Don't Boss a Child Around and Call That Playing

An adult might think that he or she is playing with a child when actually the adult is just bossing the child around. Just because there are toys involved, it is not playing unless there is actual play going on.  This means that people are having fun with the toys. An adult telling a child what to do with a toy is not much fun.  Most children do not respond well to this.  A second bossy and totally not fun behavior that adults tend to do with children is testing.  This is when the adult asks a question like what something is called (even though the adult knows what it is called) or asks the child other questions that no other kid would ask in similar play unless the other kid were pretending to be a bossy adult.  You don't have to ask questions to make play a language activity, and most of the time, asking questions is the worst possible way to teach a child new language skills.  Here is what this non-play interaction might sound and look like:

Do Not Do This

Bossy Adult: You try it (pointing at a toy)
Child: (ignores adult)
Bossy Adult: Your turn (picks up toy and hands the toy to child)
Child: (takes toy but does not know what to do with it )
Bossy Adult: Takes the toy out of the child's hands and operates it then hands it back to child.
Child: takes toy and looks at it but still does not know what to do with it
Testing Adult: More? (Adult wants the child to say "more" in order to get adult to operate the toy again)
Child: ignores adult
Testing Adult: Say "more"
Child: Ignores adult
Testing Adult: Is it fun?
Child: Ignores adult (but if the child could he or she might say "No, this is not fun! Not even a little bit fun!  I don't even know what to do with that dumb toy!")
Bossy Adult: Give it to me
Child: hands toy to adult
Testing Adult: Say "help me"
Child: ignores adult because the adult has not sold the child on the idea that playing with this toy is fun and the child does not actually want help.
Testing Adult: It is not wound up?  Can you wind it up?
Child: Does not respond but looks at the toy again
Bossy Adult: You wind it up.
Child: Wanders off

Video tape yourself playing with your child and I know that some of you will find, to your horror, that this is exactly how you "play" with your child.  When you are teaching a child to play or teaching a child to communicate using play, you have to play.  It is a skill you had at one time and can get back.  If you don't play with the toy, why should the child play with the toy?   How will the child know what to do with the toy? There was nobody leading this not-so-theoretical child into play.  What the adult needed to do was start to play by first showing curiosity, about the toy.  The adult needed to look at that toy like a child would and let the toy be an inspiration for exploration and playfulness.  The adult could have made this toy an inspiration for social interaction, play and language by focusing on play, playing, and then inviting the child into the play.

Do This

Adult: Look at this
Adult: Let's see what it does.
Adult: Cool!  I like it. (adult needs to actually look excited about the toy and focus attention toward the toy not toward the child) Turn, turn, turn--wind it up!
Adult: Wow!  Your turn. (offers toy to child)

Child: Takes toy from adult but does not know how to operate it
Adult:  That's tricky.  I'll help.  Give it to me.  Turn, turn, turn!
Child: turn
Adult: turn, turn, turn (grin at child because repeating words is fun)

Adult:  Here you do it, it's ready! (hands toy to child)

Child: Releases the toy so it will fly across the table
Adult: Wow!  That is so cool.  Let's do more!
Child: More
Adult: Yep!  We will do more.  I will wind it, you let it go.  Turn, turn, turn....

Recycled Holiday Present

This is a recycled blog post that seems timely again as people are trying to find a good present for a child with autism.  In many households, there will be presents that come packaged in Styrofoam. My ever greening conscience makes me feel pretty bad about packaging like Styrofoam but if you have it, at least this is something you can do with it. Be sure that the child you give this to is old enough to have sharp pointy golf tees.  Age warnings are not always adequate for children with autism, so ask parents if you are giving this to a child who is not your own child and are not sure if the child would be safe using these.



