A Route Game is a playful routine where you move from one place to another, often doing different things in different locations. Children with autism often create routes on their own but just touch spots along the way rather than doing anything productive in each location. In these early games, Route Games use a child's interest in moving from one spot to another but make the movement more social, intentional, and productive.
Come to Me!
Your child will enjoy running as soon as he or she can run without falling or banging into things--maybe even sooner. It makes sense to turn this love of running into a social game. The one that most children seem to learn spontaneously is a chase game and that is one I would discourage you from doing because it is so unsafe if your child decides to play chase in a parking lot or into the street outside your home. Instead, teach your child to run toward you by holding your arms out and saying Come to Me! and twirling your child around when he or she obeys. It is easiest to teach this game by having two people, possibly in a hallway, who each point your child toward the other.
Running Together
Below is a great games from the RDI literature where one (or two) parents run with a child and then fall into a big bean bag chair.
Piggy Back Games
With a Piggy Back Game, as with carrying a child on your hip, the child is able to keep up despite short legs and a different agenda. Children with ASD are able, when carried around, to be in the same place at the same time as the adult. As you may know, this can be half the battle. If you are the parent of little wanderer or a mad dasher, you know that your child always seems to be somewhere else doing something different that what you are doing and thus not available for social or language learning. Putting your child on your back or hip offers many communication opportunities.
For
children who like being held and being high up, this game is fun;
moving is fun, and getting parents to move on command is
thrilling. Many a light-weight child, including my youngest daughter, learned on my hip to say words like march, stop, go, fast, turn around, up, down, and swing as their first words. I have carried kids, pulled them in a wagon, set them in a rolling desk chair, dragged them sitting on a big bean bag chair or in some way transported children in order to make sure we were both moving in the same direction and paying attention to the same things.
More Video Clips of Early Route Games
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| Swing with Blanket Alternative Link (not You Tube) | Route Game | Bop and Jump |