How to Start Playing Together
Some children with autism look like Little Wanderers when they are young. These children don't seem to be doing anything really, nothing intentional at least. Nothing social unless you count protesting and maybe getting food or drink. These children don't use words intentionally although perhaps a Little Wanderer will say a word, clear as a bell, just once and really mean it. This is confusing to parents. If he or she can say a word once, why not all the time? If you have a child who is a Little Wanderer, you long to help your child learn how to play and communicate--especially with you. Social play and communication involves finding some way to share experiences and this is the classic difficulty parents face with a young children who has autism--it is as though they share no common experiences. This article is about how to get started with children who are extremely difficult to engage socially. If this is your child, you may be puzzled as you watch him or her wander here and there, touching things, picking one thing up and then dropping it a moment later. Although you share the same physical space, it may feel like you live in a different mental reality and that you have no common ground. When this is true, you will need to create a meeting place. The place you will create will be similar to the place that your child lives--the perceptual world--only you will be there together.
The Perceptual World
The games described on this page will help you explore ways to become the source of interesting perceptual experiences for your child. Prior to the development of language skills, a child with autism often resides entirely in the perceptual world rather than the conceptual world. This is the world of perceiving objects that float, that fit snugly on feet, that disappear into the mouth, unroll off of a tube, bounce when dropped, open and shut, spin. For me to think of these examples, I went into the conceptual world of words where I spend most my time. In this world I began to described whatever objects came to mind--a balloon, shoes, food, toilet paper, a ball, a door, a spinning top.
A Little Wanderer Story
Andy is a child who seems, like so many other children I have known, to ignore people and to live happily in the perception of objects--the roundness, the lightness of weight, the sound of bouncing, the creak or the slam, all of these sensations. He does not appear to be intentionally investigating the cause and effect properties of this world but his attention is caught, at least momentarily by things that provide him with an interesting sensory experience. Sometimes he does an activity over and over, like closing doors. Even this repeated activity looks unintentional as though each time he sees a door open he just happens to close it. But, more and more, Andy has been repeating things that give him an interesting sensory experience.
Andy is Emotionally Vulnerable Living Moment-to-Moment
It seems like Andy's entire life is good or bad, moment-to-moment, based upon whatever is happening in that moment. While flipping lights on and off, Andy's life is happy. Andy does not decide his life is happy, it just feels happy to control the light. While having his teeth brushed, his life is unbearable because it feels bad to have that brush in his mouth. Eating pizza, life is perfect. Andy is just like other guys around pizza. You can't comfort Andy, though, you just have to wait for him to be distracted into a different moment and hope it is a better moment for him.
Introducing Myself to Andy
When I first meet a child like Andy, I go to his perceptual world to be with him. I bring with me new perceptual experiences as a token of friendship. I introduce myself with something that he will find cool and really, it does not seem like Andy notices me at all but he notices my stuff if I bring the right stuff. I might bring a roll of tape to rip off in pieces and stick on his knees, the walls, toys that he picks up. I might bring a wonderful top that both spins and lights up and if he finds my top interesting, I am pleased to show him how to spin it. I intentionally become the source of new sensory experiences and a co-participant in each activity--even if it does not seem like he notices I am there. As a co-participant, I genuinely like the rip and the feel of tape sticking on this and on that. I become engaged in the perceptual world with Andy. In fact, I show Andy how to be more intentional in his pursuit of sensory experiences. I show him how to bring more curiosity and energy to these experiences.
Doing Things Together
I genuinely experience and enjoying whatever I am doing with Andy. I bring a kind of energy to what I am doing that Andy can hardly ignore. If I can't enjoy the rip and stickiness of tape with Andy--if I just dole out the tape for him for him to enjoy, then I am offering him a new solitary experience not a new social experience. I not only join Andy, I help him become aware that we are in a joint venture. I do everything I can think of to help him understand that I am an important part of the play experience. The sticky tape might be placed high up on a shelf and I might bring it down with effort and drama--over and over again, since I only take a small piece off at a time. I am not doing this to reward Andy for interacting with me--but rather to highlight that we are both involved in the experience of tape. I know that sensory experiences can be so absorbing that Andy could forget that I am there if I don't find a way to help him shift his attention back and forth between the tape and his play partner, me.
Leading Andy into the Conceptual World
I don't just conspicuously join Andy, I often start to add a conceptual framework to our common experience. I use single words and scripted phrases like Ready, set, go! When Andy understands that the words Ready, set, go! make things happen, he is entering the conceptual world of words where words have power. It is just the first step, but if he says Go! after I say Ready, Set, ..... then I know he is trying to see if the word will work for him.
At this point, I usually begin to use pictures with activities that we do. I pull out a large phot of Masking Tape and then get the Masking Tape out. I pull out a large picture of Spinning Tops and then I get the tops out. I am showing him symbols both verbal and visual of things that matter to him. If he shows an interest in my pictures, I will start to pull two out at a time. "First tape", I will say, "then Spinners".
First/Then is a conceptual framework that allows us to "discuss" what the next perceptual experiences will be. My next First/Then card might show a picture of running then drinking. I know Andy loves to run and he loves juice. He won't care what order these two activities come in, but he might notice what order they come in if I show him pictures in a First/Then sequence often enough. The First/Then sequence of pictures begins to provide information that is interesting to Andy, like the weather report is interesting to me in the morning.
