Counting with Non-Verbal Learners

The other day I was trying to figure out the best way to assess one of my non-verbal student's counting skills.  I am pretty pleased with this super easy way that I stumbled across as we were working together this week!  First, I wrote out the numbers 1-5 on a piece of notebook paper.  I said the different number names, and waited to see if my student could point to the correct number.  She could, so we moved on to the next skill!

We used some vehicle manipulatives to work on counting.  The hardest part was that my student wanted to play with the manipulatives instead of count them!  I started by completing a couple trials using hand over hand to show her how to point to each item while I counted them out loud for us.  When I finished counting out loud, I said "where is 3?" and waited to see if she could point to the correct number (which she did!).

For the next couple trials, I slowly faded out my hand over hand prompts.  I would place her pointer finger on the first manipulative and then wait for her to point to the rest independently.  When she was finished pointing to all of the manipulatives, I would motion to the paper and ask her "how many?"  She totally got it and by the end of our session, she had demonstrated she could count and point to the correct number for the numbers 1-5!  Next week, we will move on to 6-10!