Introduction to the site (for new reader)
- Pointing to Request with demonstration clip
- Pointing to Direct Attention with demonstration clip
- Pointing when Asking a Question with demonstration clip
- Pointing in Cariboo Cranium game as an example of more complex communication interaction involving pointing with demonstration clip
This page discusses a set of games that involve moving together across space. The movement games allow children to simply be in the same place as another person, to learn to coordinate movement with another person, to learn to respond to movement by another person and is just good fun for many children. Within each movement game, other learning objectives may be the focus.
- Piggy Back Games where you carry a child around in order to help that child be in the same place as you are and attend to the same thing that you are. Language skills can be taught this way because the adult becomes increasingly predictable to the child.
- Step on Letters is a game that can be used to teach almost any language objective that you can think of as well as social objectives like taking turns, giving directions, taking directions with demonstration clip
- Row, Row, Row Your Boat with demonstration clip
- Hot! a game where everyone moves to a new bean bag when anyone yells Hot!
- What's Your Rule? where each player makes up a new set of rules for moving to a new bean bag, or in variations, to other locations. Demonstration clip.
- Can We Go? where two play partners move step-by-step across space and end up falling together into bean bag chairs or swinging on a swing or doing something else together, with demonstration clip.
- Up Step, where two people move up a set of steps together doing something at each step. This is a following directions game, a coordination game, and expressive language game, a sharing emotions game, with demonstration clip one and demonstration clip two.
- A discussion about teaching early reciprocal play
- Drum Imitation as an early game with demonstration clip
- Tickle Games with demonstration clips
- Swinging and Twirling Games with demonstration clip
- A discussion of using pleasurable sensory reinforcement to motivate reciprocal play
- A discussion about ways that your child can initiate reciprocal play
- This page discusses a strategy using movement from one place to another to help your child learn to use the space in your house more purposefully for play and in more interesting and social ways.
- Discussion of games that teach children to call and greet and say bye-bye with demonstration clips
- No, No, No Don’t Bite Books for teaching calling, greeting, saying bye-bye (and scolding) with demonstration clips
- Discussion of why teaching a child to say yes and no verbally and nonverbally is very useful for helping young children interact more socially
- Teaching yes/no as in that a particular thing is or is not correct with demonstration clip
- Teaching yes/no, meaning yes, now! Or no, not yet! (as opposed to no, not ever) with demonstration clip
- Teaching yes/no with point boxes or (hiding places) meaning yes, the hidden object is there or no, the hidden object is not there with demonstration clip
- Teaching yes/no indicating preference with demonstration clip
- Discussion of why yes/no should be taught as more than a strategy for protest and refusal
- Discussion related to teaching nonverbal yes/no
- Discussion about the communication roles of Teller and Listener in activities where one person tells another to do something
- Using Hide and Seek Games to increase language comprehension with demonstration clip
- Drumming Together with a Leader and a Follower with demonstration clip
- Animal Noses and other games for learning to give or follow verbal directions with demonstration clips
- Discussion of Taking Turns as a skill not a moral imperative
- Using a video model for teaching Taking Turns with Silly Six Pins Game with demonstration clip
- Teaching the procedure of Taking Turns with modeling and predictable language cues
- Discussion on why you should wait to teach the concept of sharing because it is socially very complex
- Other ideas for teaching Taking Turns throughout the day
- Teaching emotion words and reading facial expressions with Drawing Faces game with demonstration clip.
- Teach feelings by labeling them as they occur.
- Teaching your child to use words to express feelings and resolve unpleasant feelings
- Marcos story as an example of using words to resolve feelings
- Other games that teach emotion words and model emotional regulation with demonstration clips
- Teaching your child to understand new words first
- A variety of very simple early games for teaching vocabulary with demonstration clips
- Discussion of many bits of learning theory that make it easier to teach your child new vocabulary
- A variety of more games that teach vocabulary with demonstration clips.
- A strategy for teaching your child to imagine doing something new, or doing something in a different way, or saying something new, or interacting with others who are doing something new without anxiety or confusing. If your child is at the right stage of development for this strategy and you only try one strategy on this site, Family Dolls might just be the best strategy to try!
- You will not be an effective parent or teacher for a child with autism unless you understand your child’s need for predictability
- Understand your child’s need for predictability so that you don’t inadvertently teach inappropriate behavior
- Games can help you organize information in a predictable way and entice your child to come and play with you
- Study the game of Peek-a-Boo in order to understand how to create a perfect, predictable, social game for your child
- Modify Peek-a-Boo in order to understand the modifications that you may need to make to any game that you create for your child
- The concept of set-shifting is discussed as a way to understand why very intelligent children with ASD may still be quite inflexible in their thinking
- The story of Andy is offered as an example of helping a child “zoom out” in order to play in a new way with toys
- Flexible thinking can be taught, in the same way that muscles can be stretched — gradually
- The story of Rosita is offered as an example of gradually teaching flexibility
- Tahirih’s system for creating a good communication game
How to Change the Way You Talk
- A discussion of simple ways that parents, teachers, others should modify their own communication style in order to help a child with autism understand language and acquire new language skills
- A few great tricks for those of you who have a child who tries to control the toys so much in play that it is hard to teach him or her any new ways to interact with the toys, let alone teach new language related to the toys
- An inexpensive tool for helping nonverbal children start to use some language and other children experience what happens socially with the use of new words or phrases
Teaching Words that Describe Loss
- A discussion of why you might want to teach some language for loss and disappointment as a substitute for the behaviors that express the emotions associated with loss — such as tuning out and acting out
- A discussion about complaining and how to teach complaining as a substitute for refusing
Joint Attention and Reciprocity
- What is Joint Attention and Reciprocity and why is it important?