I’d really love to talk about semantic mapping which is one of my very favorite interventions. One, it really activates someone’s schema. So we have the topic in the middle, so say the topic in the middle is China. Then as children add things, you know, “It’s in Asia, it has many people,” things like that, we add circles.
And it shows how various things are connected to each other very visually. And then if a child with autism comes off with, “But Chewbacca has big furry hair and he’s six foot three,” it’s a way I can put the circle not connected to the China discussion, and show them that that topic is not appropriate at this time.
And it also helps them when they’re organizing their writing. So I take it and I put the circle over here where it’s not connected, and let them know that even though this is China talking time, at the end may — perhaps we could have two minutes of talking about Chewbacca.
