Hello. Today I thought I'd talk about differences in play between children with autism and children
who do not have autism, and I've got 3 types of toys I'm going to talk about.
Right, the first one is this. It's a ball; when you bounce it, it makes a light,
and it's also got spiky pokey things all the way round it.
Now the first thing a neurotypical child will do probably when they pick this up,
they'll realize it's a ball and they'll either bounce or roll it, throw it, kick it.
However, a child with autism may play with a toy differently.
So with this one, it's quite sensory, and the feeling of the pokey-out bits is quite interesting;
so a child might press down on it or just individually feel them, because it's quite a sensory object.
They may like looking at the lights repeatedly - it's got different coloured lights here -
and I've seen one child put it under his top so he could feel it under his skin.
Now if there's more than one of these, a child with autism - say there were four -
might line them up, so just use them as any object,
not particularly a ball or anything round, but just line them up and might keep lining them up
and might change the colour and line them up, and continually do this repeatedly,
because children with autism often do an activity repetitively.
It doesn't mean that people with autism don't bounce a ball or roll it,
but often they use toys as objects in a different way to other children.
Right, the second toy I've got, which adults and children love, are bubbles.
Now let's see, lots of bubbles here.
Children without autism may run after them, clap them to burst them -
and so may children with autism, but children with autism may react differently to them.
I saw one child who had his head down and waited for them to land on the carpet, and then slowly and carefully stood on each one.
He also wanted to take this out of my hand and lick it -
and that's an example of another sensory feeling - taste,
and also the feeling of an object on the mouth,
so I've got something wet here, and it's the surface of this is slightly bumpy or jagged.
Here's another thing of bubbles. Sometimes children like just instead of blowing the bubbles they like just
using the wand to squish it squeeze it touch it feel it,
so not using it for the purpose for which it was designed, which is to make the bubbles.
Or, the child might just find that it's all very fun to pour it all out.
Now the third toy I've got is little Hannah, the panda.
A neurotypical child might speak to it, let it cuddle them, you know get something and feed it
but often children with autism may use this not as a cuddly toy and panda
that you might want to look after, feed, talk to,
but may just use different ends of the panda for something.
Often children with autism love the feel of these little tags.
I might spend some time doing that
and this is a lovely sensory object that they may want to stroke, and then this is sticking out -
so they may just use it in a different way. You may use it as a carpet and walk over it.
So that's 3 toys I've looked at:
the bouncy lighting-up balls with sticky up prickles,
the bubbles, and the panda. 'Bye for now.