Our son is still the same way however, floortime has done amazing things for us. We purchased "The Child with Special Needs" it has some great ideas that would help. If we leave our son alone we get a 50/50 shot he will either stim on something or play with his train table, music blocks (this took months with a play therapist to accomplish!) Carter also loves puppets. Our son still screams when we force him to play new things they usually take him about 2 plus weeks to want to play with it but I stay home with him and I am always in his face.
The play therapist helps alot because she helps me find new ways of getting him to want to do other things. Its hard and very stressful but floortime really works!
Your son sounds alot like mine. My son loves to open and close doors so I went to the store and bought him Sesame Street toy that has 3 doors on it and if he pushes a button than they open. He did not like it right away but I introduced it to him everyday for a few minutes and he finally warmed up to it. Now we ask him the colors of the doors ect. If your son loves water try a water table. My son also loves to run up and down on things. We taught him to say up and down..it opened that door and he let us in. He likes to look at fans and I taught him to say round and round.
How much TV does child watch? I noticed that Carter zones out to much and cut it to 30 minutes a day. That is so I get a break. Look into your local area education programs and see if you can get a play therapist.
We have a BIG problem making our son to sit and play (with a toy, with his parents, with peers). If he is left by himself the only things he does is : wandering around jumping and making noise, self stimming by running and looking from corner of his eyes, or finding some water and playing with it (including flushing toilet).
We really need help to know what should we do to come, sit and play with us? If we force him he simply screams and resist, and in the best case play for a few seconds and leaves.
I appreciate any comment? Is there any book or an article that can help us?
Daddy
We have had luck with floortime methods in this area. We started out following him around and making his behaviors purposeful. That is one of the first steps in floortime. I don't know if you are familiar with it, but my on has really improved his play skills. It took a long time for him to accept "intruders" into his world, but then it became fun and playful for him. Stanley Greenspan's book describes the theory behind Floortime if you are interested. "Engaging Autism" I believe is the title.
Daddy
My Grandson Devin sounds just like your little boy except flushing the toilet ( he puts things in there, like his Momma's makeup
Devin likes to hang out in his room so they will sit in the middle of the room and play with his toys until he chooses to join them. Sometimes it works and sometimes it don't. I wish i had the answers for you but you have come to the best place to get some. There are some pretty smart people with great advice on here flip, I am familiar with floortime and have read parts of Engaging autism and most of the child with special needs. But simply I do not know how can I apply "following the child's lead" rule when he is jumping around and making noise. ...? Could you explain in more detail what you have done? daddy My son is the same way. When he picks up toys he'd rather run them up and down his belly. He never plays appropriately. What we started doing is, I sit both my NT kids down and we play with animals or cars and the car rug. I set a timer for 2 mins and we show him how to play. We make the animals eat the grass, drink the water (we have a mat), and make the animal sounds. We do this 3-4 times a day. He has attempted to give the giraffe water, so far! Baby steps! My other kids helping! It makes them feel good that they are teaching their brother! Start with jumping around and making nosie with him. A first he may leave, but follow him. Evenually, he begins to accept you are going to do this. Hopefully, you'll get more eye contact, even if he is just telling you to stop with his gestures. I posted several months ago, some examples of each of the stages. But the early stuff, you focus on sensory motor play. Playing with water, jumping, bouncing, singing, bubbles, etc. We would put my son on my lap and bounce on a ball and then stop. He started signing "more", and then I would start again. I waited on eye contact before starting again, and it worked. It did take a while and there were many days I thought I was going to go crazy. Then, he started laughing and I would change the direction of the bounce or have him fall off, etc. I'll try to find that other post. Okay, I don't know how to link the post, but will paste and copy part of it for you. I was recently watching the CD-Rom lecture again by Dr. Richard Solomon (who has expanded on Greenspan's theory). It was good to be reminded of some of the techniques to use when playing with our children and I wanted to share. He presents many video clips about using these techniques. Hope you find this of interest. These are for FDL's 1-4. Being with/going for affect (sit near the child as he plays in comfort zone, follow cues gently, make comments/describe what the child is doing: "You're jumping high", do not command, direct, teach) Sensory-motor play (touch-tickling, wresteling; vision--watching and blowing bubbles; sounds--humming and drumming, jumping on the bed, put child in spinning chair saying "go" and "stop") Theme and Variation (open and close the door, open and close the door with a song; play peek a boo on the other side of the door; have puppets get caught in the door and cry; bonk your head and get caught in the door and cry; build anticipation with each variation.) Taffy Pully (play dumb for a couple of circles; give the train and ask for it back--then try to take it back and resist; say "mine"--gently tease the child; make the train fly around their head first, after they have the train spin each wheel and make a different funny sound for each wheel) Salient Language (label each activity like "spin" for a spinning game. Consistently use the word. Use sequencse like 1-2-3, Ready set go--wait to see if the child will finish the sequence. Repeat key words: do you