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Written by Grandview Kids Recreation Therapist, Maddy

Many social skills are developed through play in early childhood. Teaching your child to play and engage with their peers will help them develop friendships and build skills to develop meaningful leisure interests. Grandview Recreation Therapist, Maddy, has created some activity and game suggestions that you can do with your children to encourage social skills and peer-to-peer social communication.

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These activities and games can be done with siblings, neighbours, and/or other peers close in age to your child. These activities will provide caregivers with an opportunity to encourage their child/children to develop appropriate social skills and peer-to-peer social communication.

Use variations and make modifications as needed.

Tips

• Provide choices as often as possible.
• Take breaks as needed.
• Focus on the child’s strengths. Please encourage them to use their talents. At the same time, identify their challenges and find ways to work on them together.
• Model how to play the game and use your own play and enthusiasm to promote engagement. You can use hand-over-hand support to help them understand what they need to do in the game.
• Make sure to clarify when it is my turn vs. your turn. Can use pointing, words, or other visuals if helpful. Learning to take turns in play will support learning how to take turns in social conversations.

Activity List

• I-Spy/Spot It
• Play-Doh Guessing Game
• Simon Says
• Red Light Green Light
• Fort Building

I-Spy/Spot It

This activity fosters turn-taking and is a game that requires no toys or equipment. This activity is commonly played in unstructured time with school-aged children.

1. Use a picture, spot it books, or simply lookout around the room or out a window.
2. You start by saying: “I spy with my little eye something that is *choose a colour*.”
3. Wait for your child to guess and keep going until they guess the correct object. Your child can guess using words, pointing, leading, etc.
4. Take turns going back and forth for as long as your child will tolerate. It may start at 2 minutes, and eventually, you may be able to play for 10-15.

Play-Dough Guessing Game

This activity allows your child to practice theory of mind (the idea that not everyone knows what you know), turn-taking, and creativity.

1. You will need play-dough or modelling clay. You can also use tools, shapes, cookie cutters, etc.
2. At a table or flat surface, set out your play-dough. Give lots of choices (colours, tools, etc.).
3. Set a time limit and tell your child you will make something specific (a food, an animal, a shape, a number, etc.); you can use a visual timer if needed.
4. Emphasize that what they are making is a secret and that you are playing a guessing game (this can be a challenging concept for many children – practice as much as possible).
5. When the objects are ready, take turns guessing what you each made.
6. Can repeat with different categories, shapes, trade materials etc. While building, you can talk about the categories, shapes you’re making, taking turns with materials (“can I use the knife” or “what foods do we like to eat?”).

Simon Says

This activity teaches skills commonly seen in group activities in school and recreation programs. Practicing at home might help develop their confidence in group settings.

1. Explain to your child that you will take turns being “Simon” (it can be any character – Peppa Says, Skye Says, Ryder Says, etc., remember to follow their interests).
2. Take turns just giving instructions and following the leader “touch your head, jump up and down, etc..”
3. Once your child is comfortable, you can try adding the official rule; if you don’t start your sentence with “Simon Says,” you do not follow the action (this may be tricky for some children, be patient and practice).
4. Then allow your child long turns being Simon!

Red Light, Green Light

Red Light, Green Light is a great activity to play with a group. This activity helps teach self-regulation and body control in a fun and exciting way.

1. Start by naming each light and the meaning of each light using modelling (red light = stop, green light = go, yellow light = slow).
2. To start, you can find an open space and take turns yelling out each light colour.
3. Once they understand this, you can choose one person to be ‘It.’ The person moves farther away and stands with their back towards the other players. The other players will stand on a line facing the person who is its back.
4. The person who is it will start calling out “Green Light/Yellow Light” and will turn around and call “Red Light,” trying to catch other players moving.
5. Take turns being the leader.
6. If you don’t have a big space to participate in this activity – play on the spot (run on the spot, dance, slow motion on the spot, etc.)
7. Once they understand the rules, you can add different coloured lights to the activity (purple light = dance, blue light = sit, etc.).

Fort Building

This activity will support pretend/imaginative play while using problem-solving to work cooperatively with you.

1. This activity involves cooperative play skills, working together as parent and child or child and peer towards a common goal.
2. Ask your child if the fort should have a theme (Lion’s Den, Mermaid cave, Zoo, house, doctor’s office, castle, etc.)
3. Discuss what supplies should be used and what aspects of the structure you will need (walls, door, roof, etc.)
4. Gather supplies together, use blankets, pillows, chairs, and other household items to build your fort
5. Build a fort together, allow for trial and error, and encourage discussion throughout
6. Foster continuation of ideas by repeating their statements back to them as questions
   • Your child says, “we need a door that can move,” you reply saying, “oh, we need one that moves?”. This will encourage them to continue their thought process out loud.
   • If they are replying with one-word answers (“yeah” or head nodding), try to elaborate by saying, “We need a door that moves? What could we use that moves?”
7. Once your fort is built, engage in pretend play – either “house” or follow your child’s theme. Assign roles and play out various scenarios (going to bed, dinner time, getting ready for school, fighting a “bad guy,” etc.).

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Check out more Grandview Kids articles

• Importance of parent involvement in treatment
• Develop your child’s social skills through play
• What is “generalization”?
• Ontario Autism Program, Caregiver-Mediated Early Years Programs available in Durham Region
• What is Therapeutic Recreation?

Stay updated with all things Grandview Kids!

Generalization: The importance of changing things up!