Most of us end up with a few pieces of Styrofoam from a new DVD player or something and, at least at my house, this sits in my garage for a while "in case I need to return the machine". Then it sits in my garage because I forget about it. Here is a good use for this Styrofoam:

• Buy or borrow some colored golf tees.
• Use a currently owned (or go to the Goodwill and get a) plastic hammer.
• Hammer the golf tees into the Styrofoam one at a time.  
• While doing this, it is possible to also teach many language skills.
• Adult hands out the golf tees if you want language use or comprehension to be a part of the activity--otherwise, your child will simply pound the tees in quickly and without regard to anything you say.

Here are some examples of language skills or social behaviors that you could teach while using this activity:

• Your turn, my turn (or use names to identify whose turn it is and teach Turn-taking)
• Put in the red circle (teaching language comprehension for items drawn on Styrofoam. Draw shapes on the Styrofoam with your child or prior to starting)
• Do you want blue nail or red nail? (Teaching your child to make a verbal choice)
• What color should Mommy put in? (Teaching expressive use of color words)
• Put the red nail on X. ( Where X is a picture. Teaching receptive language for any word you can find a picture to depict. First cut out pictures depicting target words from magazine and nail these in to the Styrofoam).
• How many nails do you want? (Teaching How many question form)
• First put one nail in, then Sit on Potty, then put three nails in. (motivating child to sit on potty or use potty)
• Put your nail close to my nail...far away from my nail...on your side...on my side (teaching pronouns my/your)
• First put in red nail and then the green nail (Teaching following two part directions.)

As you can see, pounding in the golf tees is a way to make learning many different things more interesting. Learning to pound a nail is interesting without adding anything else to it and so it is motivating if you do want to add another learning goal. The only caution in this game is that as you help your child hold the golf tee straight, you might get your fingers pounded. All in the day of a Speech Pathologist, is what I say, grinning while the tears run down my cheeks. Actually, if you push the tee in just a little and move out of the way fast, the tee stays up without endangering your fingers.  A package of many colored golf tees, a plastic hammer and a few chunks of Styrofoam make a very nice holiday present.

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":

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:
 

Talking to Others and Talking to Ourselves

Andrew is five years old and he has been struggling unsuccessfully to hang on to words for years. Somehow a word just disintegrates in his mind even after Andrew learns a new one and that word may not be heard on his lips again for months or years . It is frustrating for him and for his family because in a situation where he was able to communicate last week, he may not be able to communicate this week.

A few months ago, we started to show Andrew how to use a special computer that can talk for him--a Springboard Lite. He was using PEC's quite well at school, and it has been a wonderful communication system for him, but his mother found it difficult to keep track of all the pictures that he needed at home and he never seemed to have the right pictures to communicate things that he really wanted to communicate anyway. Andrew was most motivated to communicate when something new and interesting happened like when he discovered a stop sign on the Oreo Cookie package. There was no way to talk about this with the PEC symbols that he had. But with the talking computer, because there are thousands of picture symbols already programed into the machine, it was possible for mom to create a page about the stop sign on the cookie package in about five minutes. On occassions like this, Andrew would be running back and forth across the room, touching the stop sign picture and flapping his hands until when his mom could hand Andrew the newly programed computer and he would then start talking with his machine right away saying something like, There is a stop sign on the Oreo Cookies. Awsome! That few minutes of programing would give Andrew something to talk about for two days.

One cool thing is that Andrew seems to be retaining words that he uses often on the talking computer. We don't know if he would truly retain these words over an extended period of time since we are not taking away the talking computer to see, but he does spontaneously speak using words that he previously only said on the talking computer. Where before Andrew might have said one word, cup, at dinner, now Andrew has at least twelve foods that he can spontaneously ask for with or without the talking computer. Andrew is doing a lot of self-therapy to learn new words since he spends time on the page about food pushing the buttons over and over even when he does not want to eat. This is true of the food page and it is true of other pages as well. Preparing him to take a train ride recently, his mom found a YouTube video clip of the train that they would be taking and Andrew and mom watched this clip a few times. Then she made him a page on his computer to talk about the upcoming train ride. Andrew pressed buttons on this page over and over in the days leading up to the train ride day. Andrew did not have his talking computer with him when he actually went on the train ride but he was able to say all the things he had practiced saying about the train ride appropriately. We are going on the train. This is fun! We are going over the bridge. I like trains.

