Have Fun During Play

For many newly diagnosed children with autism, play may seem foreign and not enjoyable. Certain rigid patterns may form since they don’t know how to play. When an ABA therapist comes to work with children, they show how fun play is and how varied play can be. In the beginning, place low or no demands in order to build a rapport with the child. This is achieved with following the child’s lead during play and making fun contingent on your presence. Here are some examples of pairing yourself with fun things:

• Sing Songs The Child Likes – sing a variety of songs during play and if you get eye contact, start pausing to see if you can get some communication to sing more.
• Help The Child During Play – if the child likes putting shapes in a shape sorter, gather all the shapes and let the child request each piece either non verbally or verbally. This shows the child that they need you to complete a fun activity.
• For Older Children, Play Social Reinforcing Games – This includes pretending to sleep and having the child wake you up, or playing chase while you run around like an alligator ready to chomp. Games you can make “your own” will be powerful reinforcers for the child.
• Add Funny Noises During Play – Make cool sound effects when playing cars or be dramatic with play. Many children enjoy crazy fun play with toys such as stuffing your shirt with toys and sneezing them out or wrapping playdough on animals and pretending they got hurt and need a cast.
• Have A Bag Of Goodies – This is highly important when you become an ABA therapist. This bag of toys will come home with you and are your own personal reinforcing toys. Go to your local dollar store and pick up a variety of toys such as slime, squishy balls, bouncy balls, slinkies, vibrating toys, light up toys, toy cars, bubbles and stretchy toys. Continually add toys as you get to know your children. Some children may like Bob the Builder so finding a Bob The Builder book can be highly reinforcing.

Pair Yourself

The best tip to give new therapists is to pair yourself with good things. Try to make every activity you do with the child reinforcing only because you are there. Since many children with autism enjoy being alone, a therapist has to be extra fun in order to hold the attention of the child. Here are some activities to pair yourself:

• Bubble Fun – Many children don’t know how to blow bubbles but enjoy bubbles. This is a fun activity to encourage communication and to pair yourself with.
• Gross Motor Fun – Many children love jumps, spins, lifts and anything to do with gross motor. Blanket rides, magic carpet rides, tub rides are all great fun activities that a therapist can pair themselves with.
• Special Books – There are many touch-feel books that children love. If children love regular books then you can use them to pair yourself with reading their favorite books.

Not only do therapist use verbal praise, but token systems can be used as well as stickers and access to toys.

Below is a compilation of various types of reinforcement for older children with autism.

1. High Fives: Therapist can do high fives or high tens. Therapist can do the high five game: “Gimme five..up high..down low…too slow” or play an anticipatory game by pausing before you giving a high five. There are many ways a therapist can give a high five or ten. For example, when the child is going to give you a high five/ten, therapist can quickly close their hand—this becomes the, “see if you can give me a high five/ten” game for the child. A therapist can also act goofy and do “impossible” high fives/tens such as having the therapist’s arms wide out and then having the child try to give the therapist a high five/ten.

2. Thumbs up: A sly way of saying, “good job”

3. Stickers: Find what character the child likes such as Scooby-doo or franklin the turtle and grab loads of stickers for them.

4. Grab Bag: Buy little boxes or bags and fill them up with things the child likes, either food or toys. Examples might be, jewelry, various slime products, stickers, music tapes, arts and craft material etc…

5. Treasure Hunt: Hide some toys for the child and after every program, hunt for all the toys. For children who can read, therapist can make up simple clues for the child to follow.

6. Verbal Praise: Develop YOUR own familiar words like “AWESOME” “SUPER-DEE-DUPER.” Therapist can also say them in various tones. Child will soon learn which therapist says which words.

7. Singing: Have the therapist and child sing a favorite song.

8. Computer Access: For parents who don’t mind, rotate favorite computer games the child likes, and after “X” amount of programs with good behavior, have the child play on computer for 5 or 10 minutes.

9. A +: For good work, write on their paper 100% or A+. At the end of the session tally up the good marks for a toy or favorite snack.

10. Temporary Tattoos: Give each other tattoos. Therapist picks a tattoo for the child and the child picks one for the Therapist. Show the child how to put on a temporary tattoo and then let the child put on one you. Oh, by the way, let the child decide where they want to put the tattoo on the therapist! Don’t be surprised if they decide to put a funny tattoo on Therapist’s face!

11. Pretend You’re A…: For children who like to act out characters or animals, have them take turns deciding what to be. For the next program, pretend to be that character or animal.

12. Crossword Puzzles: Have therapist design their own cross word. “ Word pick” should be based on what the child likes. For example, Disney characters, popular music artists, favorite foods or animals, names of family members/therapists/friends, or pick goofy, funny words. At the end, therapist and child can either make up a story about the words in the cross word or make a new list of words for a new cross word.

13. Sand Dig: Therapist gathers little plastic animals and sand. Therapist fills up bucket with sand and hides plastic animals in it. Child and therapist go on an, “archeological dig” and compete to see who gets more animals. Afterwards, you can use animals in a play skit.

14. Theme Day: Therapist can choose to do a theme day once a week or for a whole week. Decide ahead of time what a good theme would be. Examples could be: Insects, Dinosaurs, Summer, Outer Space, Scientific Experiments, Plants, Musical Instruments, the Zoo, the Ocean, Magic, Disney etc..

