Welcome to our new series, "Playful Possibilities: Everyday Items, Endless Fun," where we explore creative ways to use everyday household items to foster learning and interaction for young autistic children. In this article, we'll focus on blankets and how they can be used to create fun, interactive play experiences. By incorporating Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention (NDBI) strategies, we'll show you how to enhance attention, boost motivation, and support social engagement using this simple household item.
Creative Play with Common Items
Blankets are versatile and can be used in numerous ways to create engaging play experiences that stimulate a child's imagination and developmental skills. They provide a canvas for creativity, transforming into magic carpet rides, peekaboo games, or tunnel games that invite exploration and discovery. Here are a few ideas:
1. Magic Carpet Ride
Description: Pretend the blanket is a magic carpet and take the child on an imaginative adventure around the house.
Learning Opportunities: Use the magic carpet for promoting a shared focus by pointing out interesting sights or objects during the ride (joint attention), encouraging the child to take turns in choosing the direction or speed of the ride (communication), or use the ride as an opportunity to model and encourage social interactions such as waving hello or goodbye to others (greetings)
NDBI Strategy: Offer the child choices. Offer them a choice of fast or slow as you pull them around, offer a choice for which direction they want to go (gestures, pointing, etc), use expectant facial expressions and silly sounds to build anticipation before you start to pull them, so they have an opportunity to communicate for you to pull them. You can also pause or stop while pulling them (interrupting the routine), which will motivate them to communicate with you to keep going again.
2. Peekaboo Games:
Description: Use a blanket for peekaboo games to support back-and-forth interactions with your child.
Learning Opportunities: Encourage the child to take turns in covering their body with the blanket and then revealing it (turn taking), use the blanket to hide objects or surprises, prompting the child to look where you indicate (joint attention), or support physical development by encouraging the child to manipulate the blanket (e.g., pulling it up and down) to cover and uncover you (motor skills).
NDBI Strategy: Use environmental arrangements (in sight out of reach). Place the blanket somewhere the child can’t reach it. You can point to the blanket or extend your arms (gesture to pick them up) to support communication. Model anticipation and surprise reactions to encourage reciprocal communication.
3. Blanket Tunnels:
Description: Create tunnels with blankets for children to crawl through.
Learning Opportunities: Encourage the child to take turns crawling through the tunnel or waiting for their turn (turn taking), Use the tunnel to hide objects or surprises at the end, prompting the child to look and explore (joint attention), or model crawling or moving through the tunnel in different ways (e.g., crawling on hands and knees, army crawling) and encouraging the child to imitate these actions (imitation).
NDBI Strategy: Use the tunnel to create opportunities for child-initiated interactions. You can accidentally sit in front of the tunnel (playful obstruction) which will provide the child with an opportunity to communicate for you to move.
Enhancing Attention - you can shake the blanket slowly or fast, lift it up over your head, place it gently (and safely) on the child’s head, all while making silly noises that will help get the child’s attention focused on you and your actions. If the child enjoys visually watching the blanket go up in the air and then come down and cover them, you can make a silly ‘up/down’ game that incorporates those actions.
Boosting Motivation - Use the blanket to cover preferred objects or people and support your child to find them, maintaining their focus through playful exploration. If the child enjoys being covered, or enclosed in the blanket, you can wrap them up in a ‘burrito blanket’ game.
Supporting Social Engagement - Lift your arms up in the air while holding the blanket and look expectantly at your child. When they look, smile, reach, or gesture toward you/blanket, that is your cue to bring it down and offer it to them. As you pull the child around the room on the blanket you can playfully stop. This should help the child socially orient towards you and provides an opportunity for them to communicate for you to ‘go.’
Conclusion
Blankets are a fantastic tool for creating meaningful connections and fun for young autistic children. They provide a comforting and familiar context within which children can explore, learn, and connect with others, making everyday playtime a meaningful and enriching experience. By incorporating these activities into your routine, you can enhance your child's attention, boost their motivation, and support their social engagement in playful and educational ways. Stay tuned for more ideas on how to use everyday items to foster learning and interaction in our "Playful Possibilities" series.
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