Language is such an important human capacity and even I underestimate how important it is and need to be reminded. Andrew reminds me every week as he uses this machine better and better and for more and more purposes. Here is the story that got me teary today. Andrew has been unwilling to have a bowel movement on the toilet even though he can urinate in the toilet independently. His family has worked hard to convince Andrew that he should consider this option but to no avail. They know that Andrew does things in his own time. A few days ago, Andrew started pushing buttons on the talking machine to say You need to use the toilet. Mom did not program the computer to say this, he just found the buttons on his own to say this phrase. When mom thought he might be communicating a request to go to the bathroom, he made it clear that he did not want to go at all but he persisted in pushing those buttons over and over for two days. She wondered why he was saying this over and over but, after all, he is five. On the third day, Andrew's big brother called his mom excitedly saying, Mom, Andrew is pooping on the toilet! Andrew had independently decided to do this. Apparently he talked himself into using the toilet by telling himself to do so for two days and working up the motivation to do it on his own. He is now out of diapers.

We imagine that a child who can't communicate verbally with others is none-the-less able to communicate with himself or herself. But apparently, not so much for many children with autism. They do not have the language skills to tell others what they need, think, feel, remember, wonder, imagine, plan, wish, consider..... Nor the language skills to tell themselves what they need, think, feel, remember, wonder, imagine, plan, wish, consider....

It seems like a lot of work and money to provide a child like Andrew with a computer that is complicated for everyone to learn and costs about as much as a good used car. But giving Andrew the ability to communicate with others and communicate with himself is proving to be truly beyond price.

Theater as a Form of Visual Support

Kids love to play within a defined space--the space helps the child organize the play and by defining some aspects of the play, the child is more able to make the remaining decisions. Some kinds of space are particularly empowering. Visually organizing our clinic space into a little puppet theater brought out previously unseen language and pretend play skills in many of my young friends this week at the clinic. In this game, our Raised Platform served as a stage and helped children play for longer periods of time in pretend play as compared to playing at the table or on the floor. We saw many new play ideas emerge as each child interpreted theater in his or her own way.

Each time a child went into the theater with toys or puppets or props, a new story unfolded. Often the story was just a snippet of an idea and parents or peer playmates needed to fill out the story to make it more coherent--but each child gave us a place to start with varied ideas drawn from their own experience with movies and books. Playing to an appreciative, although small audience of one or two in the chairs set before the stage, most of my young friends seemed to understand the essential idea of performance. The routine of bowing and the audience clapping at the end was the favorite part for many children. Most children did not want the role of being in the audience for long. I modeled new little skits but had to get on and off the stage in record time.


We will start to work with little visual scripts next week, but it was fun to see what snippets of stories each child was able to create with just a little visual organization of space. We are beginning our summer project of using drama and theater to support new language skills and I will keep you updated on how it goes.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Children first learn to talk about now, here, this very moment.

I spend a lot of time helping parents move into the present moment mentally and talk about here, now, this very moment.

If your child is just beginning to talk, you can help your child the most by talking about the interesting things that are going on in front of your child moment-by-moment. If there is a dog, eighteen inches from your child, talk about that dog and not the dog at grandma's house who looks like that dog. Don't even talk about the bone in the refrigerator until the bone is in your hand or the dog's mouth.

At some point, though, your child will master the language of now and start to learn the mental trick of thinking about the past and thinking about the future. At that point, there are about a thousand language skills that he or she will need to learn in order to tell you what happened at school today. Even more language skills are needed to explain what he or she wants to do at the playground this afternoon.

