By Tahirih Bushey M.A.C.C.C.
Speech & Language Pathologist
more tips for parents
Games should allow both play partners to...
1. Enjoy being together and being involved in the same activity. This means that very simple games can be the best games of all! Don't think complicated, think fun!
2. Watch each other’s facial expressions, gestures, and body movements in order to share emotions and learn information. You may need to hold communication gestures longer, be more dramatic, draw attention to important emotional communication signals so that your child does not miss them. You may also need to watch for any slight or fleeting facial expressions, gestures or body movements that communicate your child's emotional state. Respond to these signals so that your child knows he or she was successful at communicating his or her emotions.
3. Practice reciprocity. This means looking together at things, looking at each other and taking turns reacting to whatever the other did last. All this can happen with facial expressions, gestures, sounds, songs, words, with or without toys, with or without your child intentionally trying to be reciprocal - although the end result should be that your child enjoys playing this way soooo much that he or she will become a more willing and intentional participant in reciprocal play.
4. Start Games. Both play partners should have a way to get the game started. Give each game a name and use this name even if the game evolves into something different over time. For children who are not yet able to talk, take a picture of something that represents the game and always pull this picture out when you play the game. We are going to play the Squish Game, you might say as you pull out the couch pillows. Your picture could be of two couch pillows stacked on the livingroom floor. Over time, the squish game might involve climbing up on Daddy's back and daddy leaning back in the easy chair--squishing this way. The picture does not need to change, even if the game does. Your child needs to be able to decide what to play at least some of the time but, likewise, you need to be able to decide what to play at least some of the time too. If need be, make a list. 1) Andy's Game 2) Daddy's Game 3) Andy's game 4) Daddy's game 5) Snack. Cross off the numbered items one at a time and don't let either player decide all the time what to play. Since you want your child to initiate and not simply respond to others, teach him or her to initiate. Help your child learn to make decisions and to share decision making with you.
5. Communicate for many different reasons (calling, telling, teasing, worrying, wondering, explaining, remembering, analyzing, rejecting, negating, joking...). Keep your reasons simple with young children.
A game where you practice being scared together is a fun game for many young children. See an example of this in the Bowling Pin Gutter Game. The games is mostly about making faces together. As your child is able, make games that include communicating for a variety of reasons with more complex social plots. The natural medium for this is pretend play. Be a play partner to your child in pretend play and play like another kid would, not like a director/teacher.
7. Share memories. This is often done by taking a photo, recording a video, or making a journal to record exciting things that you do and then reviewing them. Review should include remembering how much fun, how scary, how hard, how cool, how funny a game was.
8. Help your child learn to persist when communication fails. Most kids with ASD just leave or have a meltdown when confused or misunderstood. The trick to teaching communication repair strategies is to calmly show your child how to communicate confusion, how to repeat a message, how to demonstrate meaning, how to not give up easily. This is called Communication Repair. To do this, you show your child what to say. You model saying things like, "I don't understand! Say it another way!" or "Show me."
9. Practice imaginative play and flexible thought. Be explicit about it when you are being imaginative or when you are thinking flexibly. For example, you can say, "This is pretend. I am pretending mad." Or "Uh Oh! I will do this a different way. This way is not working." These skills are sooo hard for kids with ASD to learn that you need to be explicit in your teaching.
10. Practice new vocabulary and new word combinations. Use just a few new words at a time if your child is just learning to talk. If your child is very verbal, add interesting new words and phrases intentionally in the game. For example, "We are in a disgusting mess here! We will need to get a professional street cleaner to clean the sidewalk chalk off this driveway!"
11. Stop playing when it is not fun anymore. Adults need to stop because they will convey that they are not having fun and kids need to stop because they will not want to play again with an adult who does not stop when the fun is over.
This is not boot camp. It's just a game.