Let's talk a minute about games. I know of a wonderful site called AutismGames. This site is about Games that you can use with children on the spectrum. The author of this site, Tahirih Bushey, is a Speech Language Pathologist and writes about how and why to use games with our students. She gives many different video clips showing how to use the games she describes.Playing games with our students helps teach so many different skills. As I have mentioned to many teachers before, we need to build in a structured leisure time into our classroom schedule. This should not be considered a break time for the staff but more of a teaching time for our students.
What kinds of things can we teach by playing games? You can teach how to:
- Take Turns
- Greet others
- Work together as a team
- Increasebasic motor skills
- Deal with frustration
- Win/how to lose
- Develop a lifelong leisure activity
In addition to the Tahirih's site, there are several simple games on the market that you can use with our students, dependent upon their ability level. Here are a few from a website called Children Succeed.
