Should Tutors Engage Children During Breaks Between Programs?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Here is a general rule: Breaks should be a pleasant experience for the child.

Early in programming, when children are working on basic receptive and expressive language skills and have very limited repertoires of play skills, it generally works best to let kids do whatever they want on break. This includes stimming or just doing nothing. Why not try to encourage appropriate play skills? Because, most kids at this level will perceive these interactions as work, not fun.

The whole point of teaching discretely is to make the learning situation as clear, successful and rewarding as possible. Adding a barrage of verbal requests for relatively complex and subtle play and social skills during break time will sabotage the teaching session, and essentially make “break” time more demanding than the supposed “work” time.

However, it is entirely appropriate for tutors to engage children during break time, if these interactions are educationally or clinically valuable, and are enjoyable for the child.

Here’s a rule of thumb: If a child is less responsive to your instructions and requests during break time than during work time, you aren’t really giving the child much of a break.