An Early Start for Your Child with Autism: Using Everyday Activities to Help Kids Connect, Communicate, and Learn

by Rogers, Sally J.

  Summary of Step 3

  If you have followed along and carried out the preceding activities, your child will be initiating pretend play routines and may also initiate using figures (dolls, animals, figurines) as animate beings. See if you agree with most of the statements in the following checklist. If so, you are now armed with important skills for teaching other kinds of symbolic play—knowledge you will use in Step 4. If not, start experimenting during play and caregiving routines until you have found some methods that work for each statement.

  Activity Checklist: Can My Child Carry Out Spontaneous Play

  Actions with Props and Action Figures?

  ____ My child is able to choose different objects and props from the box for character play.

  ____ I know how to set out the materials in an orderly way to help my child start to play.

  ____ I know how to wait and follow the least-to-most prompting hierarchy to encourage my child’s spontaneous play actions with the character.

  ____ I know how to follow my child’s lead when he or she chooses a play action to do on the doll/animal/figure.

  ____ My child is able to use different objects or props and initiate different play actions among the doll/animal/figure, my child, and me.

  ____ I know how to model and help my child use the doll/animal/figure to act out different play actions.

  ____ My child, the doll/animal/figure, and I can act out different play scenarios during daily routines.

  What about Ben? As you have read earlier, Ben doesn’t care much for dolls or animals. Mom has introduced the idea of animate toys by teaching Ben how to carry out different play actions with objects and props on his cars and having a character help him. However, he engages the characters only for car play. Mom tries to come up with other ideas for character play. She thinks about how much Ben loves his Lightning McQueen pillowcase, which shows a race car from the Disney movie Cars. She wonders whether the pillow might work as a “doll” to bring to life. Since Ben can easily feed his toy cars, she decides to seat the pillow in a chair next to Ben during lunch and tells him it’s hungry. When Ben doesn’t respond, she asks him whether McQueen would want a bite of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich or his apple. She’s glad that she has offered Ben a choice rather than taking the first turn to feed something to the pillow, because Ben picks up an apple slice and touches the pillow. Mom does her best imitation of McQueen’s voice and thanks Ben for sharing. Next McQueen asks for a bite of Ben’s sandwich, and Ben obliges. Then McQueen says he’s thirsty and asks if Ben could get him a cup. Mom gets up to retrieve an empty cup and hands it to Ben. When he doesn’t place the cup in front of the pillow, McQueen says, “Hey, buddy, don’t forget that I’m thirsty. Give me a drink, please.” Ben smiles as he raises the cup to the pillow. McQueen and Ben continue their lunch together and make sure that Mom doesn’t feel left out.

  Step 4. Teach Symbolic Substitutions

  Rationale. The next type of pretend play that your child will develop is the ability to treat objects as if they were something else. You have probably seen a child invent objects “out of thin air,” such as handing you a pretend cookie to eat, putting a cereal bowl on her head as if it were a hat, or sitting in a cardboard box as if it were a car. Just like play with action figures, this is an important step in children’s pretend play and thinking skills. It shows that thoughts and ideas can guide their actions—that they are no longer bound to the world of objects. Instead, their mental world is becoming stronger and more abstract, and they can impose their ideas on the world of objects. This is a huge step for little children with autism, and a very important one to develop for thinking skills, for language skills, and for social development. It will help them understand the play of their age-mates and participate with other children as competent play partners.

  Activity: Help Your Child Learn to Create Pretend Objects in Play

  You will use the same joint activity format that you have used to teach all the other play skills. In this type of play, you will model using ambiguous materials—materials that do not have a clear function in and of themselves—as if they were the familiar props your child is using in your pretend play routines.

  Here are ideas for adapting the joint activity routine for this purpose:

  Setup: Using the set of props you have been using for pretend play, include some ambiguous objects that can easily represent objects your child likes to use. These are objects that do not have a strong identity of their own. For example, instead of using a play cookie, use a round piece of cardboard: It is shaped like a cookie, but doesn’t have a strong identity as anything on its own. The ambiguous object should resemble the realistic object that it will be a substitute for in some key physical features. For example, a Popsicle stick is a good ambiguous object to represent a spoon, fork, or knife. It is not a good substitute for a towel, however. A small piece of cloth is a good substitute object for a towel, or a hat, or a diaper, but it is not a good substitute for a spoon. However, they are both ambiguous; neither has a strong identity of its own. Blocks are particularly good ambiguous items. A cylinder-shaped block is a good substitute for a baby bottle or drinking glass. A square block is a good substitute for a cookie or a bar of soap. Small pieces of cloth, Popsicle sticks, small pieces of paper, baby blankets, shoeboxes, and other random household materials work well as ambiguous objects. Try to find two ambiguous objects to substitute for two key objects in each of your play scenes with your child. Add them to your box of objects for pretend play.

