play skills/habits? | Autism PDD
The 10 stages of play that a child normally goes through by age 5 are described at the following website.
http://www.autismteachingtools.com/page/bbbbfg/bbbbtj
Here's what 3-1/2 to 4 year olds typically can do in terms of play:
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Stage IX: 3 1/2 to 4 years:
Begins to problem solve events not experienced (e.g. Child builds enclosure for circus animals and needs a roof. Looking at several objects, rejects some without trying by reasoning too big, small, heavy, etc. Plans ahead. Hypothesizes "what would happen IF...". Uses Dolls and puppets to act out scenes. Builds 3 dimensional structures with blocks that represent actual objects seen.
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Be a t-rex, king kong, peter pan, play with his dinosaurs (mostly stomping on them), loves lining things up, watching tv, playing with his dog, playing (torchering) with my elbow, running around like a maniac, talk to himself, sing. Also catching these tiny black beetles he finds around the house somehow I have no clue and studying them for hours. Only beetles any other bug creates a panick attack!
He mostly plays with his hot wheels,or his CAR the Movie cars.He talks the whole time he is playing ,he picks up the cars he plays with every minute or so to look at and rub the tires back and forth,he squeals and makes lots of noise with his mouth(stimms).
He plays in his ball pit ,or wrestels with a large stuffed spider mad,he will bang his head into the couch or me or his blanket if overwelmed.
Linda
For the longest time it was great when my son was "on his own"
Now he mixes it up, he plays video games, watch TV or he still has his trusty old Thomas.
Play doh, DVD's or putting a toy in and out of a knitted beanie or little mesh bag for hours at a time
. Also plays with little people quite a lot.
I'm just wondering -out of curiosity-- what do your kids do when they're left to their own devices? If they have some free time, and are kind of on their own (not directed by you) -what do they do?
Jake hardly ever plays games or pretend, or plays with toys. He'll sometimes move his cars around, or arrange things but he doesn't seem to be actively involved in a specific thing. I didn't know if that was typical at his age or just specific to him -then it made me wonder what other kids do -- on the spectrum or not.
My two year old will take two action figures and make them jabber at each other, and interact, or drive his cars around, or set knights up in a castle. Jake doesn't really do that -- I can't even really describe what he does because he just kind of flits from one thing to another. He did play with his dinosaurs this afternoon. He took them out one by one and told me about each one and then put them in a fence and then walked off to do pull a curtain rod apart and put it back together a few times. I'm not totally sure whether his play skills are age appropriate or not -he'll be four at the end of August. My younger son seems to "play" much better, but Jake always manages to stay busy doing something or other. What's it like at your house?The girls like to draw and color and will do so several times during the day. They'll also do puzzles. They spend a lot of time playing with their stuffed animals - they have several 'build-a-bear' workshop characters that they like to dress and undress. The sometimes make their toys 'interact', but not often - they mostly like to dress them and stuff.
Adam can stay in his room for hours if I let him. There are no toys in there anymore either because he was throwing them during fits. He'll be up there talking to himself and pretending to be a superhero and a lot of jumping happens..(this is him flying) etc. He doesn't traditionally play either. He CAN play with other children or if guided but mostly its all his imaginary world or whatever and really doesn't include many toys. He does at times play with toys in a functional sense. It's so hard to explain how he plays..lol It's definately different than my NT children played.
Karrie
Puzzles, block and Legos; Any musical instruments; and most recently he is "pretending" to be Steve from Blues Clues. Handy Dandy Notebook and all.
But, up to about 2 months ago, he too was a "flitter". He did lots of "stuff" but never really played. He has changed quite a bit recently and we are hearing truck sounds, etc. and he is playing peek a boo and chasing his brother younger brother (and not to bite him!).
He just turned 3.5.
Well a couple of days ago while Devins daddy was busy feeding Isabella ( 6 months old ) Devin found a crayon and changed the white wall to a pretty red one.
another day he deceided his Mommy's make up would be better in the potty
Other then that , he pretty much looks at his books, lines up toys or RUNS, I swear he is going to wear his legs down to stumps Grandma to Devin 3 yrs ASD/ SID Considering Mr. B has three older sisters who willingly interact with him, he's not left to his own devices very often. However, the other day when his sisters were gone, and he was home with just his adult caregiver I understand he: Buried all his cars in the litterbox (thank goodness it had just been cleaned and changed!);
Made geometric patterns with the diapers and underwear in his drawer - and insisted it was left out to show me when I got home (apparently threw a fit when someone tried to clean it up); Went through the house on all fours imitating the dog (complete with panting tongue), up to and including drinking out of the water bowl
Set up his train track through the kitchen, under and around the dining table; Asked for, and got to play, on the computer on the Thomas and Friends website, and then moved on to the PBS kids website for fun with Elmo (with a detour through Ebay); Sang to himself most of the time, and occasionally did the stimmy run up and down the hallway. Climbed up onto the trampoline and curled up with the cat for his nap. Got angry and "fired" his sisters ("You're fired!") when we all came home, locked the them all out of my bedroom, and asked me to read him a book. I'd say it's a little bit of both worlds, all in his own unique one.