want more?, use opposites: off/on, up/down) Rhythm and music Sense of humor, suspense, surprise 1 and 2 step commands Make them work (play dumb and make them show you or tell you what they want) reinforcing/rewarding (Applaud their accomplishments, especially when they initiate a response, reward with a rub or tickle or rough housing, give immediate rewards for accomplishements) playful obstruction (get in their way so they ahve to move you, move the toys out of line "by accident") making behavoirs purposeful (when they open and close doors get on the other side and say hello when they open and goodbye when the close it; When they build blocks, call it a tower, when they pour water turn it into a pouring game by offering different containers; when they line up trains make a choo choo sound). We are currently working in levels FDL's 3-4. I'm not as familiar with the higher levels since we are just getting into level 4, but here are the basic techniques. I would be happy to look up specific examples of the these if anyone wishes. Levels 4-6 deal with simple pretend play, complex pretend play, mulitiple circles of communication, feelings/empathy,outings, using motivation, appropraite/real language, essays, answering WH questions, time concepts, practicing pronouns, model-rehearse-expect, social stories, and meta-cognitive strategies. My boys also love to run and jump and make alot of noise. Sometimes i will have them do relay races with me. I sit on the floor and they will either run and have to touch something across the room then run back to me and sit next to me or run with an item and run back to place it in my lap. This way we are engaging them in play and they are getting the stim they need. We also will play music and dance with our kids One other thing you can try is moving an activity to his favorite part of the house and keep it there. For instance if he likes his room keep a ball in there, this is the place where you would always roll the ball to eachother. We keep a big box of blocks under the bed. My kids know block time will always be in their room and mom will build a big tower for them. Also pictures of people doing these types of activities together might help. Hope this helps you a bit. Good luck. If your son loves to watch Tv then video modeling might be one of the best tools for you to use. I had great success with a child that is 4.5 years old and did not know how to play appropriately but would imitate movements of characters on TV as well as the things they said. I began very simply by having someone video tape just my hand doing things with a toy. I used a little people toy garage and 2 cars. I began by putting the car in the elevator and saying "going up" then put the car on the ramp and said"going down, weeeeeee" and some other simple phrases but not too much language. You want him to imitate the movements first. Dont put anything but your hand in there and use very simple concrete words. Some other toys you can uses are a baby doll, a kitchen, toy airplane and people, toy bus and people, fire truck and people, dinosaurs, cars driving, stacking blocks, putting things in a container, etc Use your imagination with the toys you have. Good luck let me know how it goes. The family I did this for was ecstatic of thier son learning how to play. I did the same method flip described, and I concur with here advice - consider this a big ditto! In addition, if he likes to jump around, he is probably very sensory seeking like my little guy. I found that creating an appropriate outlet for the jumping - we bought a giant trampoline for the yard - worked wonders. He'd eventually get tired of jumptin around and be more willing to sit and play with toys. My son liked TV too, and we used to watch the Wiggles alot and get up and dance and more around together. If he likes watching water move, try to play on that. My kids have a bunch of PVC pipe that they stick together and put the hose through to make "rivers" and "waterfalls." We have a cheap water wheel looking sand toy that they let water flow through. We play alot with water here - both are obsessed. (And best yet - we have a well so water is free and they can play with the hose all they want!) Floortime seems awkward at first, but you get good at it really fast once you start doing it. Best of luck. You got some great advice..we had a hard time too as Sarah couldnt stand toys or people too much when she was younger..we did lots of sensory play like stated with rice, beans, water, sand...we got a huge bounce ball to bounce her on..learned every knee bounce, finger play songs that you can come up with and got a lot of eye contact out of her:) She also loved any swinging her around or holding her up high:) Follow him around and see what makes him tick..if its balls or bubbles make sure you get him to look at you by prompting and then blow the bubbles or roll the ball to him..and praise like crazy for any attempts he makes. We found joint activites like table hockey, rolling ball back and forth and some simple games like "dont break the ice" "connect four" ..and then progressed to candyland or chutes and ladders..computer games are great for joint attention too:) I love Barney videos for modeling social skills~redundent and repetitive and all sing songy but my dd picked up manners and how to be a friend, songs..and tons of rules of play, school and friendships..I say use what they are drawn too and if he likes TV then find videos that he can learn from.. We had all the kidsongs, Wee sing, Preschool power..Elmo, Barney, Blues clues..ect...all had things to teach in fun ways that captivated my child. Get some music cd's and fun kids songs like Barney and buy a few kids instruments like tamborine, horn or cymbals and have a marching band around the house:) Most things will take both of you to do and eventually they will do more and more on their own but we need to teach them how to play inititally. We taught her hide and seek, duck duck goose, and ring around the rosies, limbo, conga ect..... Arts and crafts are good things to do too..finger paints, cutting with scissors and making confetti art pics:) Make puppets out of socks:) Make and decorate cookies with all kinds of sprinkles:) Have fun!
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