  Now that you have these props in your box, let your child pick out some familiar objects and choose the theme, or suggest it yourself and follow your child’s lead into the pretend scene. Action figures will be present, of course, and multiple props related to theme, all realistic except for the one or two ambiguous objects that you have chosen for this scene. They will be substitutes for the realistic objects in the play.

  Theme: Use the realistic (not ambiguous) objects to start off the pretend play scene with your child, as you two typically do, doing the actions on each other and on the doll, animal, or other figure. Have an ambiguous object that will be used next to represent the realistic object nearby.

  Variation: After you have played out a theme involving the realistic object for which you have a substitute available, immediately repeat the action using the ambiguous object, while narrating and modeling the action as you typically do. Label the ambiguous object with the name of the real object it is representing: “Look, here’s my [comb, shoe, cookie, etc.]!” For example, if the goal is for the child to pretend that a triangular block is a baby bottle, then have the block, bottle, and baby present. First set up, model, and have your child imitate feeding the baby with the bottle, with you and your child each taking a turn. Then immediately model feeding the baby with the block, calling it a bottle, and encourage your child to imitate this. Play this back and forth a few times, and also include the other realistic props in your typical actions involving feeding. This might be a good time to have two figures available, so when your child feeds one figure with the bottle, you can feed the other figure with the block, and vice versa. Imitating your child while using the equivalent object will make the idea of the substitute stronger.

  Closing/transition: As usual, begin an organized closing and transition to a new activity as interest or ideas wane.

  If this is not becoming clear to your child, back up and go back to pretend play themes with dolls or other figures and realistic, miniature props for a while. Continue to expand the number of themes your child can play out with realistic props. As we have said earlier, children generally prefer to use realistic props rather than ambiguous ones, and building up pretend play themes with realistic props is setting the stage for your child to learn to use an ambiguous prop as a substitute. After you have a very well-established theme that your child enjoys and can play out with all the objects without your prompts, try the substitute object again. Remove the key realistic item from a favorite theme,
and have only an ambiguous substitute object available for that key part. As you play along, request the needed object. Feign ignorance and ask for it, such as “I need a spoon” when there are only tongue depressors there, along with a real bowl and cup. Point to a tongue depressor, say, “Here is a spoon,” help your child give you the tongue depressor, label it as a spoon, and immediately use it to eat “cereal” from the bowl. Ham it up with sound effects (“Yum, yum, delicious!”), and then offer a bite of cereal to your child with the spoon. Encourage the pretending, and then give your child a tongue depressor to use as a spoon. Help him if needed. Then produce a real spoon and imitate your child eating the cereal. These are the steps for teaching symbolic substitutes.

  Build up your child’s knowledge of many ambiguous objects representing many different props. In each of your play theme boxes, have multiple ambiguous objects available that can be substituted for the object necessary for that theme; be sure your child has learned to use the ambiguous objects and can use them in more than one way. For example, a Popsicle stick can be used several ways: as a spoon for feeding, a crayon for writing, and a thermometer for doctor scenes. As the play evolves, your child may well begin to use the ambiguous objects spontaneously. If so, label the object with its pretend identity with enthusiasm! If your child does not do this spontaneously, continue to hand the ambiguous object to the child, label it with its pretend identity, and ask the child to use it (e.g., to feed the baby, comb the baby’s hair, etc.).

  Activity: Help Your Child Learn about Invisible “Objects”

  The next activity in this sequence is the use of invisible “objects,” represented by gestures and pantomime. Don’t start this activity until well after your child spontaneously uses a number of ambiguous objects to represent realistic objects during play. Be sure your child really understands the use of substitute objects before you move to this skill. You will help your child develop an understanding of invisible “objects” exactly as you have helped her develop the use of substitute objects. However, now you will completely leave out a key prop in a set of pretend play objects. For example, you might leave the bottle out of the prop set for feeding the baby. In this case, you will play out the familiar and well-loved baby-feeding scene—but when it is time for the bottle, and you and your child see no bottle, you will pretend by holding the invisible “bottle” in your hand, saying, “Here is a pretend bottle.” Take your turn to feed the baby, using the same language you always use. Then pass the turn to your child, saying “Here’s the bottle. You feed the baby,” while you hand the invisible “bottle” to your child. Help your child do the same thing, pretending that her hand is holding a bottle. You will go back and forth a couple of times this way—asking her to give you the “bottle,” pantomiming the routine again, taking turns back and forth. At the end, produce the real bottle and let your child use it on one figure while you demonstrate the pantomime gesture once again on another.

  After your child can act out a key prop using an invisible “object” by gesturing to represent it, do the same thing in another prop set. Leave out the main object—the cookie, the cup, the comb, the steering wheel—in a favorite play scene and represent the invisible “object” with your own pantomimed gesture, playing out the routine just as you usually do. Be sure to use the same language and actions you typically use, so your child will really understand what you are doing. Then help your child imitate the invisible “object” as you do. As your child catches on to a new one, slowly add invisible “objects” through pantomimed gestures to your other pretend play themes with your child, and help your child understand them. Go slowly from one routine to the next, and use the real objects intermixed with the invisible “objects” if your child seems confused. If this seems very difficult for your child, go back and spend some more time using substitute objects and then try this again. There’s no hurry; this is an advanced level of pretend play for young children.

