toy recommendations? | Autism PDD

For the longest time, we've continually caved to our child's interest in toys: cars, trains... any toys with wheels (surprise, surprise). As we're beginning to steer him away from lining things up (via floortime), I'm wondering what toys you guys have had success with in terms of fostering creative, imaginary play, or *any* kind of play that isn't vehicle/lining-up based!

We bought our son lacing cards recently, and they were a pretty big hit. He's been slow to actually lace with them, but he did a little bit today -- his fine motor skills are pretty good! He even looked at me and said "good job" when he was done (echoing what we say when he does it). I love to hear him drag them out and say "lacing cards!" Anything but another train, PLEASE kid...
mark_dad38572.3253819444great ? mark-dad, all my son has is action figures(which he calls guys) we have no trucks or trains. so i'll be checking back on this post to see what someelse comes up with.mom2carloi dont know if this is something you want to do since you have a son, but i bought my daughter a doll house. she uses her little care bear figures to do a lot of imaginitive play. it seems to be good for her, although she still does line things up. as a matter of fact, at this very moment i have a long line of little care bear figures across my livingroom floor. its like a small care bear barricade!

Adam loves trains but he doesn't line them up. He makes me set the whole track up so that he can turn on the battery opperated train and make it go around and around..LOL (circles anyone?) HE also plays with action figures and makes them fight etc. Sometime he makes them talk like girls do with barbie's..LOL (did I do that to him being a girl?) LOL Funny...I think he has caught on that when he plays army men with dad that they fight and when he plays action figures with me they talk and gossip..LMAO. Adam has lined things up like blocks or the magnets on the refrigerator but it's not a constant thing with him. It seems to come and go. When he was 1 1/2 or 2 he would flip the cars upside down sometimes and spin the wheels. If we were playing together I would distract him with the car in my hand and make car sounds while I played with the car appropriately and he eventually caught on and started doing the same thing. His big thing right now is placing the sully and mike (from the movie monsters) inside his big army jeep and pushing that around the house and he says..."come on lets go" vrooommmm. LOL

Karrie

We have TONS of toys ... come over MY house!

Seriously, though, a few non-spinning toys that Luke finds interest in: a Little Tykes basketball hoop/baseball thingee where he can put balls in the hoop and swing a bat to hit the baseball (which is attached to a pole) or a golf club to hit a golf ball (also attached). He has a Fisher Price farm where the barn makes animal sounds where each animal goes (for example, "Moo" in the cow stall, "cluck cluck" on the chicken nest, etc.). He enjoys books that have sound (you press a picture on the side of it and the character speaks). He enjoys playing with a magnadoodle. He also likes puzzles that make a sound when the picture goes in (Target has one of animals).

Just a few suggestions ...! We know first hand how annoying the wheel-spinning thing is!! Good luck.

My son as well plays with action figures-ninja turtles are a hit. he also likes to play with playdoh that will keep him busy for hours. rolling and cutting with different cutters. he loves to make snakes out it and ramps for his cars to roll off of.

it is also good busy work for their hands.

hope this helps.

Kellie,

you just reminded me of my sons love for sports!! His favorite is baseball and when he's holding the mit and ball he does this really cute wind up and cocks his leg before he throws..LOL His ST and OT get a kick out of it. He started doing that at 1 1/2 when he used to go watch his big brother play baseball.

Oh and about farm animals...Playdough makes a farm and I got one for adam so it's kind of killing two birds with one stone. THe playdough for sensory and the animals and barn for pretend play. He used to never touch squishy stuff and the playdough really has helped him come a long way with that.

Karrie

Mark

I hear you. Sometimes I wonder if Thomas the tank will ever leave my house. Alex has started playing with his sisters dollhouse when she is not looking. I don't know if it is the lure of the forbidden or a new development in imaginative play, but he will play for 30 min or more. He also has taken one of Anna's baby dolls and begun calling it his "daughter". Try some "girl" toys, it might work. Magnadoodle is also a big favorite now. Good luck.

