Make Play R.O.C.K.: Plan For People Play

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 People Play Important?

Games like Hide-and-Seek, Row, Row, Row Your Boat and Tag are well-known examples of people play or “people games”. These kinds of games rely on interaction between two or more people in order to be successful and fun, which is why they provide an ideal context for children to learn interaction skills.

During people games, children have the opportunity to develop a variety of social interaction skills, including:

• Connecting with others for social purposes
• Paying attention to others
• Copying what others do
• Taking a turn in an interaction
• Waiting for others to take a turn
• Using sounds, actions and words as part of the game

How Plan for People Play Helps

Plan for People Play helps you create enjoyable play situations that encourage your child to participate so that he can have the best possible opportunities to both have fun and build important social interaction skills.

Based on current research on what helps children with ASD learn best, Plan for People Play offers practical, easy-to-use strategies for:

• Choosing the most appropriate people games for your child based on his sensory preferences
• Identifying the next skill your child can learn in a people game
• Using specific interaction strategies during people games to help your child develop more advanced social interaction skills.

Make Play R.O.C.K: Plan for People Play provides examples of over two dozen people games with guidance on how to play them, concrete examples and illustrations of parents using Plan for People Play strategies with their child and “Game Plan” templates to help you plan your next people game and how you’ll help your child learn new skills.

View Sample Pages