TEACH & Floortime - home tips? | Autism PDD
OK he is 6 and she is 4.
He likes to take ONE toy - like ONE lego, a piece of a broken toy, one little action figure (not the regular size ones but the mini ones), a drinking straw, whatever his "toy of the day" happens to be. Then he makes up all these games with it in his own head. You can hear him making sound effects and doing things with it but we usually have no idea what he is playing. Arwen often wants to play My lIttle Ponies with him, but he always makes his "toy of the day" ATTACK the ponies and try to kill them 
which then makes her upset. So they pretty much are playing separately otherwise they are fighting! They both love Moon Sand. Gage wasn't really into play doh but he lives moon sand. He really likes playing with the refrigerator magnets, rearranging them and arranging them again. The fridge is covered with magnets so he will do that for a long time. He doesn't really play "with" her except every once in a while, maybe once a month, I will catch them playing something together. He really just likes to sit there with his toys & make them do all this stuff, he creates these stories in his head. When i ask him about them, he will go on and on and on about all the adventures the lego is having, so I usually dont ask him about them anymore because you cannot get him to shut up 
That sounds like a good think but he has severe stutter so it also frustrates him to talk that long, but he has to keep going on and on. Anyway its just been a mess with the two of them, trying to get them to play together. I have pretty much given up hope, but i want to try again because I am worried about how he plays at school.
" Anything goes " here, My boys LOVE Thomas the train, cars and trucks, books, and they also love to watch my husband and i draw pictures and make up stories about the boys. All of this we do on the floor.
Floortime here is a way for us to be "eye to eye" with our children at their level doing what they love to do. We don't push them to do things we know they have no interest in, but we do constantly "pull them in" through interacting with them in their playtime.
Every so often we will try something new with them like a game or puzzles, sometimes they cooperate and sometimes not, we do at least try to introduce new things. Sometimes too we will just sit in a circle and practice cutting or tearing paper, or dump a cup of uncooked rice or oatmeal on a blanket and sift it through our fingers or pour it into little cups, ( I usually try to end this type of play session long before anyone gets bored so it doesn't end up all over)
Storytelling is another thing my kids love. They love to here us tell a story off the top of our heads instead of reading a book.........Like i said earlier, anything goes, as long as you are engaging them eye to eye on their level.
have fun
Let's say he takes a toy, a straw and a lego guy and starts playing with them. You, without saying anything, go get a similar toy, a straw, and another lego guy, plop down next to him and start playing yourself. You can start by not necessarily imitating him exactly, but following fairly closely. See if he looks at you. If he does, do something different with your 3 objects. He might: ignore you, correct you (because he wants you to do with yours like he is doing with his), or imitate you. If he ignores you, have your lego guy walk over to his lego guy and ask to join in. See what he does and follow his lead. The key is to get interactions. Even if he pushes your lego guy away and says "no" - that's an interaction. Then try something else. Don't get frustrated, just try different things to get him to interact with you.
With refrigerator magnets, plop down next to him and start playing with your own magnets. Start to line up the letters. Reach over and take one of your letters and put it with one of his letters, see what he does.
The key here is to insert yourself into your child's world and use activities that they are already interested in to generate interactions between the two of you.
I know it's frustrating, but it may be easier to get him comfortable playing with you, i.e. simply learning to play appropriately with another person with the give and take that comes along with that, before you can help him play appropriately with his sister.
I started doing floor times with our kids at 9 months old. Reading at bedtime.If they hate reading put on audio books then. Our kids both were in preschool at 3 and 4 full time. They loved this! Daniel was ok until he had his shots. Vidoes are great for kids but keep them academic also.
I do "floortime all the time everywhere" to quote the esteemed Dr. Greenspan!
In order to give you some ideas, can you post back with a list of your child's preferred activities, i.e., what does he most like to do when left to his own devices? What are his interests? What activities hold his attention the longest?
Also, how old is he? And how old is his sister?
OK just another example of how different all the kids are hee hee - my son HATES puzzles, has very poor fine motor skills and is unable to press on a crayon and so therefore hates drawing, and he HATES board games ROTFL He likes to play with just the pieces of the boardgame and refuses to try to actually play a game the way you are supposed to, never has. His favorite game is Candyland where he likes to "walk" the gingerbread piece up & down the "trail" over & over, he won't actually play it no matter what I have tried. he freaks out if we try to play it a different way If he like refridgerator magnets how about fridge phonics. He could spell words on the fridge with you and his sis. My son loves playing with his fridge phonics but only off the fridge.Daniel hates anything educational. I looked at the sunrize program and it's loads of floor time and working on eye contact as well. This worked with their son and works with Daniel also. I wanted to go there and be trained and had the plane fair fee and half their fee. The problem I see is lots of kids only want to watch tv,computer.videos. Daniel loves this stuff and music and outside also. The only educational things that work for him if the lesson is made easy. He's great with Math though. I want to start incorperating more TEACH & Floortime into our evenings at home, for example during homework & playing with sister. Does anyone else try to do it themselves at home, and if so any tips?
I know about the turn taking play tip, such as having him practice turn taking sentences and play with his sister (like turn taking as in she says something, he says something related to that, she says something related to that, ect) and taking turns engaging in the same activity (yeah right! but it is worth a try .
) Any other tips? SIMPLE things I can do?My son loves to work simple puzzles with his sisters. They color together look at big picture books. We try board games with him but he has no patience for that yet. I'm not even sure if this answered you question. It's just a few thing my son now does with his sisters.We have Fridge Phonics :) We've had it forever, he loves it. I LOVE your advice kristys, and everyone! I used to do this stuff when he was very young, before I had Arwen, and then I just never had time for it. I will definitely be stepping it up a notch around here. I like the idea of following his lead, sitting with the magnets, ect. I think it will be easy to play with him once I get him to let me be included. I don't really play with him much at all lately 
I dont know what happened, maybe I just gave up on it or lost my motivation or something. We talk and stuff and do puzzles and we ALWAYS read and we do at least an hour of his homework together each night from 1st grade but I have not worked on the playing in a long time (bad Mommy!) TY for all of the tips and suggestions!
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