Initiating and Building Up a Game With Your Child

FROM BECKY: I want to talk a little bit about initiating and building up a game for your child with Autism. The way I view this is similar to the way I cook. I'm the kind of person who likes to throw a little bit of this and a little bit of that in as I cook. I rarely follow a recepe, I improvise! When I am in The Son-Rise Program playroom and I'm playing with a child, or interacting with a teenager or adult, I do the same thing, add a little bit of this and a little bit of that to create new flavor in the interaction.

Want to practice this?

These ideas are going to be based on our child giving us a green light and they are not particularly focused on anything else at the time. They do not have an object in their hand, they are not bouncing on the ball or climbing on the slide, instead, they may be walking across the room as they look at you, or you may enter the playroom and they pay attention to you, perhaps, they have just taken a break from jumping on the trampoline and brush past you and touch your arm. I'm going to list below, 5 random actions that could be done when your child gives you a green light. Often when we do an action, our child will continue to attend, now what do I do?....Well now it's time to keep adding to the idea and building up the game.

Practice for yourself!

Try adding 4 new things to each action that would stretch the game and take it in fun new directions. By doing this you will work on your child's interactive attention span, imagination play and your own spontaneity and creativity. Once you have written down four new ideas of each action, scroll down and get more ideas from me. The object is not to get the same ideas as me, not to have the most elaborate, perfect game in the world, but to have fun and not judge your ideas. To be spontanous and practice being passionate and quick.

Are you ready?

1. Quack like a duck!


2. Play a harmonica.


3. Give your child a tickle.


4. Skip across the room for your child.


5. Throw a ball into the air and catch it.

Did you do it? Here are more...

1. Quack like a duck, waddle around the room, get a blanket and pretend it's a pond, splash in the pond, eat some pretend bread.


2. Play a harmonica, do a little dance, sit on the floor to play, stand back up to play, bang the wall like a drum as you play.


3. Give your child a tickle, chase them and then tickle them, tickle them with a puppet, tickle their nose and then their toes, tickle youryself and fall about giggling.


4. Skip across the room for your child, start to hum a marching tune as you do it, grab a doll and make the doll skip too, skip to the wall and skip to the door, invite your child to skip with you.


5. Throw a ball into the air and catch it, grab another ball and try to juggle, throw the ball and try and catch it on your head, bounce the ball and try to jump over it, put it between your knees and try to run across the room.

See how easy it is? It's just like cooking! Have fun!