Hi Mark,

My son Logan loves his wooden puzzles, and shape sorters. It's so cute to see him reach in his therapists bag of toys to find the one's he loves. She's like Santa every day. I wonder if she works Christmas?LOL

I like the suggestion about the playdough Farm. He has no imaginative play yet.

Since he loves tub time i got some finger paint for the tub and a tub basketball net from Little tikes. He dosen't seem to understand any verbal commands yet so it's hard to do imaginary play. Danielle

We also have a wheel-spinner, here! Thankfully, he is JUST starting to actually run his cars and trucks along the floor, but he still does the wheel spinning here and there (mostly when he's tired). He has a Monster truck and a battery-operated tractor, and he'll start those up and flip them over to watch the tires spin on their own. I redirect him CONSTANTLY, and he doesn't seem to mind, so that's good.

Anyway, I've rambled; my son enjoys pegboards, as well. We've got one from Discovery Toys where the pegs are short, fat and brightly colored, and another one from Lauri that has a soft board and the pegs are tall and skinny. Another toy that my son has gotten into (although he still needs help) is the Fisher-Price Oreo Matching Middles game. He needs some help with matching the shapes, but enjoys snapping them together and putting them back in the container.

HTH!

Jen

Great suggestions!

I should've mentioned... our boy isn't so much a "wheel spinner" as a "train former"... he'll take ANYTHING and line them up as if they are a train... cars, stuffed animals, etc. Also, he will lie his head against the table to watch the train wheels roll, squinting at them sometimes, but he pushes them around "normally" as well. I've been trying to shake up his more trance-like play by crashing other vehicles into his trains... I've had good success with this! It usually provokes him to smile and say "crash!" and then sometimes, different play will result.

Peg board sounds very cool! Our house was recently renovated (hell of a time to deplete our funds... stupid fate!) so a peg board in the new play room could be very cool.

Our boy likes Playdough, as well, tho it's a constant challenge keeping him from eating it. That's more of a 2-year-old thing than a PDD thing, I believe... he looks right at us when he "fakes" eating it... the stinker... ;)
mark_dad38572.4436111111

Playdough is a wonderful toy that also works as a calming activity by pressing hard and rolling they are heavy loading which centers them and creates a calm.....

Heres a link to a site that give some toy ideas http://www.otawatertown.com/toylist.html

And a few other sites with ideas....

http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/miscellaneous/families.htm

http://www.preschoolfun.com/pages/teacch%20work%20jobs.htm

http://www.do2learn.com/

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/na/totempole/

Some educational sites....
http://www.starfall.com/

http://www.berkshire.k12.oh.us/techkid/

Heres a list of catalogs that can be ordered that have some fun things for kids that is therapeudic and can be playful at the same time... http://www.otawatertown.com/resources.html

My son used to and still is on occasion a Thomas the Tank freak!!!! But his new love is sharks, crocodiles, pirates and pirate ships!! He has finally started using imaginative play with them, he even says "AAR" like a pirate. There is a game called POP UP PIRATE by TOMY I bought it at KMART they have it in his classroom at school and all of the boys love it and they are all on the spectrum. It is fairly simple and does help with fine motor skills and colors, this is the first game he has ever been interested in. We are now introducing him to Candy Land. He plays the pc version but I would like him to play the board game ( family time). He also loves mega blocks ALOT!!!! We have a lacing book but he isn't to interested he likes to take the laces and tie up his sharks and crocs. and pretend he is the crocodile hunter!!!

