Make Play R.O.C.K.: Take Out The Toys

If you have a young child with autism, you may have noticed that he has difficulty learning to play. His play may be less flexible or creative than that of other children, and it may rarely involve other people.

The Make Play R.O.C.K. booklet series gives you practical, research-based strategies for expanding your child’s play skills during everyday play activities. You’ll learn powerful ways to get involved in your child’s play and help him learn while having fun together. The Make Play R.O.C.K. Booklet Series offers practical strategies for expanding the play skills of young children with autism and other communication difficulties.

Why Is Early Toy Play Important?

Many studies have shown that the better the play skills of a young child with autism, the better his play and language skills will be later on. Your child’s play may not be as complex or creative as that of typically developing children. But by using specific interaction strategies during your everyday play activities, there’s a lot you can do build his skills.

How Take Out the Toys Helps

Take Out the Toys offers simple, research-based strategies for building your child’s early toy play through imitation – helping him learn to copy the actions he sees you perform on toys. Imitation is a critical skill that not only helps to develop play skills, but is also connected to social interaction and language skills.

Take Out the Toys helps you:

• Understand how early toy play develops and how the play of children with ASD differs from that of typically developing children
• Learn powerful interaction strategies to engage your child in play (the most important first step is to make it more fun to play together than to play alone)
• Identify your child’s stage of early toy play and his next steps in functional play
• Use research-based strategies to help your child learn to imitate more advanced forms of play during fun, everyday play activities
• Enable your child to transfer newly-learned play skills to a variety of toys and play partners
  

Make Play R.O.C.K.: Take Out The Toys provides a checklist for identifying your “play style” and understanding how this affects your child’s opportunities to learn, a checklist for identifying your child’s stage of early toy play and the next step he can take, concrete examples and illustrations of parents using Take Out the Toys strategies to build their child’s play skills and a Toy Play Plan to help you plan your child’s next play step and how you will help him take it.

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