Toys and Activities = Opportunities to Increase Learning

One of my favorite questions ever asked to me was about what types of toys would be good for their child who has Autism? This week’s Buzz Blog will speak about the toys and activities that I personally feel have been useful over the years of teaching and that I continue to use and why? As you know, there are MANY toys and activities out there to choose from. Many of those toys have embedded learning opportunities within them and some are more limited. When talking about activities and toys, I will discuss some of the toys and activities that, in my opinion, really enhance learning and provide great opportunities to teach different skill sets based upon my experience over the last 20 years.

One thing I know a lot about is TOYS. For years, I would have what I commonly referred to as the “rolling classroom” because part of my job description, when teaching students in homes, was that I would have to drive from house to house and bring my own materials to teach the students that I would see. The learning materials that I brought would include TOYS. You should have seen the trunks of my colleagues and mine from time to time. It was funny. Every teacher that I knew had their own system of how they organized their materials and the “must have staples” that we all seemed to carry at one time or another. My trunk was my portable classroom, and I cherished every toy I had in it.

During Covid, many of us stopped visiting students from house to house and changed to teaching via telehealth (online). For me personally, that forced me to tap into a different skill set all together because I needed to now learn quickly how to generalize my skills as a teacher in person to a teacher online to both parents and students all at the same time. Regardless of what was happening in the world, I knew we all had to think of a way to keep teaching going for both the parents and their children and I was determined and up for the challenge. As a result of this, I created unique relationships with families that I would never have had working in person and was able to teach in a way I never knew was possible. In a time of the unknown, I saw MANY positives that I will forever cherish, and TOYS were a big factor in how it helped to teach so many.

There are 5 questions that I ask myself when choosing toys as part of my educational instruction. So, let’s get right to what I think are important factors to think about when choosing toys to use for teaching your child with Autism.

1) Can you create various teaching opportunities that work on specific skills such as: Manding (a.k.a. requesting skills), Imitation Skills, Fine Motor Skills, Gross Motor Skills, Eye/hand Coordination, Receptive Language, Tacting (a.k.a. labeling), Echoing and Intraverbal Skills (a.k.a. components leading up to social and conversational skills)?

I like to choose toys that I can make a lesson plan from that aims to include ALL of these skills mentioned above. Keep in mind, you want to create a rich environment of learning opportunities for each child. I look for toys that could be something the child enjoys. It should feel like play to them, but to you, it’s an opportunity for you to assess abilities and increase skills that require some more teaching.

2) Is this activity easy to use and/or manipulate? How many pieces are needed to set this toy up? In other words, can you figure out how to work and play with this toy? Believe it or not, some toys are not that easy to construct and play with, even as an adult.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of cool toys out there, but when I am thinking about teaching and when establishing both attention and cooperation is difficult, I want to make sure that I am using toys that I can put together quickly that will not require the child waiting very long for me to do this. Plus, if this is the type of toy that after you use it, you must then rebuild it and the student has to wait a while for this to be done again, you may want to think about this more. A good example of a toy like this is “Mouse Trap.” This activity is super fun, but for me, takes me too long to set up and is very delicate and I find that the structure falls apart easily even when playing. Now if your child LOVES a toy that has many pieces, then you could work on increasing manding (requesting) opportunities. So really think about how you can use toys like this. Many pieces of something could be beneficial to use depending on what you are trying to teach, but if the toy is difficult to put together, this could be an issue too, so give it a lot of thought.

3) Are there a variety of functions that this toy possesses?

What can this toy do? Play with the toy yourself to see how it works and become familiar with it. I find it to be difficult to learn how a toy works at the same time you are introducing it. Once you know the functions of the toy, you can think about your lesson and how to increase learning from it. Trust me, you will feel better prepared.

4) Is this a toy that can be played alone, or does it require another person to use it with you?

After you teach your child how this toy works, are they able to also use this on their own? Again, depending on the goals you have set for your child, you may want to think about this aspect. Having your child need you to work a toy can be helpful when contriving and teaching requesting opportunities and other verbal operants (for ex. increasing manding, tacting, echoing and intraverbal skills). Having a child learn how to play with the toy on their own the way it was intended to be played with is another skill that could be a focus as well.

5) Is there an opportunity for this toy to be shared with another peer to work on waiting and turn-taking skills?

Two person toys/games are a great opportunity to pair up other peers, family members and teachers and to help increase opportunities for both communication and socialization skills, especially if both the peers involved like the toy that they are playing with.

If you would like a complete list of the toys that, in my opinion, help to teach different skills, SIGN UP below to check out the full list of toys and activities that I’ve created just for you.

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To Play or Not to Play