Nita

You know..back when we started this journey a couple of years ago..there was a website by the parents of this one girl and they only did floortime. They had a list of recommended toys, I don't know if it is still up, but it was complete. Since I have a co-ed team..a boy and a girl..I have a little of everything and my house resembles Toys r us. It is good to have some toys that can spark imaginative play...like a play kitchen/food, dress up clothes *my son has fireman hats, army stuff, pirate stuff*, puzzles (my dd perseverates on these), play farm, Mr. Potato Head (good for teaching body parts), Barnyard Bingo (although some kids perseverate on the boinging noise), My daughter's first game she played was "don't break the ice" and she was just turned 3 at the time. Not imaginative, but teaches turn taking. Garage Sales are a great place to get some toys and games. Even some toy vacuum cleaner, brooms, etc can help imaginative play..helping Mommy and Daddy. My daughter still doesn't play appropriately with toys, but it is getting better.

Good Luck!

Toys and Games
      Teaching Skills with Toys
      Active Toys
      Block Play
      Board Games
      Card Games
      Cause and Effect Toys
      Electronic Games
      Food Toys
      Math Games
      Puppets and Story Manipulatives
      Puzzles
      Reading Games
      Sensory Toys

As odd as this sounds, BEANS my 3 year old daughter loves to dig in her tub of pinto beans. She is PDD and also has sensory integration dis. This activity really calmes her down when she is having trouble focusing or calming down

Hope it works and its really cheap

Al Amos

alamos38572.5665046296OH man... beans! Why didn't I think of that earlier? My son *loves* to play with our coffee bean container. He digs them with the scoop, counting each scoop (a holdover from the days when he "helped" me make coffee by counting the scoops.. wish he still wanted to do that).

It's kind of annoying, only because, well, we need the coffee and I don't enjoy picking up expensive whole bean coffee off the floor and putting it back in the container (along with dust, hair, etc... yuck).

I think getting him his own beans and scoop is a great idea -- thanks for that! He could do that for a long, long time, while working on counting.

TJ loves his bean tub. He likes to stick his head in the beans. He loves playdo,fingerpainting, stringing beads,wooden puzzles, shape sorters, shaving cream,peg boards, a childs computer and much more. He will make believe play(just started with the last 3 months-he will be 4 on the 23rd) with his sisters dolls- loves to feed them a bottle,and his ducks(his favorite no cars or wheels here)he lines up and talks to sometimes. He still lines things up when he plays if he is overwhelmed. He is just starting to play with his sisters now. He will play ring around the rosies but only on his terms. He is moderately to severely autistic with severe sensory integration disorder so he is very very tactile.I would just keep trying and see where it goes. Everyday is different around here. Keep up the good work!'

Kathy

I have a shelf system for Zach instead of a toy box. I rotate toys on him on purpose. One day will be trucks, then action figures, then dolls, blocks and stacking toys, books and leap pad, tv charcters (barney, boo bahs, tubbies, elmo), medical bag, construction stuff, coloring stuff, video games (hand held and game boy and tv plug and plays), I can't think of all of them off hand. I never bring them out in any particular order I switch the color bin they are in often. I change it up. The rest of the toy's are put away so that for some time ea. day he has to focus on playing with what is available. I babysit my neice and this works for her too. There is no fighting since they play with what I bring out. When I let him have access to the whole shelf it just confuses him. He does so much better when he is directed and has little choices. He then get's a wider array of toys to play with. This is not saying that at times I don't give in and let him play let's say video games more often at times or watch movies some days but I try to keep the focus of the day on one thing vs. too many choices.

It's like a baby in a playpen they will facinate on one object and not even notice the 20 other toys they are stepping on and you wonder why you bought all those other toys, when one makes them happy. So you take the one toy but they don't play with them all, they will facinate on one toy again at a time.

Oh man, I forgot about the rice box. We didn't use beans, we used rice, but we had a huge rubbermaid box underneath the kitchen table. My dd used to sit in it and pour rice all over her self. I kept all kinds of scoops, spoons, funnels, little plastic figurines in it. Thank goodness it never flooded in the kitchen-all the appliances would have been 3" off the ground
Copyright Autism-PDD.net