Congradulations Sandy Nelson

I want to give a shout out to my friend, Sandy Nelson because she has just become an American Citizen!  I am proud to share country with this amazing woman.  Ours is an International family venture as well with two of the Busheys becoming citizens and, the news of Sandy brought back some fond memories. We have a special term for people like Sandy, coined years ago by our then three year old daughter, after she became an American Citizen.  Malika was adopted from India and we applied on her behalf for citizenship about a year after her adoption was complete.  As soon as she was officially an American, we started pointing out the American flag to her and we would always say, Sweetheart, that is your flag.  Now you are an American Citizen.  She would grin at the flag, basically with no idea of what we were talking about, but she would catch our enthusiasm.  Soon, she was pointing out all the American flags as we drove and announce each time I am an American Cinnamon!    So, Sandy, the Bushey Family officially pronounces that you, Dear Friend, are An American Cinnamon!

Working on a New Website

In the near future, I will need to move my website, Autism Games, (not this blog).  Google, my generous and appreciated host, is not planning to support Page Creator, which is where I have my website now.  They will move my website for me, at some point, but the links will not all work and I will need to go in to the new host location, Google Sites, and fix it up.  In preparation for this, I have been working long hours on moving Autism Games Website myself to Google Sites so that there will not be a lot of down time for the site.  

So this has been my life--at least my weekend and after work life for weeks.  I take page after page and move it--often changing things that I don't like and adding things that occur to me now.  I am using lots of original photography, which is fun.  I am even getting new video clips of games that I have wanted to add.  I am including some blog posts into web pages since I think it will be easier to find games on the website than it is on the blog.  Even I get lost trying to find video clips of game that I put into blog posts a year or more ago.



Here is the good news.  My new website will probably be better. I really hope it will be better. When I created Autism Games, I did not know anything about making a website.  Nothing.  Nor did I have a plan.  At least not a plan beyond putting some of my games online so that the families of children that I see in my practice could watch them at home and review or, in the case of some parents who did not come to therapy sessions, see what the games looked like.  I also wanted to provide information to my daughter, who is a special education teacher and who had a four year old student with autism in her school.  She was teaching in Europe and I am in the United States.  So, my website was a response to these two specific communication challenges.  I never imagined it would attract so many visitors.  Nor did I imagine that I would put so much information online.  So, now that I know who will be looking at the site and more of what I will put on the site, I can organize it more effectively.



Here is the bad news.  It takes a long time to re-create a website that is this big.   Google Sites is very simple (thank goodness because I still don't know much about website design) but it does offer more options so I spend a lot of time trying things out. Mmmm, maybe this color font would look nice.  Gee, what would happen if I use three columns.  Oops! Where did everything go?  I am not going to be finished recreating my site for several more weeks at this rate.


If anyone out there wants to preview the new site before I put it online for the world to see, send me an email and I will send you a link to get on.  I would love to have some feedback and recommendations.  Meanwhile, stay tuned because there will soon be a New and Improved Autism Games Website! 

Drawing Faces--New Video Model Clip

Here is a new video model of a great game called Drawing Faces.  I post video clips of games on YouTube for this blog and my website and people must stumble upon them unaware of why I am posting.  From such accidental viewers, I get some uncomplimentary comments.  To say the least.  No video clip of mine has elicited more ridicule than my Drawing Faces video.  (No I am not providing the link to that clip.)  These comments often make me laugh, though I guess they must bother me a little.  Most comments were some version of, This woman is bad at drawing and acting!  So, I have caved to my critics and asked my friend, Kate Horvath, who is an actress, if she would do the game for me  so I could post a new one on YouTube.  Perhaps her acting will serve better than mine.  Regardless, she provided me with a charming video model of this game.





I use this game to teach children to attend more to faces, learn the names of parts of the face, and most often to help a child have a way of thinking about emotions.  Kids tend to love this game often trying to draw faces themselves if I start the game and hand over a marker after drawing the first eye.  I added an OK mouth after trying to use the game to help a child get over being sad. Time to be all done Sad, time for Happy seemed like a little too much to ask.  It was more natural for me to say Time to be all done Sad, time for OK.  I have had some children pull out the markers while crying and want to go through all the faces in a spontaneous attempt to get over being sad.  One little girl would still have tears running down her face but be bravely trying to smile when we got to Happy Mouth.  Anna is not Happy yet, I said, Anna is all done sad, goodbye sad mouth.  Anna is OK now.

