Route Games can be used with children at all levels of development : Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced. The number of stopping places along the route and the activity that is done at each stopping place may vary depending on the child's level of language development, fine motor ability and ability to sustain attention to tasks. Route Games allow a child to move and it is much easier to stay focused and attend if one is moving because human beings are meant to move, not just sit. Wide open spaces can make it hard to keep a child with you so that you can play together but if you plan a route, where you both will go together to an intended spot, stop together for a bit, then move on intentionally--this allows larger spaces to be used to support social play. It is hard to overstate how much improved your play sessions will be if you build a highly active route that you and the child will travel into your play sessions.

Up Step, and Can We Go? in endless variations are two all time best games that I learned while attending a four day workshop on Relationship Development Intervention or RDI. Beyond learning these particular delightful games, I learned to get up from my therapy table, or off the floor where I had been sitting for years with children. I learned that I could teach children language and social interaction skills while moving--but I needed to have a well designed route and know exactly what was going to occur at each stop along the route.