Hi guys, welcome to SAAAC online. We're doing our video session and today's video is going
to focus on the importance of play and the power of play and teaching kids skills and
just building on those skills. So a lot of you might wonder how play differs from with
a typical child and playing with a child with autism. Well we all know children with autism
lack play skills, therefore we need to teach them how to play. So essentially you'll be
doing work while the child plays. You'll have specific goals in mind that you want to target,
whether it is building on skills or building language. Through play, we as parents, therapists,
and volunteers want to create an emotional connection with our child and give them a
way to connect to the world. First you want to make sure you can create an environment
with lots of opportunity for the child to ask for things, to play with things, just
to have access to. So you can see with Daniel I had the warm up, I had the the Thomas
puzzle out, I had some I think I believe some colouring pages out, there were lots of things on the table, at
least five or six things. So as soon as he came in, I knew what he gravitated towards.
You can tell what does a child like to play with, what is he spending most of his time
with? So these are things you can do to assest what the child interest are and this is what
you'll use to kind of incorporate play and teaching into your session with your child.
So the one thing you always got to remember is you want to make sure that the child takes
the lead. This means that when the child enters the room, or enters the play center, you want
to make sure that to observe them, to watch them, to see what they are going towards,
what are they spending most of their time with? You can see in the video Daniel totally
the first thing he went for was the worm. He loves Mr. Squiggly Worms. So I made sure
I watched him for a bit, let him play with it, brought out Mister Bear and the other
squiggly worm, and that's what he wanted, that's what he played with. So always make
sure that once you have the environment set up with all the different puzzles, and all
the different toys, and all the different books, you see and watch the child what they're
going towards. So now you have the environment, you have the child going and looking at different
things, you know what they want , you know what they love, so what are you going to do?
You're going to restrict access to these high interest items. What I mean by that is you're
going to make sure that these items are visible, but their not of easy access to the child.
So you can see in the video I'm playing with Daniel and he's playing with his worms, but
at one point I'm hiding Mister Worm behind me. So he's looking around for it and I know
he wants it. So he'll say, "I want Mister Worm!", or , "I want Squiggly Worm!", he'll
say something. So this is to increase language at this point because you're restricting the
access to the item. I've done this with the puzzle, where I've held it up high and waited
for him to ask for it, use something. He knows that he can use the language to ask for it
and he really wants it. So as long as you have the motivation, you can restrict access
to it and know that they will ask for it. So now you've set up step one, created the
environment, step two, let the child take the lead, and step three, restricted access. The
fourth thing is also something that you might have to do ahead of time. You have to have
goals in mind. You want set these out ahead time because you want to make sure that when
you're playing, you have these at the back of your mind. So whether it's increasing language,
like I did with Daniel. He asked for the worm, he asked for the puzzle piece, I've done it
to increase his words to one word demands to three words meaning not just saying, "Puzzle",
or not saying, "Piece". He's like, "I want three piece!", "I want the blue marker!",
"I want the red marker!". So depending on the child and depending on their level, you
want to make sure that you have the goals accordingly. I also worked on building matching
skills. So we had doing the Lego pieces, but at one point he was just making them all sorts
of colours and I started doing the orange tower, and he was matching it. He was like,
"Oh, let me add the other orange Lego piece on it and the blocks.". You can work on labeling
items. So when we're looking books, and like looking at pictures, we're saying, "Who's
that?", "Sir Tophim Hat!", Who's that?", "Thomas!". You know he's working on identifying and labeling
things. At one point when we were doing the puzzle, we worked on, "Oh show me..", I think
it was the airplane, "Show me the truck!", "Show me..." you know I was bale to incorporate
teaching into the different skills and play that we were working on. The best part for
me was when we we're doing prepositions. We we're putting Mister Squiggly Worm on my head
and I was like, "Where is he?", and he's like, "Oh, over there on your head.". So he's using
words and he's learning new things through play and that's the best thing you want to
do and that's what you always want to make sure. At the end of the day, you want to have
clear goals in mind so that you can teach those and make sure that they're always there
at the back of your hand. Okay so this brings us to the end of the video, so like we talked
about beginning, we want to create that emotional connection and we want give that to parents
to be able to have that connection with your child, with your brother, with your sister.
So the way we do it is through play and remember all the four points and you'll be good to
go. So go ahead, challenge them to have play, be creative, and don't be afraid to get down
on the floor and get right into it. So good luck and we'll see you next time.