The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

This session begins with an overview of the stages of play and how play affects and is part of the development of appropriate social interaction skills for all children and how those skills affect their lives as adults.  Common characteristics of autism spectrum disorder that affect the young child’s ability to play appropriately and  interact socially with peers include difficulty with initiation, reciprocity, terminating interaction, understanding non-verbal communication and unwritten social rules, social cognition, perspective taking, and anxiety.  Each of these characteristics can impact the young child with ASD in his or her learning to interact with toys and play materials in ways that other children do and in being able to play with peers. 

 

The National Standards Project and National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder have identified a number of strategies that are shown to be effective in helping young children with ASD learn how to play and that critical skill of  “playing well with others.” In the past, many thought that children with ASD were both not capable of appropriate social interactions and that they did not necessarily want to play, interact socially with others or have friends. What is now known and what we have learned from individuals on the spectrum is that children with ASD typically do want friends and social experiences with others. The earlier they are taught social skills and the more practice they have through repeated opportunities for social situations and successful interactions with good social models, the better chance they have to learn social relatedness and the social rules of interaction.

There are many components of teaching social skills to a young child with ASD and one cannot assume that the child will just “get it” on his or her own time.  This session breaks down the components of social skills, reviews a number of the strategies that are evidence-based and how to use those strategies to systematically teach a young child with ASD how to play and socially interact.  The session will also provide specific examples as to how these strategies can be integrated into an early childhood classroom, day care or preschool class or home or community play group. Knowing how to play is not merely child’s work. It is now also clear that learning how to play and interact with others as a young child, however difficult it may be, has lasting impact on the person’s ability to interact in the more complex social world as an older child and adult: school, work, community, church, grocery store, recreation leading to opportunities for a full life participating in the world around him or her.

Objectives include: 1) Participants will review the stages of play development 2) Participants will learn evidence based strategies to teach and support play skills and social interaction in young children with ASD 3) Participants will learn specific ways to create play and social supports so that young children with ASD will be successful