On each day, focus on one aspect of your theme and dedicate the whole session to learning about this topic. For example, for the Outer Space theme day, all reinforcement for the week will have something to do with outer space such as plastic space aliens or spin tops as spaceships.

On Monday, child and therapist will learn about the planet Mars. Arts and crafts can be to paint a Styrofoam ball red.

On Tuesday, child and therapist can learn about the stars. Therapist can bring glow in the dark star stickers and with parent’s permission, stick them on the wall in child’s room or bathroom. Turn off the light and pretend you are flying in outer space.

15. Sample Magic: Purchase or rent a kid’s magician book and teach the child simple magic tricks that will amaze his or her parents. For a peer date, set up a magic show and have the child entertain his or her peer. Afterwards, have the child teach the peer some of the magic tricks.

16. Giant Cards: Child and therapist make giant playing cards out of 8×11 paper. When all are done, play a game of go fish. The cards alone will create a lot of laughter, let alone trying to hold a few in your hand!

17. Mexican Jumping Beans: Pretend therapist has “magic beans.” Tell the child to be absolutely quiet and to really concentrate on the beans. Present the beans and wait. When a bean jumps, act surprise and say, “How did THAT happen?” and close your hand. If the child requests to look at them again, slowly open your hand. Children will be amazed at Therapist’s jumping beans.

18. Body Drawings: Get two big sheets of paper and outline child’s body on paper. Have child do the same for therapist. Have therapist draw the child’s face and clothes and have the child do the same for you. For added fun, color the child’s nose green and face purple. Put rainbow streaks in their hair and exclaim, “Isn’t this a split image of you?”

19. Beat the Clock: Get a timer and use a page from a book or a room in the house and list as many things as possible within the time frame. This is a good method to teach rapid responding.

20. Is there something in your ear?: Look at the child with a quizzical expression and say, “Is there something in your ear?” look into his ear and magically pull out money, toys or food. Therapist and child can think of crazy things to pull out of each others ears such as shoes, books, socks, big stuffed animals…you name it, the child will pull it out of a therapist’s ear!

21. Oops!: Have therapist “accidentally” sit on a whoopee cushion as they are about to do a drill. Have therapist look surprised and say, “(child’s name)! Was thaaaaaaaat you!!!??”

22. Feet Dragging: Have the child lie down and grab their feet. Therapist then pulls them and takes them on a ride around the room.

23. Salt Pepper: Pretend to eat the child for lunch/dinner/breakfast. Gather all the ingredients and “pour” them over the child. When it comes to the pepper, either have the therapist sneeze or get the child to sneeze by prompting them, “Hey, I just poured pepper all over ya!”

For a behavior to re-occur, reinforcement must be contingent on the desired behavior. As well, if a therapist wants to decrease inappropriate behavior, reinforcing APPROPRIATE behavior and ignoring the inappropriate behavior will decrease the frequency or duration of the inappropriate behavior and increase the likelihood of appropriate behavior.

In the beginning of an ABA program, reinforcement is delivered in high frequency in order to shape appropriate behavior and motivate the child to learn. Common reinforcers in the beginning are food and drink, as these are natural reinforcers for any living creature.

Social praise is always paired with food to teach the child to enjoy verbal praise, a type of secondary reinforcement.

As the child ages in an ABA program, the style of programming changes. Programs taught formally at the table have been moved and generalized in the environment.

As well, time sitting at the table will resemble the time the child must sit at school. Reinforcement during this time is faded in frequency and in type.

Big reinforcers such as computer time are saved after long periods of program work and smaller toy, food, or verbal praise occur intermittently within programs.

Food should be faded so that the child only receives food during snack time or for behaviors that need to be heavily praised such as peeing in the toilet.

• Always pair a social praise with food or a toy. This is a method to teach the child to enjoy social praise and to fade food and toy reinforcers as the child ages.
• It is a good idea to bring a bag of reinforcers from your home when you do a session. This avoids satiation from “normal” reinforcers that are present on a daily basis and sparks interest in the child. Reinforcers should be changed every time a Therapist does a session so that the child keeps guessing at what a Therapist has in their bag.
• Remember to use the Premack Principle throughout your session. The Premack Principle states that a child will do a less desirable activity in order to get a more desirable activity. In this sense the activity becomes the reinforcement for the child. If the more desirable activity is contingent on a less desirable activity, then the less desirably activity is more likely to occur.

Presenting and Delivering Reinforcement is KEY

• Presenting – Therapist can buy or use little party bags, fuzzy change bags, boxes, or canisters to carry reinforcers. Therapist can also wrap reinforcers individually for added fun. By presenting the reinforcers in this manner will increase the desirability of the reinforcer and make it much more motivating to work towards.
• Delivering -When delivering reinforcement, Therapist should do the following -
  - Be in eyes view of the child (i.e. the child should not be looking up to you, but should be eye-to-eye)
  - Be genuinely happy

  - Don’t be too loud or monotone (make sure your reinforcement sounds different from other forms of a consequence such as a “No”)

  - Do not forget to reinforce good sitting, hands quiet, and compliance.

  - Use age appropriate reinforcement (i.e. tickling an 11 year old is inappropriate as using a lot of language for a child who cannot yet discriminate receptive language)

It is very important to learn to read the child. If the child is not enjoying the Therapist’s reinforcement, change it or do a program. As well, if the child is full of energy, using soft, soothing types of reinforcements will help the child to calm down therefore increasing maximum learning.