  Summary of Step 4

  Congratulations! You have now taken your child through this whole sequence of learning about symbolic substitutes. This process of learning about pretend play and substitutions takes a long time for all young children. It is a gradual process of learning about more and more scenes from life, more and more ways of playing them out, and more and more props and language. Your child can learn this too! And it opens up your child’s ability to understand pretend play, to participate with peers and siblings, and to use pretend play to learn about the social world. See if you agree with most of the statements in the following checklist. If so, you are now armed with important skills for teaching the final type of symbolic play—knowledge you will use in Step 5. If not, start experimenting during play and caregiving routines until you have found some methods that work for each statement.

  Activity Checklist: Can My Child Substitute Objects

  during Play Activities?

  ____ I have ideas of what kinds of ambiguous objects or invisible “objects” can be used in play with my child.

  ____ I know how to set up and use real objects and dolls/animals/figures to develop the first play theme with my child.

  ____ I know how to model the action with ambiguous objects for my child to imitate.

  ____ My child is able to play with ambiguous objects to represent realistic objects in different ways.

  ____ I know how to model actions using invisible “props” for my child to imitate.

  ____ My child can carry out play actions with several invisible “objects” when I set them up.

  What about Ben? Ben and his mother pretend that Ben’s cars need to be fixed by the mechanic. They drive the cars to the “garage,” using pillows to build the structure and a stuffed bear to act as the mechanic. Ben and his mom hand the bear straws, plastic forks and spoons, and pieces of tape to use as the tools to repair the cars. They take turns helping the bear talk about what he’s doing to fix each car. Since Ben is very knowledgeable about cars and their parts, he is able to provide a lot of the dialogue. Mom then takes over the role of mechanic and models actions using pantomimed “tools” with her hands as Ben explains procedures for fixing specific car parts. She then reverses roles and has Ben become the mechanic, suggesting that he fix something. Ben likes this idea and pantomimes filling up the “tank” and pumping up the “tire” while Mom makes suggestions, just as he did earlier. Mom makes sure he narrates what he is doing.

  Step 5. Develop Symbolic Combinations

  Rationale. The last category of pretend play to help your child develop involves combining various pretend play actions so that your child is able to play out a whole scene from life, rather than just one or two related actions. Think about a scene from your child’s life, like bedtime, and how many different actions are involved. For some children, bedtime begins with taking a bath, changing into pajamas, and brushing teeth. Then parent and child may head to the bedroom and sit in the bed together to read a book. Then the parent tucks the child in, covers her up and gives her a kiss, sings a song, provides a favorite toy or blanket, turns out the light, and closes the door. Each of these activities involves a number of actions in and of themselves, and when you consider all of them together, there could be as many as 50 separate actions involved in this whole string of events. Right now your child may play out a going-to-bed sequence that involves putting a doll onto a toy bed and covering it up, which involves two actions. Even adding the book, the story, the kiss, and the lights out makes this a much more elaborate scene, with many actions combined. Once your child can combine one or two actions into a pretend play scene easily, you can help your child expand the number of actions involved, so the play becomes richer and more elaborate.

  Activity: Combine Symbolic Play Actions into “Scenes from Life”

  The time to start focusing on combining actions is the point at which your child can easily play out several different themes with you (eating, bath, and bedtime are each a theme), and can imitate and spontaneously produce several different pretend actions on objects
in each theme.

  Here are ideas for adapting the joint activity routine for this purpose:

  Setup: Have your child choose a theme for pretend play from some choices of objects. Have your child choose a figure or two to add as characters in the play, sit down with you, and label and organize the props. You will want at least four or five props.

  Theme: Wait for your child to begin a pretend act; if he doesn’t begin, then encourage and help him begin. There is the theme. Imitate it in parallel play so that you have joined in the theme.

  Variation: In your next turn, play out and narrate the theme action, and then follow it with an additional action that in real life follows those your child has already produced, narrating as you go. By doing this, you are demonstrating a sequence of actions that occur together in the scene from life that you are acting out (e.g., pour from pitcher to cup, stir the drink, and drink from the cup; then put down the cup on the saucer and wipe your mouth with the napkin), while narrating your actions (“Pour the juice. Stir it up. Drink my juice. Um, good juice. Uh-oh, I dripped some juice”). Then share the props with your child and encourage your child to “have some juice too,” using whatever prompts you need to have your child combine multiple actions as well. Having a double set of toys may help, so that you can model multiple acts and prompt your child through imitation. Your goal is to build a sequence that is one or two steps more than your child is already doing easily.