When your child is ready, use visual supports like the one pictured above. Take lots of digital photographs and organize these with your child, talking about different time frames in a way that makes sense to your child. Pictures are a bridge between now and the past or now and the future and make it easier for you to show your child how to tell stories, make plans, think about things that are not here and now. Pictures from your child's own life and lots of practice with you showing the way will help your child learn to talk about yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Grasping a New Idea

I could not grasp how the system worked I told my husband. I could not wrap my mind around how it all fit together, so all I could do is memorize exactly what to do, telling myself each step over and over, but then when I would forget a step, I would be lost.

It does not matter what the topic was in this conversation. I was talking about a new computer program but it could have been anything. Just note, as you read the paragraph above, that all the words in orange refer, originally, to ways that we interact physically with the world. We learn the meaning of grasp, as we grasp things with our hands and things like blankets are wrapped around our body, we take steps with our feet and are lost when we end up in a physical location that we do not recognize with our eyes--or perhaps when we don't know how to move, with our body, back to a physical place where we feel safe and where we can get our physical needs met. There are literally thousands of words that we learn in a concrete way with our bodies and then we extend the meaning of these words to describe more abstract mental states and situations including feelings, beliefs, and philosophy. We can physically experience things with our bodies and build a set of neurological connections in our brain to handle these physical experiences but with language, we learn to describe these physical experiences with words and then understand each other because we have all had similar physical experiences. Language is so powerful, though, because our we are able to extend the meaning of these words, apparently still making a connection to the neurological structure that we built through sensory experience (the same brain connections). We end up able to think and talk about highly abstract ideas and still understand one another--based upon common physical experiences. Our understanding of these abstract concepts continues to be related, neurologically, to body sensations and body awareness. Of course, one can be blind or deaf or have other physical sensory deficits and come to understand the meaning of words that originated in sensory experiences but the common route to mapping meaning onto these words is clearly through body sensations.

My friend and colleague, Janet Oliver M.A., visited recently and she has been contemplating the relationship between body awareness and language acquisition. A usual explanation for one of the problems that children with autism have when learning language is that these children have difficulty with abstract thinking--that is extending the meaning of all these words from a concrete body in space meaning to increasingly abstract meanings. Janet, a specialist in neurological development, notes that children with autism often show evidence of infant reflexes that should have been inhibited in the first months or years of life. She evaluates children who struggle with coordination and body awareness, with motor planning, with integrating information across the two sides of the brain, with dozens of sensory issues that most of us take for granted because our bodies and brains were wired up pretty well by the time we were six years old. Janet says that she wonders if the trouble that children with autism have with language development might originate with the trouble these children have with body awareness, sensory integration, movement, and coordination. This is an idea, that, if true, could lead to much more specific language interventions for children who have sensory-motor disorders.

If you would like to know more about Janet Oliver M.A. visit her website at: www.planforlearning.com

The Ducks Go Marching Two by Two

If you play with toys that come in matching pairs, you will multiply the game possibilities by more than two. I recently bought two large sets of rubber ducks, so, now I am busy thinking of games to play with the duck pairs. These ideas would work with lots of toy pairs. The previous two posts are related to my recent massive duck purchase and you might like to follow-up by reading these previous posts if you have a collection of ducks or any other large critter collection.

I set out my duck sets today determined to discover new ways of playing with them. In my play room, I split a low table in half with masking tape. In my mind the tape was meant to serve as a kind of fence. My plan was that whoever I played with would get one side for his or her ducks and I would get the other for my ducks. I have so many ducks in this collection that I felt we could split them up and still each have plenty. When the first child of the day, Carter, came to play, I put a Popsicle People Doll of me on my side and a Popsicle People Doll of Carter on the other side. He had never seen the table set up like this so I had to explain it. This is Carter's side, I announced and this is Tahirih's side. (See note below for explanation of Popsicle People Dolls)

Hmmm I pondered aloud, right after Carter sat down, I want Car Duck. I put the duck that I have named Car Duck on my side. Here Carter, this is Carter's Car Duck. With two identical ducks of many kinds, the game became about each of us getting one each of every kind of duck. I showed Carter how to request ducks by doing it first. I want Guitar Duck! I said next--and after three or four ducks were handed out, I waited for Carter to request a duck.

