Free Printable Preposition Game for kids with Autism

Free Printable Preposition Game by Jamie Sue Austin. Visit this wonderful blog called Free Printable Fun for Everyone. Below is her post about a great visual tool for helping to teach and generalize prepositions. This type of game could also expand to various prepositions by putting velcro in various places, and expand in terms of other images - flowers, bugs, leaves, rocks, etc. Visit her site to download images.

My son is having trouble with his prepositions. So I created a game for him. This is similar to the games used in a speech or OT therapy setting and would be good for a child with Autism or PPD. I laminated images of lilly pads and attached them with velcro dots to clear plastic cups (so that I could demonstrate "under"). I purchased a set of cheap frogs to use as manipulatables. I created cue cards that show the frogs in various positions with the lilly pads. You can see a photo of the finished product above. Because not everyone will have access to the same frogs, I've included pictures of the frogs that can be used instead. If you are using pictures of the frogs you won't need the cups. But, I still recommend laminating the images.

Bristle Blocks with silly faces great for kids with Autism

Bristle Blocks Twirl Tots in Bin
Thanks to Parents Toys for bringing back the classic bristle blocks in new exciting colors and with lovely characters to liven up play. The put together characters all have funny faces which are great for kids on the autism spectrum. Identify sad, silly, happy, crying, and some that could go either way. Great for imaginative play scenarios and creating clever little spinning contraptions. Build and create using motor skills while providing hours of imaginative and captivating play. Only drawback notorious with bristle blocks is that they never stay together so easily.

Playful Patterns by Discovery Toys

Discovery Toys has a creative and simple toy set called Playful Patterns. For some reason we have gotten a great amount of use out of and it seems to be constantly rediscovered as a toy. It consists of geometric foam pieces that match the designs on the pattern cards. Cards have simple images like a rocket ship, boat, fish, fox, clown, etc. The various shapes fit into the cards which create a clever method of helping a child to understand that images are made up of shapes. That square can be a fish, the rectangles are arms and legs on the clown, squares and triangles can create a rocket ship to the moon. My son loves this toy, and he just wants to continue to play all the various cards all the time. Our set includes over 100 shapes of various bright colors and 20 cards with 34 designs.
Some of the skills helped are language development, identifying colors, shapes, creating images. Problem solving skills, child must figure out what goes where to complete card. Great hand eye coordination and help with fine motor skills to place pieces on correct shapes, visual scanning for locating the correct pieces. I also have expanded play with creating our own scenarios from the shapes. One drawback is that for little fingers sometimes putting the pieces on the shapes can be difficult and a bit frustrating. My son has mastered asking for help, so I see the positive side. This set also has allowed for some great one on one focused activity to sit and simply play with your child to fill the cards. Time well spent!
This product is not in stock at Amazon but you can probably search for a version on Ebay or from the creator, Discovery Toys.

Autistic Artist Draws Rome from Memory via a Helicopter Ride

A savant artist with autism flies over Rome in a helicopter only one time and then reproduces the landscape and architecture with near precision with details of perspective and scale. This video is absolutely amazing! It really gives us a glimpse of the awesome ability of a visual photographic memory.

Scrapbooking as an Educational Tool for Autism

Blog: Scraps of Mind

I stumbled across this little snippet over at one of the newsbytes internet sites and it got me thinking about how valuable a social tool scrapbooking can be.

Scrap Girls consumers are using digital scrapbooking products for much more than scrapbooking family memories.

Los Angeles, CA (FV Newswire) - Scrap Girls consumers are using digital scrapbooking products for much more than scrapbooking family memories. Melanie, a layout designer at ScrapGirls.com, takes her digital scrapbooking personally. So personally in fact, that she has started using this art form to design social stories for her son. Melanie’s son struggles with language delays. As part of his therapy, his speech therapist recommended that Melanie should write stories for him in which she would describe how he should behave. Melanie knew right away how she would do this: digital scrapbooking.

Melanie uses digital scrapbooking products from ScrapGirls.com to display digital photos of her son in a colorful comic-book style that will keep his attention. Her son is the star and he loves the books. Through them, he can watch himself make good choices.

Rose Ann Bright, a Scrap Girls customer noted, “I think this is a wonderful idea. I teach a variety of children, some of whom have autism, learning disabilities, or intellectual disabilities. Social stories are a big part of teaching children the correct way to interact with peers and adults.” Rose Ann also suggests the digitally scrapbooked stories could be presented as PowerPoint presentations.

Julie, a friend of Melanie’s, recently underwent brain surgery. To prepare her autistic son for the event, she prepared social stories to help him understand what would happen. He learned why his grandparents would be taking care of him for a while and why his father wouldn’t be around as much. He learned why his mother’s hair would be cut and why she wouldn’t be able to read to him or take him to school for a period of time.

How fantastic to be using scrapbooking as an educational tool!

I never really thought about it before but scrapbooking lends itself to this purpose so perfectly. After all, isn’t scrapbooking all about communication? Whether we are telling a story in pictures or a combination of pictures and words, or whether we are communicating a mood or emotion through the colours and design of our layouts. We’re communicating something.

And what a perfect tool to communicate to those with learning difficulties or who are too young to grasp complex ideas.

Have any of you used your scrapbooking in this way? Let us know in the comments. I’m sure many of us would like to know more about this side to scrapbooking that we may never have explored before.

Share your ideas and we will be sure to pass them on to the contributing blog Scraps of Mind