Water Well-Being
Many children love taking a bath and feeling happy is the right emotional state for play! If I understand what my Occupational Therapist colleagues have told me correctly, having water moving around the skin gives increased body awareness. Some individuals with autism have very poor body awareness ordinarily, and it takes a lot of mental energy to cope with this disconcerting lack of certainty about where one's body is. In the water, a child who ordinarily spends a lot of mental energy on body awareness does not have to worry about this and can focus on feeling playful and learning new things and talking. I have, in fact, noticed how much more verbal some children with autism are in the water than in other situations. Regardless of why it is true, if your child loves being in the water, you may find bath time or any other water time the very best time for engaging your child in playful social interaction. Now, if you have a child who actually hates being in the bath, I have a few suggestions for you as well below.Sing While You Bathe
One of the easiest ways to teach new language while you bathe your child is to sing about what you are doing. Here is my favorite bath time song from my friends at www.supersimplesong.com. In this case, just learn the song or play the song on a CD for your child, while you bathe and wash the mentioned body parts. Of course, you can keep singing this song and make up your own words in order to name other body parts, or any other thing that you can scrub in the water. I personally, can't get this tune out of my head for days after listening to it so I figure I might as well use the tune and sing about any darn thing that I can wash.
Ready-Set-Go In Water
One of the first verbal routines that I encourage parents to teach is Ready-Set-Go. There is no better place to teach this routine than in the bathtub. While your child is sitting in the bath, you say Ready-Set-Go! and then do something fun like drop colored floating balls into the water. After your child comes to expect you to do something following the word Go, you will want to stretch out the way you say Ready-Set..... and then wait before saying Go. You wait for your child to fill in the word Go or if he or she can't say this, then wait for your child to look at you expectantly. Here are some things you can do after saying Ready-Set-Go:
- drop colored balls into the water where they float.
- pour water from a pitcher onto your child's shoulders or in a stream in front of your child.
- say a letter name and produce the letters and line them up on the side of the tub.
- squirt your child with water from a squeeze bottle.
- Blow bubbles from a bubble wand for your child to pop.
........take it from here because there are no end of things that you can do in the bath tub with a Ready-Set-Go Routine.
Trouble With Bath Time
If you have a child who does not like to take a bath, use the bath song to pretend bath time in your living-room. Haul out an empty shampoo bottle, wash cloth, soap and whatever else will help your child understand that the song is about bath time. Put your child in the middle of the room and pretend he or she is in the tub. When you finish the last verse, pick your child up (clothes and all) in a towel and pretend to dry him or her off. Say All done bath! and end the activity. When you have practiced bath time with a song several times, then play and/or sing the song as you do the next real bath with your child. Get your child out of the tub as soon as the song is done. You can gradually stretch the bath out longer as your child learns to enjoy or tolerate being in the water but at first, the song will allow your child knows how long he or she is going to be in the water and that will make it easier.
If you are going to make Bath Time work for social interaction, you may need some toys that you and your child can play with together. How about Ducks?
Red duck
Blue duck
Old Duck
New Duck
Whacha Gonna Do Duck?
Whacha Gonna Do?
Blue duck
Old Duck
New Duck
Whacha Gonna Do Duck?
Whacha Gonna Do?
Duck Game 1
Put several ducks up on a high shelf or on the other side of the room from the bathtub. When your child is in the tub, call the ducks, one-by-one Du-uck, Come here! and bring a duck over to put it in the tub.
Gesture for the duck to come with your hand as you call it.
Don't use any more words than those suggested but feel free to coo and carry on about the ducks as you transport them.
If you
have dozens of them, with matching pairs, and many interesting kinds, this game will be more impressive. Luckily there are many other duck games on this site, so you can use the ducks for years of language growth.
Gesture for the duck to come with your hand as you call it.
Don't use any more words than those suggested but feel free to coo and carry on about the ducks as you transport them.
If you
Take the ducks out of the tub, one-by-one at the end of the bath saying Bye Bye Duck, and put it back where it was on the other side of the room. You might want to towel each duck off in a dry wash cloth saying All Dry! before setting the duck back on the shelf.
This game requires two people and your child. Put your ducks outside the bathroom door. If, say, dad is the doorman in this game, he is also outside the door. He knocks on the door three times. If, say, mom is the bath helper in this game, she says "Who is it?" Dad responds, "Duck!" Mom then says "Come in!" and Dad brings a duck and puts in in the bathtub or hands him over. Repeat. Over time, as your child develops language, you can develop this game in many ways to include more words. For example, Dad could say in a scary voice "Monster!" Mom could then say "Go away, Monster!" Dad would then reply in the monster voice. "Bye Bye!"
Duck Game 2
This game requires two people and your child. Put your ducks outside the bathroom door. If, say, dad is the doorman in this game, he is also outside the door. He knocks on the door three times. If, say, mom is the bath helper in this game, she says "Who is it?" Dad responds, "Duck!" Mom then says "Come in!" and Dad brings a duck and puts in in the bathtub or hands him over. Repeat. Over time, as your child develops language, you can develop this game in many ways to include more words. For example, Dad could say in a scary voice "Monster!" Mom could then say "Go away, Monster!" Dad would then reply in the monster voice. "Bye Bye!"