Creative Play with a Rusted Pair of Cart Wheels

When you find play in everything you do. I took a stroll out in the park and look what an interesting thing I found. My 11 year friend with Aspergers Sydrome called it abandoned wheels. I called it a rusted pulley, or wheels of the cart. This piece of art was very old. It seemed to have stood their thru summer, winter, autumn and spring. The most interesting bit was we used it to play. But how will we play with this heavy, rusted, soiled pair of wheels???

We both placed one foot each on one wheel each. We then tried to coordinate our foot movements. And as we reached the 6th count we are getting a grip of each other’s speed. There is more to go!! My dear friend wanted to continue this foot play. But why?

After some time of practice we were much better coordinated. My friend wanted to continue because he felt his calf muscles were getting stretched and it was a good exercise. So we continued. This is one of the activities that we did and he wanted to continue willingly. We enjoyed it thoroughly. We talked about so many things while we stood their exercising our legs.

As we reached the final lap We were faster. It was fun!!
                                   

 #valueofplaying #exercise 
#playmakesmestrong #loveforplay #joy #coordinatedmovementswithpeer #associativeplay #socialcontinumofplay #valueofplay #moreplay #coordinated movement #peers #aspergers #ASD #spectrum #wheels #wheelsofthecart #rustedpulley #abandonedwheels #whyplay #associativeplay #socialcontinumofplay #playingtolearn #learningtoplay #innovation #creativity #together #play #fun #learn #playissurvival

To check out the pictures and videos do check my Instagram account @play_is_survival.

Becoming Stronger and confident with play: Cerebral Palsy

I see a child with Cerebral Palsy, 3 Years 5 months, twice a week. He is a quadriplegic with limited motor movements. He is taking Neurodevelopmental Treatment, Occupational Therapy for Sensory Integration, and Play-Language and Social

communication Therapy. 

His joint attention is an emerging skill. Presently I am working on sustenance in an activity, inhibition, delayed gratification, expansion of language and emotional regulation.

He feels happy when he is able to break towers, push blocks or do a foot fight. He is so proud of every tower he breaks. Such play involving motor movements are making him confident to move his limbs when he is taking his NDT (Neuro-developmental Treatment). His muscles are becoming stronger as we use more playful activities for confident motor movements. 

It’s beautiful to see how play has a spillover effect in so many areas. #playissurvival

#cerebralpalsy #quadraplegic #play
#learningwithplay
#playmakesmestrong
#experientiallearning #language
#socialcommunication #fun
#emotion #spillovereffect       

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@play_is_survival

LEARNING TO ENJOY LITTLE THINGS: Cherish the Journey and the Outcome itself becomes fulfilling!!

Kunal is a 11 year old boy who came in with a diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome. He came in with a limited number of topics and would quickly jump from one topic to another abruptly. The only topic that Kunal wanted to talk about was football.

Winning or losing in games and judgements from people around, Kunal tends to underestimate himself. He is critical about himself and others. If he feels that the task is unclear, or he is not giving a good result, he prefers to quit and change.

Kunal comes in 6 times in a month. I am sharing this account after  Focus was on enjoying the process of the game. We together experienced and learned that the outcome of the task at times is not important. Enjoying the task is crucial. As caregivers/ professionals/ parents it is important for us to understand that as the process becomes joyful, the child becomes more productive in his task.

Focus was be on removing judgments from the activities and making the process of activities fun, rather than just the end product. We also learned that things are not always perfect. We did activities together, for e.g. purposefully putting more sugar or salt in something we cook. Then we discussed that that the process was fun even though the end product isn’t so good, or could have been better.

Kunal and I play a lot of games, and at times he enjoys so much that he loses track of time. Some instances of co-creating joy with Kunal were: when we blew bubbles with straw and made mountains of it. He loved the activity and the joy and happiness was evident in his relaxed body language and a big smile. That was one such session when he wanted to stay back and extend the class. Another time, we did an experiment of putting mentos in coke, and though the experiment failed, we enjoyed the process of collecting the material and doing it together. In another class, we made a glitter lamp, which was super fun. One of the days we sat in a pool of balls and had ball juggling competitions. 

We danced on songs, and Kunal wanted to show me some dance steps that he had made, and we even tried ball dance with each other. Another interest that cropped up for both of us was Musical Instruments. We both decided an instrument each. He shared he is learning tabla on you tube, and I was trying to learn mouth organ using YouTube. We would come back and share what we learned in the last week. He asks me what kind of a therapist am I. I tell him “I am a fun therapist.”