No matter what level of skill a child has, I can show him or her a way to request. With a non-verbal child, I might teach the child to push a talking button that says Duck Please. For a child like Carter, I gave each duck pair a name like Car Ducks, Golf Ducks, Fireman Ducks showing him words to describe/label ducks and showing him how to combine words. For a child who is able to engage in pretend play, I might sell ducks from the box of ducks making the box into a duck store.

Carter is not quite ready to play like this but if he was ready, I would have handed Carter's dad the box and suggested he become the Duck Salesman. I would have taught Carter how to request a duck at a Duck Store by saying How much is your Fireman Duck, Sir? Carter's dad might reply saying Fireman Duck costs five cents! Setting up a Duck Store would be as easy as placing a sign on the box that says Ducks for Sale! With a Duck Store, we could play any number of buying and selling ideas. Today, Carter was introduced to the idea of collecting ducks on his side of the masking tape fence but in a year, he may become a duck entrepreneur. Toys don't really have to get old if you use them in new ways.

Now it turned out that Carter had his own idea about how to play with ducks. He wanted both of the Car Ducks, and both of the Golf Ducks, and both of the Pit Crew Ducks, so I quickly made a change in my plan to accomodate his interest in pairs. We both began to collect duck pairs. I mention this because it is easy to get caught up in your own plans for a game and miss using a child's much more motivating ideas. With Carter, I began to offer him pairs rather than single ducks. Carter likes letters too, so we put pairs of ducks on letters.

Depending on the child, this pair duck game might have become all about negotiating for favorite duck pairs, trading duck pairs, complaining when a duck does not have an identical matching duck pair, choosing girl ducks versus boy ducks, or as mentioned above, selling and buying duck pairs. I might have quickly put up a sign on the Duck Store that read Ten Ducks for a Quarter! and pretended the idea of buying in bulk. I hope that Carter starts to understand pretend play like this soon. I have lots of ideas for when he does.

Note: Popsicle Dolls are paper dolls with a real person's face on the doll, and the whole doll is stuck on a tongue depressor stick. I don't think that Tongue Depressor Dolls sounds as good a Popsicle People. More about using this strategy on Autism Games under Family Dolls

Being a Translator for a Child with ASD

One role that parents and other adults need to play for a child with ASD is the Translator. A translator notices when communication is breaking down and finds a way to provide information to the two people who are communicating. The translator might be translating a child to himself so that he can understand his feelings better as when you take a crying child over to a mirror and say You are sad. Look at your tears. You don't like Grandma to leave. Often, it involves rewording something that a child says so that it can be understood by someone who does not know the child as well. It might involve translating the a big confusing social situation for a child so that he or she can be more successful socially. Translating does not involve telling a child what to do--just providing enough information so that he can do what he wants to do.

Example 1--Mom says, We need to put toys away and go to bed. Alex screams and throws himself on the floor. Dad goes to stand by Alex and says, looking at mom and translating his son's behavior into words, I don't want to go to bed, mom. Mom says, looking at her son (not Dad), Sorry, look at the clock, the clock says 8:00. Alex stops screaming when dad was talking but starts again when mom finishes. Dad says, Can I play five more minutes? Mom says, OK, I will set the timer, when the bell rings, it is time for bed. Nobody says a word about Alex's screaming but Dad continues translating calmly, even if it gets to the point where mom says Alex you can walk to your bed by yourself or mom will help you. The translator talks for Alex the whole time and mom does the parenting.

Example 2--Two children are playing with cars together and Eddie wants to set up a parking lot where there are lots of cars and Andy keeps taking cars. A fight is on the horizon. Mom says, Come here boys, I will show you what is happening. Mom picks up a paper and draws simple line drawings as she talks. Eddie wants a parking lot. Andy wants the cars for driving around. We have got a little problem here. What is your idea Eddie? She writes down whatever Eddie says or translates what he says into what he means. What is your idea Andy? She writes down whatever Andy says or what he means. She does not solve the problem for them but steps them through negotiating if possible, writing down each boys ideas as they go. She might suggest two different ways they could choose to solve their problem and let them choose. The translator explains to the boys what the other one wants in words and simple line drawings giving each boy a voice that can be heard and understood by the other.