My daughter who is NOT ASD would engage in pretend play for HOURS with her baby dolls, barbies...anything really. She is very creative. She loves to keep busy and pretend. She is 5 1/2 When she was little she did next to nothing but stare at teletubbies..liked to stack blocks..cups..tap with spoon and hummed alot...ran to get away from us all the time... Today she was into drawing, writing and making a book on her talents:).. on computer..singing, dancing, playing piano..chasing the cat..pretending to be a cat..putting on dvd's or tapes...swimming in her kiddie pool..rollerskating..moon shoes..giga ball..This was our day today:) I also talked her into going to thrift store for all of 15 mins! :P She is getting into the Mary-kate and Ashely tapes (younger versions) and mimics them and sings all their songs..really cute:) She wants to be on stage at Six Flags to perform like them..so she drew a pic of it along with the rollercoaster in the background...stage and people watching her:) She sure has changed!
I always wondered about how other ASD kids occupy themselves. Well DS hardly does anything on his own these days, mostly he rides his battery operated bike everywhere, then he insists on me playing computer games on his behalf
He has totally given up on watching his fav dvds, he has suddenly decided that he can't stand them anymore and throws the biggest tanturm even if I try and turn the dvd player on for him. He sometimes Jumps on mini trampoline, he used to do this all day long too. One would imagine he would read by himself, he doesn't. He has to do it with yours truely as well. Oh his most favourite thing to do these days is scream all day. Think of all the fun we are having all the time. Mary If left alone to his own devices, C's preference is to get someone to play with him. He'll start with "hey mommy, how about we play remote control jeeps" or "can you jump in the trampoline with me?" If I tell him that I can't play right now, he'll either watch TV or play with his cars and action figures. We rotate toys around alot so both boys tend to gravitate toward the toy of the day. For example, on Monday night I pulled out this toy where you build a set of tunnels and levers for marbles to go through and both boys have been playing with it like crazy. Tomorrow I'll clean it up when I clean the house and later take something else out. While C's interactions with other kids still needs some work, his play skills with toys seem pretty typical of a 6 year old boy. He runs from Computer to Playstation. He will play the computer a little, handflap at the moving objects, run to play the playstation for a while, handflap a little and then back again. My ds is 2-1/2 and not disgnosed officially but his older bro is PDD-NOS and I'm sure younger ds is too! He likes to push his cars and trucks around, play with trains and put toys in/out of the toy box. Tonight he would not let me play with him and got very upset when I tried to interupt what he was doing. He is not really talking yet and gets frustrated easily. he goes to day care twice a week and I observed him today for a while. He is so different from the other children in the way daycare lady descibed. It made me sad today. It depends. The only time Tom's left to his own devices is when he's in his room which he shares with Jacob. There's a stairgate on the door and nothing dangerous in the room so they're safe in there and not in there for long. Sometimes he likes to draw, build towers, patterns with his blocks, sometimes walls. Or he'll look at a book. Sometimes the book gets torn, or he'll remove the bedding and mattress (it's a plastic, light one) from his bed, same with his brother's bed (Jacob likes to help out
J, 2 yrs. old-- I am almost positve that he is autistic, but no dx at all yet. He plays totally different than all the other kids. Really, I can't even say that he "plays" at all with the toys. Usually, he'll lay on his back in the floor and hold objects over his face and just stare at them, rotate them all around. He only picks out the same 3 or 4 toys all day, every day. No pretend play at all. No interaction with the other kids at all. No speech at all. He is just different. The other kids-- ALOT of pretend play with all kinds of things: like feeding the baby doll a bottle, cooking at the kitchen set and giving the "food" to me or each other; each play with all kinds of the different toys out of the toy box; they talk to each other. There is a huge difference between the two groups-- that is what made me start to ponder the idea of J being autistic. She would play with play dough, color and draw (loves to draw spiders, sunshines, fishes, faces--with eyes, nose, mouth, ears and hair), finger paint, sing songs, play with stuffed animals--feed them, pretend to bath them, cuddle them, put them to bed, etc. She will ask me to make things with her when she plays with playdough which is usually about 2 hrs everyday
devices" he prefers to trail me everywhere I go, including the bathroom
His other favorite thing to do when alone for more than 2 minutes is to yell
"WHERE ARE YOU?????" at the top of his lungs. 
He will, however sit and play with his leapster or computer, or even a
building toy while I shower. Otherwise he just kind of putzes around and
puts pennies into the fan, or marbles in the dishwasher, or say, my glasses
in the blender......
Gosh, I didn't realize it was it was that bad....oh,dear. Another thing to work
on....I really had no idea 
funny the things we grow accustomed to.
breaks,tears,spills things to experience something?. Tonight he dumped a
glass of tea on me- I guess being mischeivous.
The type of toys he uses best are the techie type. He can turn on the
computer,work his way through the programs , play, shut down when
through. He learns a lot of language and beginning skills too.
Yma
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