When
I first start using single words or pictures and even when I first introduce a First/Then card, I don't think about the card as
a way to control Andy's behavior. I am not trying to get Andy to
do the first activity in order to be rewarded with the second activity
although this will be an option at some point. But not at first. I want Andy to be curious and interested in the pictures and he will not like pictures if I use them to control his behavior from the start. I also don't want to squander this teaching
opportunity on trying to teach compliance at the beginning because I
have a more ambitious aim. I want Andy to become interested in the
world of concepts. I want him to see pictures as a comment. First/Then tells him which good thing is going to happen next. This is a different world entirely from the
world of sticky tape on the knee or watching a top spin or running and
drinking. It is the world
of thinking about something that is not presently occurring. That is
what makes it conceptual rather than perceptual.
The Conceptual World Gets Bigger
As time goes on, and I have firmly secured Andy as a willing play partner, I will teach him more and more about the conceptual world with visuals. For many children, it takes several months of playing Come Be With Me and Cause and Effect games before a child has developed the social and cognitive skills needed to move into a more complex conceptual world. Some children, though, start to understand words and/or pictures quickly and even start to use some words or pictures to communicate. Whenever a child starts to show a real understanding of words and/or pictures, I expand the child's conceptual world to include visual choice boards. With a visual choice board, a child can look at several possible sensory activities and choose the next one. "Hmmm," I might say, pointing at a photo of the spinners first and then a balloon, "Spinners or Balloon?" If Andy does not make a choice by touching one, looking at one, or saying the word, I make a choice and this is what we do. As soon as Andy can make a choice with a visual schedule, we move on to creating a visual schedule.
A visual picture schedule include several planned activities listed in a sequence. Andy can then see that the plan for us together is to 1) play with tape 2) brush teeth 3) watch a light-up top spin. A visual schedule can expand Andy's conceptual world to include several activities and suddenly Andy is not so vulnerable, emotional to the event of the moment. If we put these three activities on a single visual schedule, Andy can decide if life is good or bad based on a larger time frame. Life does not see so terrible, even when there is a toothbrush in your mouth if you know that you will soon be playing with a light-up top spinning. A sequence like this is not just a way to offer a reward to a child for enduring the tooth brushing routine, it is a way to offer a child a wider view where he can anticipate better times ahead.
The Conceptual World Gets Bigger
As time goes on, and I have firmly secured Andy as a willing play partner, I will teach him more and more about the conceptual world with visuals. For many children, it takes several months of playing Come Be With Me and Cause and Effect games before a child has developed the social and cognitive skills needed to move into a more complex conceptual world. Some children, though, start to understand words and/or pictures quickly and even start to use some words or pictures to communicate. Whenever a child starts to show a real understanding of words and/or pictures, I expand the child's conceptual world to include visual choice boards. With a visual choice board, a child can look at several possible sensory activities and choose the next one. "Hmmm," I might say, pointing at a photo of the spinners first and then a balloon, "Spinners or Balloon?" If Andy does not make a choice by touching one, looking at one, or saying the word, I make a choice and this is what we do. As soon as Andy can make a choice with a visual schedule, we move on to creating a visual schedule.
A visual picture schedule include several planned activities listed in a sequence. Andy can then see that the plan for us together is to 1) play with tape 2) brush teeth 3) watch a light-up top spin. A visual schedule can expand Andy's conceptual world to include several activities and suddenly Andy is not so vulnerable, emotional to the event of the moment. If we put these three activities on a single visual schedule, Andy can decide if life is good or bad based on a larger time frame. Life does not see so terrible, even when there is a toothbrush in your mouth if you know that you will soon be playing with a light-up top spinning. A sequence like this is not just a way to offer a reward to a child for enduring the tooth brushing routine, it is a way to offer a child a wider view where he can anticipate better times ahead.
With these picture symbols, arranged in different ways, Andy and I can directly, and specifically communicate about experiences that will occur or that have already occurred. We can still be together in the moment's activity but we can also think together about what will soon occur. We can be happy and excited about the idea of ripping tape together. I can commiserate with him regarding the upcoming tooth brushing nightmare. We both can anticipate with joy the moment that we will have when we spin the top together. We share emotions and ideas prior to any of this happening in the perceptual world. After we complete our visual schedule list, we can look at that visual schedule and emotionally, re-live it all together. We can even interpret it all in a new way as Andy learns new language . "Tape was too sticky--I don't like sticky on my hands!" "Tooth brushing was Yucky!." (I can suggest the possibility that it was just uncomfortable not unbearable.) "Spinning Top was so cool!" It might be many, many months and for some children, even years before the child can think ahead with me and reflect like this, but this is the process that allows a child like Andy to become a friend who likes to be with me as much as I like to be with him.
Together, we have created a meeting ground for communication. It is ground that spans between the conceptual and perceptual world.
This article was first posted with the title Creating Common Ground
Video Clips and Pictures of Good
Beginning Games
Sensory Delights for Young Children
Remember that each child will enjoy and dislike different sensory activities--even on different days an activity may delight or upset the same child.
Beginning Games
 |  |  |
| Click Click Click | Calling Animals | Tickle Choice |
 | ||
| Blow Balloon | ||
 | More Little Games to Share with Your Child |  |
 |  |  |
Sensory Delights for Young Children
Remember that each child will enjoy and dislike different sensory activities--even on different days an activity may delight or upset the same child.
 |  |  |
| Masking Tape to Take off various things | Spinning Tops | Jumping on the Bed |
