have a new sequence to learn. At some point I am hoping that he can apply his own coping mechanisms to carry him forward because it is a life-long needed ability. Right now we still have to do the scaffolding for each new instance of tasks.

Try using a visual sequence prompt. Visual prompts are great because they can be used independently when no other adult is around. Here is one I've made:




Also, how long are you waiting before you give a gestural prompt? He may need a little longer processing time.

If those strategies don't work, you can try asking, "What do you need to do?" and see if he can tell you or start the next step. This type of prompt doesn't give him the answer, but lets him know there is another step. He has to think of it and initiate it on his own.

I heard one bit of advice in connection with a similar problem teaching someone to do a task with many steps who had executive function disorder which was to prompt all but the last step, then when achieved all but the last two steps etc working backwards rather than forwards as it appeared to work more easily, I cannot remember where I read or heard this it may have been on wp but it made a lot of sense, might be worth a try.
kind regards
A

We have the same problem. Some of it is just practise. We use the visual schedule things which do help, but really most of his best ones are ones we've done the same way for YEARS. For some things (not hand washing though because then the cards would be wet and soapy), I have them take the cards off the velcro when they finish that step, so they can clearly see where they are in the process. I'm interested to see what other suggestions people have.

I also sing songs for a lot of the routines and I find that he seems to remember parts of the song with a specific action, so it seems to help him remember what to do (yep, I'm crazy lady singing in the public bathroom ). I seem to recall that your son likes music so that might help. With my son, he's not independent yet, and I still have to prompt, but I find with the song, I don't have to physically prompt as much, which for him is an improvement. It might not be an improvement for you though, depending on how independent you seem him being (of course I see full independence in my wildest dreams, but realistically we're not there yet).

Hi HisMom,

It does sound like your son's making progress. At least he seems to be listening to you more.

Has he acquired speech yet?