Example 3: Grandma sees that her grandson, Eliot, always talks about planets to grandpa and grandpa just nods and grunts and half-heartedly participates on the conversation. Grandma takes Eliot aside and says Eliot, we should make a chart to see what everyone in our family likes to talk about. I will show you how to make a chart on the computer. After Eliot and grandma get a chart made, Grandma says to Eliot, This chart is cool because you can use this information about your family, just like NASA uses information about the planets and stars. It says on your chart that grandpa likes to talk about Star Wars, Fishing, and Alaska. A good conversation is one where Grandpa and you talk about what Grandpa likes some of the time and what you like some of the time. It says on your chart that you like talking about Star Wars too. Grandma might do a little prep with Grandpa on the side to make sure he mentions some topic that he and Eliot could talk about together. The translator helps Eliot understand that he should choose a topic that he and his grandpa both find interesting.

The translator's job changes over a child's life and from situation to situation but it always involves giving the child enough information to successfully communicate or participate.

Families At Play

I have just finished adding a new page to the Web Site Autism Games:

Families At Play

On this page you will find tips and clips on the topic of including all family members and other willing play partners in communication therapy sessions so that your child has more communication and play partners.


Check it out!  (And let me know if you find any typos)

The Early Start Denver Model

My ongoing investigation of various autism approaches brought me to look recently at the Early Start Denver Model. This is a developmental approach which has integrated some aspects of traditional behavioral intervention--including the intensity and the data keeping. Dr. Sally Rogers, who is the founder of this approach described autism as a "disruption of social communicative development" (which) "creates a secondary set of processes, like the exaggerated interest in objects and repetitive patterns" She goes on to say that "if we begin very early to focus on the social communicative processes, we can prevent some of the cascading effects of autism." (see the link to her name above for the full interview with Dr. Rogers) As I was reading about the Denver Model on a Mind Institute Website (click on quote below for full article), there was one sentence in particular that set me to thinking. It was a sentence that describes one of the three main goals of this intervention approach:

• Bringing the child into coordinated, interactive social relations for most of their waking hours, so that social attention, imitation and communication can be developed and learning through social experiences can occur

Consider this. Most preschool and even elementary children are interacting socially almost every waking moment. All children need to interact socially many, many hours and every day in order to learn and grow in a healthy way. Having autism does not constitute an exception to this need for learning that takes place in a social context. In fact, the social isolation experienced by children with autism, in the view of many researchers and not just Dr. Rogers, causes many of the more troubling characteristics that we associate with autism.

But, it may take a lot more effort to make sure that a child with autism has many, many hours of social interaction in a day. I often walk into a classroom, a daycare setting, or a home and see a child with ASD who is essentially alone--even though there are children and adults close by. I see children in settings where the child has almost no social interaction beyond being herded here or there and shushed. Other children on the spectrum have hours of social interaction but it is of such an odd nature (including many of our therapies) that the child cannot possibly be expected to learn to engage in the ordinary back and forth of communication by doing these things. For example, matching tasks seem to make up an inordinate amount of some children's school curriculum and the social conversation around matching things over and over is not very interesting after a while. The adults don't want this to be the case but they find it very difficult to solve the problem of social isolation and may give up trying when instead, they need to find new strategies. If you look over your child's day and week and realize that he or she is socially isolated for many more hours than typical children are, and rarely interacts with anyone about anything he or she cares about, you may want to look over every section of every day and find ways to promote meaningful social interaction in each setting, with each social partner, with new social partners, and with you.