HOT!

Capitalizing on Your Child’s Interest

Guest Post by Allison Norgard BS

Graduate Student

Each of us has a favorite thing that we love at almost any time on any given day.  Whether you have a sweet tooth or a special hobby, active involvement in that interest always sparks your attention.  Children with Autism also have specific interests--perhaps an interest in dinosaurs, or the presidents of the United States.  It could even be a favorite color that captures a child’s attention.  You can use a child’s passionate interests to help that child develop joint attention skills.

Even if it feels like your child has a very narrow interest, you can still use that interest in many everyday social routines.  For example, a child in this clinic showed a strong interest in the letter ‘w’.  We discovered this while playing with a simple frog toy that spits out letters. We quickly realized that ‘w’ in all contexts was way more interesting to this child than anything else in the room.

Once we identified the child’s interest, we had to find ways for ‘w’ to pop up in his daily life.  It seemed tricky at first, but once we started with one idea, it became much easier.

Here are some ‘w’ activity ideas:

• Use letter shaped cookie cutters.  The ‘w’ cookie cutter can be used in actual foods such as pancakes for breakfast, or for fun at the table with play-doh.
  
• Use ‘w’ during bath time by cutting one out of colorful foam. 
• Make ‘w’ magnets to put on the refrigerator, the filing cabinets, and other creative places around your home and then go out together to collect them.
• Many children love mirrors; use white board markers or shaving cream to write out ‘w’ on mirrors. 
  
• Take blankets or pillows and make a giant ‘w’ on the floor of the family room.  Than you can tickle and squish with the pillows and add some sensory fun. 

As you can see, ‘W’ can become part of any part of the day.

As you can see, ‘W’ can become part of any part of the day.

Although it might seem small and narrow to focus on an interest like ‘w’, you can use a focus like this to teach virtually anything. If you want to work on a language goal rather than joint attention, you can take the ‘w’ and mix and match it with other concepts to build language.  The “w” can come in different colors, sizes, textures.  The “w” can be hidden in various locations that you can name. You can use one simple interest, at many different levels to help a child with autism no matter what the child’s developmental level.  Following your child’s lead by noticing what interest him or her.  When you share in your child’s excitement and interests, it will become much more motivating and rewarding for him or her to play with you.

Here is a letter game with "w":

Safe Emergencies and Halloween

I have been thinking a lot lately about the concept of a Safe Emergency as I find ways to prepare children for Halloween.  Halloween is a Safe Emergency Holiday where many people have decided that it would be fun to pretend to be brave about all the scariest things in life--injury, death, spiders, dark nights, and walking up to knock on the door of houses where strangers live.  As odd as this cultural celebration is, it is not a stretch to understand a holiday like this.  This kind of a holiday exists in many cultures.  Even more common and similar is  the kind of pretend play that you see with seven year old kids on the playground of any elementary school. You be the terrorist and you go in the hills over there. I will be a Pilot and I will bomb you but you try to get away!  Apparently, children are prone to re-enacting whatever terrifying thing they hear about.  By the time we are grownups, our Safe Emergency play has become video games, movies, books, rock climbing, and so on.  There has to be a reason that so many of us choose to spend our free time in activities like this.  I call these activities  Safe Emergencies.

Possible reasons for Safe Emergencies:

1. We need to practice in order to be prepared to handle real emergencies.
2. We like the feeling of control over scary things that we get when we play.
3. We like the feeling of alertness and mental focus that comes when we are a little scared.
4. We learn important emotional regulation, empathy, imagination, language, social interaction, motor and problem solving skills by engaging in Safe Emergencies.
   

Family Monster Game

I think of many games as being Safe Emergency Games--meaning that the game is a little bit scary but still safe.  This quality in a game seems to make it interesting for children but finding the "just right" amount of scariness is important.  Too scary and the child can't tolerate the game.    Halloween is a community wide Safe Emergency Game but it is often too scary for children with ASD.  I have been doing many versions of this Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) game with children this month to help children prepare for Halloween.  Next week, I plan to add monster masks for some children.  Here is one family playing this game together: