Serious Play
When children play, the play may take on any kind of mood including fear, anger, and anxiety. Often play is punctuated with frequent laughter--but just as often, it is punctuated with dramatic growls and mock threats and pretend sadness. One of the many reasons children play is in order to become better prepared for serious threats in life and the motivation to play out such situations seems to be hard wired in children. Grownups often underestimate how drawn children are to play out high drama and may create very tame games compared to the kind of games that children will create for themselves. For very young children, one threat, one bit of high drama that actually occurs is a parent leaving--so this is a good foundation element for a game. I look for these bits of real life drama when I create games because I know that many children will be highly motivated to play out such moments in situations that are clearly play and not real. I think of these kinds of games as Safe Emergency Games. It is important to remember, though, that children with autism may not tolerate intense emotions for very long before becoming overwhelmed and it is easy for a child with autism to forget that this is just play and not real. Creating games around the principle of Safe Emergencies--emergencies that a child can practice and learn how to manage--this is a careful balancing act. When you get the balance right, though, these games are often a child's very favorite games.
First let's consider the issue of mom leaving. In real life, mom disappears and a child who can't call her has no way to get her back. This is an upsetting situation and a perfect set up for a Safe Emergency Game. In a calling game, the routine involves mom leaving and the child calling her back. She quickly returns and all is well! The game can be played out in dozens of different ways. This little game is often a hit and I believe it is because learning to call a parent back is important to a child who cannot do it.
In the calling video clip, this child still loves this game even though he has known how to call his parents for a long time. Calling a parent in an Ikea Swing is one of the first games I teach children at my clinic and then they request it forever so I have to keep finding ways to make the game work to teach new language. The clip below demonstrates the game and at first, both parents (or one parent and I) do all the calling and the child just watches.
The game clip above consists of this little script: 1st person calls "Mommy, where are you?" Mommy answers "I'm over here!" Child is turned around in the swing and mom says "Hi!" We have done versions of this game with parents hiding on the other side of a door, under blankets, behind furniture--it does not matter where the parent hides, the point is, we help the child call and then the parent answers, letting the child know where he or she is. When found, the parent says "Hi!". Sometimes, the parent comes from behind a door and hugs and kisses their son or daughter.
We don't call with a particular word, we call with a particular melody and this makes calling easier to learn. "Mo-om!" we say, stretching out the vowel. Asking Mom where she is while calling is also done with a particular melody. "Mo-om! Where aare you?" Not only do children tend to be motivated to learn to call for people they love, they seem to enjoy learning the melody of calling. There are actually, several calling melodies but I encourage you to use just one melody to start with so that your child can learn that one. On a related note, I encourage parents to use words and phrases that have a distinctive melody. Exaggerate the melody and use one melody consistently. It will help all children attend, listen, understand and imitate. Even adults will often imitate a phrase or sentence when it is said in an interesting way. This is how some new phrases catch on and spread like "He likes it! Hey Mikey" from the Life Cereal commercial. For nonverbal children or children who are just starting to talk, the words and phrases that have a consistent melody are much easier to learn.
This melody can then be used to call anything that is lost and kids seem to enjoy this as well. "Pen-cil! Where aare you?" I called out, when searching for a colored pencil the other day. The child who wanted to draw with me, called the pencil too and was quite patient while I searched. He knew we were going to draw even though he does not understand very many words yet.
Mommy!
First let's consider the issue of mom leaving. In real life, mom disappears and a child who can't call her has no way to get her back. This is an upsetting situation and a perfect set up for a Safe Emergency Game. In a calling game, the routine involves mom leaving and the child calling her back. She quickly returns and all is well! The game can be played out in dozens of different ways. This little game is often a hit and I believe it is because learning to call a parent back is important to a child who cannot do it.
Calling Mom or Dad
In the calling video clip, this child still loves this game even though he has known how to call his parents for a long time. Calling a parent in an Ikea Swing is one of the first games I teach children at my clinic and then they request it forever so I have to keep finding ways to make the game work to teach new language. The clip below demonstrates the game and at first, both parents (or one parent and I) do all the calling and the child just watches.
Calling Script
The game clip above consists of this little script: 1st person calls "Mommy, where are you?" Mommy answers "I'm over here!" Child is turned around in the swing and mom says "Hi!" We have done versions of this game with parents hiding on the other side of a door, under blankets, behind furniture--it does not matter where the parent hides, the point is, we help the child call and then the parent answers, letting the child know where he or she is. When found, the parent says "Hi!". Sometimes, the parent comes from behind a door and hugs and kisses their son or daughter.
We don't call with a particular word, we call with a particular melody and this makes calling easier to learn. "Mo-om!" we say, stretching out the vowel. Asking Mom where she is while calling is also done with a particular melody. "Mo-om! Where aare you?" Not only do children tend to be motivated to learn to call for people they love, they seem to enjoy learning the melody of calling. There are actually, several calling melodies but I encourage you to use just one melody to start with so that your child can learn that one. On a related note, I encourage parents to use words and phrases that have a distinctive melody. Exaggerate the melody and use one melody consistently. It will help all children attend, listen, understand and imitate. Even adults will often imitate a phrase or sentence when it is said in an interesting way. This is how some new phrases catch on and spread like "He likes it! Hey Mikey" from the Life Cereal commercial. For nonverbal children or children who are just starting to talk, the words and phrases that have a consistent melody are much easier to learn.
This melody can then be used to call anything that is lost and kids seem to enjoy this as well. "Pen-cil! Where aare you?" I called out, when searching for a colored pencil the other day. The child who wanted to draw with me, called the pencil too and was quite patient while I searched. He knew we were going to draw even though he does not understand very many words yet.
Learning to Call May Decrease Negative Behaviors
If children learn to call for parents rather than yelling or crying, this is a good thing. Calling is a really good thing as compared with, say pulling on sisters hair in order to get mom to come. One more advantage to teaching a playing calling games is that many children learn to respond when called with these games as well. I remember one child, Bradley, who would sit very quietly in a the most unlikely places in his big old country house. If he was sitting silently in an upstairs closet, as he sometimes did, it did no good to call him and it took a long time to find him. All this changed after we played calling games where sometimes Mom or one of his brothers would hide and he and I would call and they would answer "Here!" Bradley and I would then hide and they would call. Soon he was yelling "Here!" whenever mom or a family member called "Bradley, where are you?"
