I was blessed to have some offers from some wonderful moms who wanted to share their play experience and toy recommendations for my Asperger’s Play Guide.   This week’s article is by Heather who owns Goosie Girl Boutique. 

Some difficult issues that Asperger’s kids face is the dilemma of socializing. Some things that helped us were photo flash cards that showed different facial expressions depicting different emotions on the children’s faces. We would go through and name the emotions, and then try to imitate those being shown. ~Taking this a step further, we invested in some simple hand puppets of children, and when we’d flip  over a flash card, not only would we try to imitate the facial expression, we tried to make the puppet do what the person might be feeling when experiencing that emotion. I think I got these flash cards from a person who made them for her own autistic child and then started selling them on eBay

A wonderful set of toys that helped to “organize” my daughter was a collection of pop up tents and tunnels that we would put out in the front yard and allow her to crawl around in them and in the different tents, I’d put a different activity she particularly enjoyed like puzzles, or snacks. When she was done with one tent’s activity, she would crawl to the next tent through a tunnel and this really seemed to help calm her when she was over stimulated. (I’ve attached a picture of something similar that play hut makes now that would be the equivalent of what we used, although we often found our different pieces at garage sales & resale shops)  We also got her a small “exercise” trampoline and let her jump on it and a little tykes slide for her to use indoors.

To help provide additional sensory experiences, we set up a water and sand table on the deck in our back yard. The water was much more popular than the sand because of the grainy, messy feel of the sand on her hands. The water kept her engaged and not only did it provide sensory/tactile experiences, it also provided sound/audio stimulation. this was a good activity when she was feeling a bit low and withdrawn. Another way to draw her out was to take wagon rides with the wagon filled with balls (like those found in a ball pit) ~this was really an awesome way to help her.

She loved being on a swing set, and on her scooter. Actually, I remember she was too timid and fearful of riding a bike at that age (around 7yrs old) because she was scared she would fall so a scooter was an awesome alternative.   We got her a pair of “moon shoe .  They are bouncy shoes with springs on them.   She LOVED those.   Being crafty, we also made her a pair of “romper stompers” out of coffee cans with a hole drilled in them with a rope that she would balance on and walk. The effect of the coffee can hitting the sidewalk and the sensation of the impact helped organize her a lot.

There are several online sources to get therapy type toys like nubby balls, body socks but we often just had to take her lead on what types of activities she liked and tried to create our own home made items around what she seemed to “crave” or “gravitate toward”.  A few years ago Ikea carried small chair swings, and we got one of those and installed it in her bedroom and she loved sitting in it and looking at books.  She loved tossing bean bags and beanie babies into a basketball hoop too.   The varying weights of the beanies and visually aiming toward a target seemed to help visually organize her.   We also bought a game called “Toss across” at a garage sale that was similar and that provided more variety doing the same thing (tossing bean bags to make 3 X’s or O’s in a row like tic tac toe)

Many of our ideas came from our occupational therapist at the time and also a book called “The Out of Sync Child has fun“. We were homeschoolers for several years and we had the freedom & the opportunity to explore many different activities and toys that helped her.  Now that she is older (14 1/2) she is pretty good at verbalizing what she is feeling and what she needs, often times when she’s feeling over stimulated, she will retreat to her room for quiet time, and I’ll find her reading a book sitting in her swing chair gently rocking back and forth.  Thanks for the opportunity to share some of my experience & personal triumphs

I’m a Chicago area mom to three wonderful kiddos, my daughter Kayla (14.5 yrs) has been affected with Asperger’s Syndrome, Sensory Integration Dysfunction and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. She was diagnosed at the age of 7…life has definitely improved in the last several years since being diagnosed for all of us. I also have two younger sons, 10 yrs and 5yrs. I own my own business that I operate from my home studio. I love what I do and the people I meet~working from home has provided me with opportunities that I might not have been able to offer my children, especially my daughter in helping her cope with the struggles she faces. I am a Christian and love this piece of Scripture: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” (Isaiah 43:2) This gives me a hope to go through trials and adversity and to remain ever positive that I *know* where my hope comes from.

Heather Niziolek

Note: I love her adorable hats!  They make me drool for a girl.

website: http://www.goosiegirlboutique.com
blog: http://www.goosiegirlboutique.com/blog
Etsy shop: http://www.yummyphotoprops.com