TIP-PRIORITIZE RECIPROCITY: The back-and-forth of words and actions in any social activity is called reciprocity. Games build reciprocity because the child knows how to respond. Both players know what to expect and the both want to keep the game going.

For example, the mother, in Build a Mountain, has taught her son to expect that she will shake the mountain, so when she pauses, and waits expectantly, her son will do something to communicate that he wants her to shake the mountain. The routine in this game was built so that his mother could interrupt the routine. The way he communicates that he wants her to continue might be very small but she is watching for it! She is ready to respond to whatever he does. He might try an urgent glance or a wiggle or a little verbal sound. Now the game is on! His role when she stops is to get her going again. She can gradually teach him a more conventional way to communicate-- to say "GO" or tap her hand or press a single message Talking Button that says "GO, MAMA!" But at first, these games are all about building any form of genuine reciprocity.

TIP-PREDICTABILITY IS THE INVITATION TO PLAY: All young children enjoy routines but children with ASD need the routines to be predictable in more of the details. Small changes are confusing, especially at the beginning. These games introduce predictable routines, which are sequences with just a few steps that repeat over and over. Predictable means that the child can easily understand how the game begins, what happens next, how the game ends. The child can see the pattern and know what to do, exactly, in each moment of the game. Adults are careful to maintain predictability while playing these games. After the child learns the routine, variations are added but not to many and not too quickly. It is the predictability itself that makes these games inviting to a child with ASD. Enough predictability needs to be maintained or the child will lose interest, become frustrated, or just walk away. When variation is added, that variation is intentional and meant to teach a new word, a social skill, motor skill, or even just meant to teach the child that novelty is fun. While predictability is the hook that keeps the child playing, variations, added gradually, allow the child to learn new things while playing.

TIP: SENSORY EXPERIENCES ARE CRUCIAL IN THESE GAMES. All these games include an interesting sensory experience even if that experience is an adult, dramatically exclaiming What! Wait a Minute! as in the game above. When children have more language skills and more social and cultural understanding, games and activity based upon stories will start to make sense but at this level of play, the games are all about how something looks, smells, feels, or sounds. For more on how to think about the sensory aspects of social games, see the link below for a very clear discussion on the topic.

TIP-USE INTRINSIC REWARDS. An intrinsic reward means that there is something (usually some sensory experience) built into the game that is pleasant enough to keep a child playing the game. Notice that there are no extrinsic rewards used in these games-no tokens given or iPad time earned by playing these games. The goal is to find or create social play activities that were intrinsically rewarding even for the most reluctant child. Ultimately, the goal is that the child comes to believe that playing with others is socially rewarding and for that to happen, the play partners need to be enjoyable to the child. After finding the right game, social barriers to enjoyment need to be removed. Is the adult talking too much? Or talking too loudly? Is the play partner too unpredictable-saying or doing things that the child cannot anticipate or respond to? Is the play partner too intrusive? Or, as explained in the Hanen Centre video above, are the sensory aspects of the game, including actions of the play partner, just unpleasant to this child?

Intrinsic rewards include the social reward of being with another human being, sharing emotions and sharing experiences. The goal is to have the child experience social rewards as well. For a child with autism, often more attuned to the material/mechanical world than the social world, the intrinsic reward may be the pleasure of seeing something interesting, touching an interesting texture, hearing a cool pattern of sounds (like scripted language), identifying a cause/effect sequence, or feeling the pleasure of some movement. As someone who played for a living, so to speak, I chose to genuinely enjoy all of these sensory experiences in the game right along with the child. This in turn, allowed the child to enjoy the social experience of sharing attention, emotions and intentions with another human being. In other words, I joined the child in the physical world so that the child could join me in the social world.

TIP-INTRODUCE VISUAL SUPPORTS: Visual Supports, are pictures used instead of, or in addition to words. They are used to communicate with a child who is not yet able to understand what people are saying. From the beginning, when working with a child who has limited verbal language, adding visual information can almost magically help a child understand expectations, participate in transitions, and enjoy social activities.

A Speech Language Pathologist can help you choose the appropriate kinds of visual supports. On this site, I have offered a mere hint of what is possible.