I promote simplified social play activities on Autism Games Website for children with autism because you, as a parent or teacher or caregiver may not know enough ways to socially engage the child in your care. Play is typical social interaction for children and even though these games are simplified they are intended to be playful and fun rather than drills. They are intended to be like the play that any other child engages in spontaneously only at a level that your child can understand. These games, if you find some that work, will help you get started with one important kind of social interaction and what you learn in the laboratory of varied kinds of play will help you engage your child in other social activities as well.
In the game clip on this page, what would otherwise be a repeated sequence of solitary play (running across the floor with a truck which this little guy likes to do often) becomes social play with no more than the addition of an interesting curvy roadway (Goodwill table place mats which now have a higher purpose than uglifying someones house). Even though I was holding a camera, I could narrate the play and engage this very new verbal communicator into a little conversation. Either I or this little guy's dad would make changes to the shape of the roadway (when he was not looking) and this way have something new to talk about every time the roadway changed. Dad was excited to see that his son was trying to stay on the roadway, as prior to this game, he ran the truck back and forth in a straight line across the floor. Blue painter's masking tape would also have created an interesting roadway on the floor and the roadway could go over, under and around things that can all be changed and discussed. Truck crashing is always fun as well.

NoKay

I love to help a child find words that he or she really wants to say. Sometimes--well often, I create situations where a child really wants to say something.

One little guy who was nearly nonverbal a few months ago loves lights so much. I would turn the lights off with one set of light switches and he would start to wail. I would say Daddy help! Light on! and he would stop crying long enough to say Light on! and run to the other set of light switches where daddy stood, and hold his arms up frantically. After all the lights were back on, he would walk away, fussing a bit and watching me warily in case I turned the light off again from the other set of switches. This was not his favorite activity but he was highly motivated to get the lights all on and would say the words necessary to make this happen. If I moved anywhere near the light switches, he would run to grab my hands and pull me back. If I asked him first Can I turn light off? he would reply NoKay which is the opposite of OK. We have been discussing lights and arguing about lights for many sessions. Yesterday, he gazed out the window in our clinic as street lights began to turn on and said light on. I replied Yes. Light on outside. We sat together on a step, playing with a balloon and every once in a while he would comment again about the lights on outside. We went back to the window to gaze at them again several more times before the session was over. He went home and told mom, Light on outside!

I think of it as a sales job, when I set out to demonstrate to a child why he or she should say words. If a child cares about something deeply, this is the topic to talk about, one way or another. If a child hates my ugly bug puppet, I pull it our regularly so the child can protest and then I can yell Go Away Bug! and throw it out the door. It is not long before the bug hater, if he can possibly do so, will be yelling Go Away Bug! And often yelling this with glee. I have had children request the bug that at first was genuinely frightening, just so he or she could yell at it. This is an easy sale because the child is already sold on the idea of the bug being banished, I just need to sell the idea of using words to do it.

I think that often we are not observant enough to figure out what would actually be an interesting set of words for a child with autism. We want the child to say things that are not interesting at all like to say the names of farm animals and colors. How may conversations about farm animals or colors have you had recently? We also want a child to say please, say hello, or answer questions like Why are you so upset? (which, I'd like to point out, grown men find hard to answer).

Talk about what a child cares about. If, for example, a child likes pencils and pens then discuss these. I once had quite a large collection of writing instruments that had names (light pen, bunny pen, Santa Pen, tiny pencil, tall pencil, wiggle pen, spinner pen, and so on.) I used these every session for weeks with a child who loved, as it turned out, all tall skinny things--even brooms and magic wands. I took pictures of every pen and pencil and we discussed each one, one by one, gazing at the picture as we talked, until the entire missing collection was found and collected again. Oh No! Skinny Pen is All Gone! Yikes! Skinny Pen where are you? Mom, where is Skinny Pen?

It is OK to use emotions to motivate language development. We all talk about what we are scared of, angry about, longing for, worried about, annoyed about, disappointed in, passionate about, in love with, fascinated by, curious about, revolted by, disgusted with and so on, and so on. If you are going to be putting words into a child's mouth, put the words in that the child really wants to say. A boring vocabulary lesson is NoKay.

Note: The emotion pens shown above are from here.