By Tahirih Bushey M.A.C.C.C.
Speech Language Pathologist
more tips for parents
Encourage your child to pay attention to you and a toy
Children with autism often want to control the toys or other materials once they are engaged with something. As explained here, all their mental energy goes to that toy. You, their play partner, are not getting any attention! This makes it hard for you to build your child's communication and interaction skills. The goal is to create and activity where you are an integral part of your child's play.
Below are a few strategies that will help you encourage your child to pay attention to you and the toy.
You provide the toys
Imagine your child wants to play an inset puzzle. You can sit beside your child and play with the puzzle. But your child is likely to ignore you. Worse, you may be perceived as an interference. He or she may get very agitated if you even touch the puzzle pieces. Your child perceives you as a problem!
But if you have all the puzzle pieces and you find a creative way to give them to your child, then you are not interfering. Instead, you are providing what is needed in a most interesting manner.
Providing toys in a creative way
Certain tools can help you provide toys to your child in an interesting way. Here are a few tools that work well to put a little distance between your child and a desired toy.
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pieces of rain gutter
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slides
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tubes
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closed clear plastic bags
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closed doors
How does this work? Watch the following video!
Naturally shifting attention
This strategy naturally teaches your child to shift attention back and forth between the toys and you. He or she has to pay attention to you because you have the next important toy! Your child shifts attention naturally to you in order to keep the activity going. Now you are interacting with your child in a positive, playful way.
A time for discussion
Imagine your child wants to play with Pooh Bear characters. As the toy provider, you send these characters down a four foot piece of gutter. In the video below we demonstrate with colored rings.
Now you have a perfect opportunity for introducing verbal communication into the game. You can say things like "You want Pooh Bear, not Tigger yet!" "You looked at Pooh Bear!" "Bye-Bye, Pooh Bear, here he comes!" while you slide the bear down the gutter, or as you take Pooh Bear out of a clear bag, or as you place Bear in the back of a truck to be transported to your child.
Like a gutter, a dump truck offers an interesting way to pass items to your child. Here you can say, "Load 'em up, Send 'em over!"
Watch the Push Truck Game again to see how this strategy can work. Think about how to add language to this game. You get the idea, right?
When children protest
Just so you know, these strategies cannot always be done easily, gracefully, or without causing protest. Persist on this rule: The toys need to start out with Mommy or Daddy and be given over one at a time.
If your child protests too much, put the toys away and try again another time. You could make a video model for your child to watch of the transfer process. Let your child watch as someone important chooses and obtains toys one-by-one.
Conversations when things are in sight but out of reach
If you have a collection of items that your child likes to choose from, you may want to make this collection visible but not immediately accessible.
Put items in a bottle with a tightly shut lid. Even a clear plastic bag or clear plastic bottle will work because this allows your child to see the desired item but not get it independently. (I like zip lock bags. At least some kids don't know how to get in them.) You may need to clutch one end of the bag, though!
Say your child wants a cookie. If you just hand over the cookie, there is no opportunity to discuss... anything! But put two different kinds of cookies in a clear bag, you create an opportunity for discussion before your child eats away!
You could say "You want a pink cookie..." (pointing to pink cookie) "Or a brown cookie?" (pointing to partly eaten cookie). You can say "Maybe Daddy ate a bite. No, no, no, Daddy, don't eat brown cookie."
You can look again at the two cookies and say, "Pink cookie looks yummy! Well, first get a plate." You can take your child over to where plates are kept and say "We need a plate, then eat pink cookie." When there are no plates in the cupboard, you might say "Where is a plate? and set off looking for plate in dishwasher.
Now this might be way too much language for your child. Or you may be able to make this whole adventure last twice as long. But without the intervening clear bag your conversation around the cookie would be much shorter.
With the bag safely guarding the cookies, your child may be motivated to complain about the bite taken out of the brown cookie, choose a plate, get a glass of milk to go with it, wait while you get one too, sit down together with you on chairs (with a discussion at every juncture) and then eat the cookies with you.