Why Teach Play Skills to Students with Autism? (Part 1 of 3)

Autism, by definition includes difficulties with social  skills, communication skills and sometimes behavior skills.  Although not everyone with autism has difficulty in all of these areas, each of these areas affects the ability to play.  Joint attention, which is the shared focus on an activity or an object is absent from many younger individuals with autism (until it is taught.)  However, joint attention is needed to learn new skills, to share emotional states, to imitate actions and to learn.  The hope is that if you increase joint attention, you will increase the other skills as well.  One way to increase and teach joint attention in students could be through play.  

                        

I always wondered how I could target the play skills of students in a more structured and focused way. Then, I started to see the increase of teachers using interactive notebooks for topics like reading, science and math.  It dawned on me that this might be a good the way to approach teaching play skills to students with autism.  We already know that most lessons for our students require direct instruction, then practice. So why not for play?  Enter.......the Play Skills Interactive Notebook!!!

This Play Skills Interactive Notebook (Part 1) is made up of activities that are meant to be worked on prior to the play period.  They are meant to build the student's vocabulary and skills related to playing.  After they topics are addressed in the notebook, then it is time to practice the skill in a real structured play situation.  The topics covered in Part 1 are:

Imitation Skills

Play Skills

Cause and Effect

Cars and Trucks

Water Vehicles

Students can cut and paste the items into their notebooks.  For example, one page has them sort pictures of children working and children playing.

Another activity has students coloring in letters to spell P-L-A-Y, then gluing them inside to make a mini flap book.

Cause and effect is addressed by having students make a flap up foldable.  They choose an animal to open the flap for, and then, the student or the adult make the animal sound.  This can be expanded by writing the name of the animal on the inside of the flap.

Matching is included as well.  For this section of the interactive notebook, the students have to match 4 words related to playing.

While getting there, they work on pasting skills.

They also work on scissor skills during this activity.

Best wishes and have fun playing!!!

Click for here to see the Play Skills Notebook

Language Based Activities and Printables for Spring

Who is ready for Spring themed lessons?  I think it's time. These language based lessons have a spring theme.  They cover a variety of spring topics including weather, Cinco de Mayo, graduation and others.

There are  printables about flowers as well.  Students can count flowers and select the correct number.  They can also search for the beginning letter "f" as the class discusses the spelling of the word "flower."

I decided to include many activities that have bunnies, butterflies and flowers among other fun spring things that kids like to talk about. In this one, the teacher reads the poem and the student has to cut out the pictures of the bunny and place the bunny high or low when the teacher asks. Teachers can emphasis "high" and "low" before, during and after the activity.

                                             
Don't forget the spring weather bonus file folder game!

These activities highlight the match to same activities that are in the resource.  Students can practice cutting as well as matching with this task.

Finally, for June, the printables include pictures that can be colored in and cut out to make a Father's Day card.

The printables are available now.

Looking Forward to Spring with File Folders, Language Lessons and More

File Folder Game: Spring Matching

I am not sure about you, but I am looking forward to Spring.  I like the mild weather and the sun shining more and more in the sky. It is a great time to build some vocabulary skills in our students with motivating real life topics.  Who wouldn't want to learn words like butterfly and frog with a real butterfly or frog sitting there looking at you?  And what is more fun than learning about rain and mud in the real rain and mud?  With that, I decided today to show some of these spring materials that have been hiding for a while. Maybe they can support teaching efforts.  First, there is the
Autism File Folder Games: Spring Matching 

These are a set of file folder games with flowers, umbrellas and raindrops. Super cute images!!!

Next, there is my Spring Picture to Word Match (Match, Trace and Write)

This set includes 16 Spring related sight words and pictures. Each page has 2 cards. Laminate the page, cut the rectangular card and have students:

a. Say or point to the word.

b. Match the correct picture to the word.

c. Trace the word.

d. Write the word.

Also, there is a fun file folder with cute egg designs:  Egg Hunt File Folder

Finally we cannot forget about Autism Lesson Plan Printables for Autism Support and Special Education Classrooms

These lessons include langauge support printables related to: Spring, April, Weather, May, Flowers, Cinco De Mayo, June, Graduation.

The cover has been updated for this resource. The old cover is below.

Former Cover for this Product