Written by Grandview Kids Autism Therapy Assistant Samantha

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Generalization in Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) is the ability to transfer learned skills to new environments and situations. This could involve learning with new people, learning in a new setting or with new materials.

If a child can only tie their shoes if they have specific shoes when they are at home with their parents, what happens when they get a new pair of shoes or are at school with a teacher?

People assume that once a skill is learned, it is learned everywhere; however, this is not the case. This post will explain the importance of generalization in ABA and ways we can incorporate it in our teaching steps as parents and clinicians to make skills last over time!

Why is generalization important?

Children often can complete a specific skill or task in a specific environment where it was initially taught (e.g., in a therapy room with their therapist). Although this may be accepted initially, children should be taught to transfer these skills to different situations and contexts for skills to last over time. This transfer of skills to novel environments ensures that the learner will be able to complete the skills in the natural environment, which in turn allows for more independence.

When should we start teaching generalization?

Parents and clinicians should start incorporating generalization at the beginning of teaching a new skill. It shouldn’t be an afterthought!

Different ways to promote generalization when teaching

1. Changing up your instructions

If we are teaching a child to sit down when we give an instruction, we may say “come sit,” “go sit,” “sit in your chair,” or “sit at your desk.” Changing up the wording of your instructions allows the child not to get stuck on one instruction as not everyone will say it the same way in their environment.

2. Use different materials

When teaching a child to do up their coat, we may teach them with buttons, zippers and snaps. This allows the child to independently do up their coat no matter what type of coat it is. Another example would be teaching a child to tell time using various digital clocks and a variety of analog clocks. Teaching with various materials allows for the transfer of the skill of time-telling to all kinds of clocks!

3. Have different people teach the skill

Often children will only complete a skill if it is with their therapist or parent. Switching up the person giving the instruction or being present while completing the skill allows the child to learn the skill with several people.

4. Teach in different settings and locations

Teaching a child to complete skills in different settings allows the child to complete the skill when in different locations independently. For example, if we are teaching a child to go to the bathroom, we want to expose them to various bathrooms (e.g., upstairs bathroom, downstairs bathroom, school bathroom, and public bathrooms).

The importance of generalization

It is vital to change things up when teaching, so children don’t get stuck on doing things in a certain way. Promoting generalization from the beginning of teaching will help children transfer newly learned skills to various new environments and make these skills last over time!

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Check out more Grandview Kids articles

• Importance of parent involvement in treatment
• Develop your child’s social skills through play
• What is “generalization”?
• Ontario Autism Program, Caregiver-Mediated Early Years Programs available in Durham Region
• What is Therapeutic Recreation?

Stay updated with all things Grandview Kids!

Being mindful of one’s impact on the environment is important in building habits that help foster a more sustainable way of living. The Explorer Room Class at Campbell Children’s School have been challenging themselves through the Canadian Geographic Education’s Classroom Energy Diet Challenge to be more conscious of their environmental impact. The challenges they have been working on range from conserving their energy and water consumption, to growing plants, to even just learning more about how they can be more environmentally friendly each day. Now the Explorer Room students would like to include Grandview Kids on the fun they are having! Each week, this blog post will be updated with a new challenge for Grandview Kids to get thinking about how to lead an environmentally friendly life.

Send a picture of you completing each week’s challenge to communications@grandviewkids.ca to be featured on our social media pages!

Scroll below to view each week’s Eco Challenge!

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Week 1

To kick-off the Eco Challenge, Explorer Room students would like to challenge Grandview Kids to recycle 10 things in one day. Think you’ve got this one in the bag (or should we say, recycling bin)? If you’ve successfully completed this challenge, the students would love to see!

Week 2

For week 2 of the Eco Challenge, Explorer Room students would like to challenge Grandview Kids to save 1 hour of power each day this week. Whether in the morning, afternoon or evening, we want you to make it work for your routine! Feel free to take inspiration from the Explorer Room class – instead of reading under a bright light, change it up and read by the window. The smallest changes can make the biggest differences in our ecological footprints!

Week 3

For week 3 of the Eco Challenge, Explorer Room students would like to challenge Grandview Kids to innovate by creating “A Green-Powered Canada.” The challenge is to learn about renewable and non-renewable energy and how that can impact the future of Canada.  They learned about solar and wind energy, so to compliment their lesson, they are building a Canadian community with a more earth-friendly theme. There are solar-powered street lights, windmills for energy production, electric vehicles and even community gardens to help reduce food miles! How would you design your green community?

Click here for the entire lesson from Canadian Geographic Education’s Classroom Energy Diet Challenge.

We need your help!

Are you looking for a volunteer position to support your community? We are accepting applications for Volunteers to support our Welcome Centre Screener/Greeter Volunteer role at many of our Grandview locations. 

If you are interested in volunteering 1-2 shifts per week, and can commit to volunteer for at least 3 months, please complete the online volunteer application on our Volunteering Page.

The Screener and Greeter is a critical role and part of our enhanced protocols to ensure the safety of volunteers, staff, clients and families.  This role is a first point of contact for the family, clients and visitors and follows a strict protocol. This position completes the screening with the family following a COVID checklist, communicates with staff and therapists, makes reminder calls, and completes administrative support tasks as required. Volunteers must be flexible, reliable and able to volunteer during the volunteer shifts outlined below.

Volunteers are asked to commit to at least one four hour shift once or twice a week.

We are recruiting screener/greeter positions at the Oshawa, Whitby and Ajax locations. Please specify location and shift/day preference in your application.

Volunteer shifts are Monday to Friday and some Saturdays at specified locations:

• 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
• 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
• 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.