Encouraging Play

Play is one of the most important pieces to helping a preschooler learn. When you are playing with your child you can work on:

• Problem solving – the train won’t fit in the tunnel, what should we do?
• Communication – Have your child ask for the toy he/she wants using words, signs, or icons.
• Vocabulary – You can use play to practice opposites by driving fast and slow. You can ask your child to give you the horse or the red lego. You can describe what is happening and tell your child the doll is dancing. Play can be a great way to teach your child lots of new words/concepts.
• Social Skills – You can practice interacting with your child by playing with the doll house together, taking turns with the baby’s bottle and sharing your favorite trains.
• More – fine motor skills, gross motor skills, imitation, and more……

Play with your child 

Why Play is Important

Your child learns while they are playing. When your child is rolling a car back forth he is learning cause and effect. When they mixes colors while painting they are learning that they can make things happen. When you say the ball is bouncing your child is learning new vocabulary like ball and bouncing. Play is linked to many different areas of development including social skills, communication, problem solving, pre-academic concepts, and more. Playing is not only fun but it is the best way you can help your child learn.

Autism and Play

Children with autism may have more trouble with play. Sometimes they may only enjoy playing with a few toys or they may play with them in very repetitive ways like lining them up, rolling them back and forth, or having to use them in a certain order. They may need help to engage with toys in functional ways. Autism can also make it hard for them to share toys or to engage with someone else while they are playing. Be patient and try to make it fun.

Types of play

Children typically engage in 6 different types of play.

• Exploratory play  – A child might not be interested in playing with a toy but they may want explore it by staring intently at a car, putting toys in their mouths, or rubbing a teddy bear. They are learning about different textures, shapes and colors in the world around them. If your child is exploring you can introduce new textures like water or sand that she can use to explore.
• Cause-and-effect play  – Toys that are cause and effect do something after a child performs an action. For instance, a pop up toy is considered a cause and effect toy. I use a lot of cause and effect toys to help catch a child’s interest and to help them stay engaged. I might use a wind up toy to send a car to a student and then have them send it back. It can also be a great time to teach turn taking. You can each have a turn spinning the top, etc.
• Functional play –  This is when children are playing with toys in the matter for which they were designed. This can be challenging for some students with Autism. I will usually start by working on toys in structured settings if this functional play is a challenge for your child. First, choose a toy you think your child will enjoy or let them choose between two toys. Then, sit at a table and model how to play with the toy the correct way. If your child is still having trouble, remember that imitating can be hard sometimes too. Use hand over hand prompting if it’s needed. Place your hand over your child’s hand and help them push the ball. When they play with it correctly make sure you give lots of praise and other reinforcers. Remember that this can be frustrating so you may only want to work on this for a few minutes at a time.
• Constructive play – This type of play is when a child builds or make something like a tower of blocks. Some of my students with Autism can be very skilled in this area. I even had a kiddo who could do 100 piece jigsaw puzzles at 3 years old. If they are having trouble, show them what to do and take turns building a tower or putting pieces in the puzzle.
• Physical play – Physical play helps students work on their gross motor skills. Typically, we work on this a lot at recess. Encourage your child to run, go down slides, ride tricycles, and other fun outdoor activities. This can sometimes help students focus on teacher directed tasks as well.
• Pretend play– Pretend play is an area that some students with Autism may have trouble with. Pretend play is when a child will pretend to feed a baby a bottle, or when they pretend to cook food in the kitchen. I will tell my students, I am so hungry can you give me pizza. Then I will say num num num and pretend to eat the pizza. They love it and it helps model what they should be doing and encourages interactions. You can also work on pretend play with animal toys by walking the horse to the barn and making animal noises. Pretend play can help children learn language and social skills.

Social skills/Social Play

Many kiddos with Autism prefer to play alone. When someone moves close to them they may even get up and move somewhere else so they can be alone. Sometimes they won’t even notice other kids/people playing around them. If your child is playing alone, try to get a toy like they are using and play beside them. This is called parallel play. If your child is building blocks, start building your own tower a few feet way. Once they are used to someone playing near them you can work on occasionally interacting with them or sharing toys. You can take turns knocking down your tower, or you can ask them to give you a block. Encourage interactions whenever you can, be silly and have fun.