Objects’ features: Sorting by feature for Beginners -ABA & speech therapy

Why learn about features in ABA?

Understanding the features of objects is an important part of any curriculum for children in preschool, on the Autism spectrum, or with special needs. But it can be very challenging if your child is not yet capable of making associations between an object and its features.

It is important to teach features because this helps children:

make new associations,
acquire new vocabulary,
develop conversation skills.

If you are new to working on the features of objects, you can start with the guide that takes you through the process of learning features.

Complete guide to learning the features of objects

How can ABA help learn features?

Applied Behavior Analysis ABA provides an intuitive and easy way to learn about the features of objects during ABA or speech therapy sessions. In ABA, learning is divided into small and easy steps to make the learning process is very simple:

Level 1: we start with easy sorting activities/task cards where the child has to classify items into features with :
- only 2 features, like for example things that have wings and things to have windows.
- and 2 objects for each ( chicken and airplane have wings, and houses and cars have windows).

At this level, the features that are introduced in each activity are very different from each other. This is to make it easy to understand by our little learners. This level contains 12 task cards to sort according to characteristics. When the child is able to sort easily for 10 or more features, we can move to the next step.

Level 2: here the child sorts more items (up to 5) for 2 features, from those he learned in the previous level. This enables the child to generalize what he learned and understand the features of objects around him. This level includes 6 task cards to sort according to characteristics.

Is there more than a way to teach children about the features of objects?

There are many ways to introduce features to children:

teach the child to give all the features of an object. For example, for the question: what are the features of an airplane? The child answers wings, tail, wheels, and cockpit.
teach the child to answer with examples of objects when the child is given a feature. For example, for the question: objects have zippers? The child answers bag, jacket, boots.

Keep in mind that sorting is the easiest activity to learn about features and should be the first step to help children learn faster.

What are some examples of features of objects?

In this activity, we chose 31 features of objects to teach through a sorting and classifying exercise:

- Things with wheels
- Things with eyes
- Things with buttons
- Things with a lid
- Things with a handle
- Things with feather
- Things with batteries
- Things with seeds
- Things with windows
- Things with bristles
- Things with lenses
- Things with leafs
- Things with light
- Things with 12 numbers
- Things with wings
- Things with a zipper
- Things with a screen
- Things with stripes
- Things with a tail
- Things with a pocket
- Things with legs
- Things with a frame
- Things with a cable
- Things with print
- Things with door
- Things with a hole
- Things with a straw
- Things with fur
- Things with a drawer
- Things with a flame
- Things with a chain

You can find detailed examples of the features of objects in ABA and speech therapy here.

For each one of these features, the child answers the question: “what are the things that have … ?“. Example: what are the things that have fur? what are the things that have legs?

How to teach sorting features to children in speech therapy or ABA?

In order to introduce this sorting activity, you can follow these steps:

Print and laminate the activity file (at the bottom of this page), then cut the different images,

You can use this laminator and envelopes to store the flashcards

Use a velcro
- to attach the images to the activity card when the child answers.
- and use another velcro on the back of each activity card for organization and to make it easy to start and put away the activity.

The task cards provide the name and a sample from each feature to make it easy
- for the child to understand what is expected from him,
- for the educator or the parent to teach.
Ask the child to: “put the objects that have doors here, and the objects that have stripes here“.
Then the child does the same for the other cards on level 1.
When the child masters level 1 task cards: he is capable of sorting by feature quickly, without errors, and without help, He can move to level 2 task cards. At this point, the child is capable of sorting more objects (up to 5) that have the same feature.

Once your child is able to easily sort the items provided in levels 1 and 2, you can move ahead and start working on the advanced level of sorting objects by feature.