Does your child, or student, have an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and you have trouble finding activities to stimulate them that are fun?
If so, don’t worry! We bring you some ideas to have fun while learning to develop skills such as identifying emotions, socialization or language. Take note!
13 ideas for fun games and activities to stimulate children with ASD
Wood toys
Wooden toys allow you to work on different skills, and your child can have fun sorting pieces of different sizes , shapes and colors.
When playing with it, keep in mind that working directly on the table will help you to adapt the visual supports and all the material that we may need.
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Puzzles
Puzzles are good for working on visuospatial and attention skills , practically since children are young, whether they have ASD or not.
In the specific case of children with ASD, it can be useful to use highly visual puzzles with bright colors . Another suggestion is to opt for puzzles with images of social scenes, related to emotions… to work on these aspects.
Also, take advantage of puzzle time to promote language, for example, pointing to a piece and asking, what do you see here?
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Eye Tracking Toys
A recommended idea to enhance visual perception ; In this case, we suggest you use objects made of cardboard and suspend them in the air with a thread.
The adult moves the thread and the child follows the toy with his eyes. You can also take the opportunity to make the object together, as a craft.
Car games
Car games are ideal for working on visual and tactile stimulation . You can play together to put the cars in the parking lot , to do races or circuits, etc.
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Building games
These types of games are useful for developing visuospatial skills , but also cognitive and motor skills.
We found different options; from legos to building blocks, tangram… We can include imitation in the game (they imitate our figure, building it the same), language (asking them to give us “X” pieces of “X” color), etc.
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Create stories with puppets
This game allows promoting social interaction and communication skills, aspects that usually lead to difficulties in ASD.
We can, for example, invent a story with our child with puppets , and have the characters express different emotions.
Games to stimulate psychomotricity
These games are ideal for promoting psychomotricity; that is, the pincer grasp of the fingers, so that they learn to hold, pinch and manipulate small objects, among other skills.
They are exercises that are good to do before school , to prepare writing (since they will help them to better hold the pencils, making a proper grip on them). We propose some ideas:
Pompoms and colored boxes
For this game we will use colored boxes and pom poms that match those colors; The child will have to pick up the pom-poms one by one and classify them according to their colour, in the correct box. You can use your child’s fingers or plastic tweezers.
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Making necklaces with macaroons
On this occasion we will use raw macaroni and a rope or wool; it is about threading each macaroon to the thread to form a bracelet or a necklace.
Classify different materials
On a container we will mix noodles, chickpeas, raw lentils and buttons of different sizes and colors (we can use another material).
The task will consist of, using the digital clamp, pick up each element and classify it in different pots or boxes.
Other game ideas for children with ASD
sensory games
Sensory games can also be a good option for children with ASD, especially for those who are not hypersensitive to sounds, tactile stimuli, etc.
We find different types of these games, from musical toys to games that involve finger painting , experimenting with textures, etc.
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What am I imitating?
In this game, one will imitate something (an action, an object, a situation, pretend to be a character from a movie, etc.), and the other must guess what it is.
It is a game that can be adapted to each specific age (adjusting the difficulty in each case).
Through it, it can be used to work on emotions (simulating certain emotions with the face, for example, and that the other must guess) and empathy.
Guessing the colors
This game, which on this occasion is played in a group (it can be a good option to play in the classroom), aims to stimulate socialization and reaction capacity, as well as color recognition and matching.
To play it, we must have different large colored circles that we will place, each one on the floor, in a different space (for example, in the room): red, blue, green and yellow.
The one who directs the game must have four small circles, one of each color, inside a bag in his possession.
The game begins when the adult draws a circle ; He shows it to the children and says “already!”. Everyone must run to the corresponding circle. For example, if we show the red circle, the children must run towards that same color.
riddles
Finally, riddles can also be a resource to play with children with ASD.
We can take the opportunity to make riddles related to emotions , or socialization, using visual clues (a resource that tends to favor a lot, in the case of children with ASD).
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