                 

Learn to Think, Talk, Play while playing

Initially, Raghav had lots of vocabulary and language including nouns and verbs around topics of his direct experience. He labeled things that he saw and even shared with therapist, like ‘he jumped in the balls’, ‘the hippo came’, ‘i don’t wanna see this rhyme, ‘please show me balls rhyme’. Raghav struggled to sustain on a topic of play or conversation for a longer time. He was using verbs to label actions using only one word or non-specific words like ’give me this’, ‘I want that thing’, ‘i has gone there’

The main verbal goals kept with Raghav were increasing the range of topics to talk on ranging from day to day things to things of his interest. For e.g. Park, bathing, brushing, going to school, birthday, going to a mall etc; understanding the topic of conversation and adding his element to it. One major focus was that he will sustain a conversation around the common topic, which will strengthen his emerging skill of joint attention.Divergent and convergent thinking were targeted through different games and activities. It was expected that as the skill of joint attention develops it will in turn increase his awareness of things around that are beyond his learned language and direct experience. Another major work was done so that Raghav uses use nouns and verbs instead of using non-directive descriptors like this, that, there etc.

Raghavs interest in rhymes made an obvious start from there. We turned all his favourite and learned rhymes into thinking rhymes and took turns to add our elements to it. For example, Old Mc Donald had a farm was turned into, Old Mc Donald had a room, in that room we had one book, and the verb that goes with it was used like read. This served an amazing start to more complex games of convergent and divergent thinking. We used various mediums like videos, books, construction and pretend play, role plays and experiencing things together to learn more and talk more. Co-creating joy together made play fun and learning easier. Adding the element of playfulness to every experience brings out something from it that one can learn. Gradually Raghav moved from obvious and in sight objects and experiences to abstract and experienced/ felt things, for example, One day while singing ‘If you are happy and you know it, Raghav said - Dance ‘Hare Rama, Hare Krishna.’ Which was one of the experience he had on a picnic from School to Iskon Temple.

Presently, Raghav uses varied nouns, descriptive words and adjectives in place of nonspecific descriptors while asking for something, describing something or talking about a topic. If he wanted a particular game earlier, he would point and say -‘give me that game’ but now if he wants the same game, he, he thinks and when prompted makes an effort to think about the function or characteristics of the game and would say ‘give me slide game.’ He is able to sustain on a topic for longer when we decide on a topic beforehand when elicited therapeutically. Raghav uses nouns and verbs that go with it in rhymes, songs, drawings, pretend play or constructive play too.

Why is Play the best medium to learn to communicate (use my language functionally)?

Many parents come up saying that we only want our child to talk. He has ample time to play at home. He has lots of toys at home. Is it important to include play? Let’s focus on talking, since he doesn’t talk. My conversation with parents is many times about explaining to them WHY PLAY? Children learn to functionally use the language that they have through play. 

PLAY becomes the content of our conversations. The joyful experiences while playing facilitate the building of joint attention, and the emotion of joy facilitates child’s intent to communicate with the play partner very naturally.

Also then it becomes crucial to see how is the child playing? Is it meaningful play or the child keeps himself busy seeking sensory stimulation with toys, and we at times label it as playing. Are his actions repetitive with toys? Is it silent play or does he use language including sounds and words while he is playing? For example, if a child is playing with car, he migh just say--- here goes my car, zoom. Oops there is so much traffic, move away, beep beep! Let me speed up. I have to reach the park fast. ZOOOOOOM!! Or is it silent play of one kind every time I take out the car?

Through these sessions, child learns to communicate and uses his language by using play as a medium. We learn to communicate through play, and then we learn to play increasing the range of toys we can play with, how we can play with one toy in multiple ways, (expanding the imagination and creativity) and a number of people we can interact and play with etc. The expansion of play is on the social and cognitive continuum of play. 

Play can be used with all age groups from toddlers to young adolescents and even older children. The level of play gets complex depending upon where the child is on the stages of play.

Using play, purposes of communication expand beyond need based communication. Child learns to ask for more of what he likes, say no to things s/he does not like, sustaining on a task for longer/ joint attention with play partner/ share his emotion of joy, frustration, anger, excitement and even being ok, ask for permission, sharing information/ sharing space and things etc. Spontaneity in actions while playing breaks rigidities and routines making the child more flexible and confident of himself.

Lets Play!!

Lets have some fun!!

Lets Learn