101 Games and Activities for Children With Autism, Asperger’s and Sensory Disorders PDF
Preview 101 Games and Activities for Children With Autism, Asperger’s and Sensory Disorders
Copyright © 2009 by Tara Delaney. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN:   978-0-07-162805-1 MHID:         0-07-162805-3 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-0-07- 162336-0, MHID: 0-07-162336-1. All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps. McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. 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THE WORK IS PROVIDED “AS IS.†McGRAW-HILL AND ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO GUARANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY OR COMPLETENESS OF OR RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK, INCLUDING ANY INFORMATION THAT CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE WORK VIA HYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill and its licensors do not warrant or guarantee that the functions contained in the work will meet your requirements or that its operation will be uninterrupted or error free. Neither McGraw-Hill nor its licensors shall be liable to you or anyone else for any inaccuracy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any information accessed through the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise. To the Currys, Goukers, and Crevers for teaching me how much love and persistence can change a child’s life. Thank you. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION The How of Engagement Sensory Development Gross Motor Skills Fine Motor Skills Communication Social Sense School Ready Home Activities Outdoor Activities Adapting Brand-Name Games GLOSSARY OF COMMON TERMS BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX ACKNOWLEDGMENTS JOHN, MY EDITOR at McGraw-Hill, for implicitly understanding that we can teach more through play than any other way. Your passion has energized this project. I owe a deep thanks to June Clark of Fine Print Literary Agency for her extraordinary ability to connect people and ideas. I will always be grateful for your friendship and professional insight. I am incredibly grateful and humbled by the team at Steps Therapy, Inc. Your expertise and drive are only surpassed by your passion to truly make a difference in the lives of the children we serve. A special thanks goes to those therapists who assisted with editing and suggestions. Your input was invaluable. To Mary Hamrick, director of Speech Therapy and cocreator of the Social Sense TM program. Thank you for hearing me out on all my ideas, embracing those that make sense, shaking your head at those that do not, and always listening. To the educators, therapists, and administrators in the following school districts: Lago Vista, Texas; Marble Falls, Texas; Nevada County (California) Office of Education; Rocklin, California; Wheatland, California; Woodland, California; and Yuba County (California) Office of Education for your continuous commitment to improving the education of children through conventional and creative avenues. My sincere appreciation goes to Elaine Leeds, Pat Muniz, Melissa Orcutt, and Kristen Nottle-Powell. I have learned so much by being part of the team for so many years. Barbara McPhillips, principal at The New York Institute of Special Education, your belief in the value of each child’s life serves as an example to us all. A huge thanks to Dr. Lucy Jane Miller and the SPD Foundation for the diligence to expand research into sensory processing disorder as well as autism. To my dad for saying, “You should do that, Tara†when his six-year-old daughter said, â €œSomeday I’m going help kids†and for never questioning dreams only challenging them to come true. To my mom who thinks I know more than I really do. Thanks for setting the bar high, I’ll keep jumping. To Maggie and Liam, my precious babies, who teach me things everyday through play. To my husband, Bill, whose intellect and passion keep making my dreams come true. Thank you for showing me that life is best lived believing you can. INTRODUCTION I WAS FIVE, almost six years old, when I first understood the power of play. My mother had just passed away, and I felt lost. My father found an older couple to babysit my sister and me after school so he could work. One of the other children they babysat was a little girl about my age. She had developmental disabilities and did not speak very much. She was standing and waiting in the driveway almost every day when the school bus dropped me off at the babysitter’s house. I remember not knowing what to say to her or even how to act, but looking forward to seeing her there waiting. One day when I got off the bus, she was holding a ball. She threw the ball toward me, and it dropped to the ground. I did not know what to say to her, but I knew what to do with a ball. I put my books on the grass, picked up the ball, and threw it back to her. She laughed and then moved her arms forward to try to catch it. The ball landed on the grass again. She picked it up and threw it back at me. I caught the ball and returned her laugh. Her willingness to engage me in a game of catch started a connection that was a childhood lifeline for me. Many years later when I became an occupational therapist, I thought of Sheila and how powerful the act of participating in a simple game of catch was to my life. It wasn’t until I began my career that I could reflect on how powerful it was to her life also. In my early career, I returned to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin where I participated in a leadership training program at the Waisman Center in Madison. As part of that program, I was assigned to a family who had a little boy with neurological difficulties. I was assigned to the family not as a therapist but rather as another family member. I ate dinner with them from time to time, went to the park with them, was there at bedtime, and even babysat on some occasions. By being with this little boy and his family during everyday activities, I could see how sensory processing and communication difficulties impacted his daily life and how things that were enticing and fun for other children were a reason for fear and avoidance to him. But I also saw firsthand how his parents used sensory strategies, in the form of play, to help him engage with the people in his life. With both of these memories, the big “Aha†for me is the power that play has to teach, develop, and connect children to their world. I cannot say enough about interactive, physical play as a basis for teaching children skills that are fundamental to their physical and social world and to their cognitive capabilities. The dynamic nature of play spurs nervous system development by connecting the brain and the body. In addition to my own experience, research has shown that there is no substitute for play for promoting learning at the nervous system level, as well as for teaching more refined language, social, and cognitive concepts. During play, children are provided the opportunity to use their bodies to manipulate objects in their physical world, which is the only way to truly understand the physical and spatial properties of their world. Because of play’s interactive nature, it sets the perfect stage for teaching language concepts and reinforcing an intuitive understanding of others. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I have spent the last two decades working with children who have neurological difficulties. When working with these children, the primary goal of my therapy is the acquisition of new skills (sensory, motor, social, and academic). I realized many years ago that a child’s motivation to participate in an activity is one of the most important factors in determining successful engagement. Successful engagement is the first step to learning. It is with this idea in mind that I created games or adapted activities that focus on particular skills and are highly enjoyable to children. I have been compiling dozens of games and activities over the years, many of which are in this book. The activities and games in this book are organized to reflect a model of child development called the Brain Library TM. I developed this model as a way to explain to parents and educators how important our early experiences are for future academic and social success. The experiences that we engage in during our early years of life introduce, develop, and refine skills that our brains and bodies will need to access throughout our lives. Books are metaphors for experiences. Each of our experiences, beginning in utero, in a sense writes books into our Brain Library. In the early years, the majority of our experiences are sensorimotor. These experiences write books that build the foundation of our Brain Library. The books of the Brain Library are organized into three main sections: the foundation section, the integrated skills section, and the capabilities section. The foundation section houses our basic senses: vestibular (balance and motion), proprioceptive (body position), tactile (touch), visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), gustatory (taste), and olfactory (smell). The integrated skills section contains the skills that allow us to interact and thrive as human beings: praxis (ability to plan movement), which takes up an entire shelf; daily living skills; behavior; and communication. The capabilities category includes the key factors to success in our modern world: social intelligence and cognitive intelligence. Please note that you’ll find more detailed definitions of these and other terms in the glossary at the end of the book. â„¢ The Brain Library
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