Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! Start preparing now to help your child have the most social success with this love-filled day. Love is an abstract concept that isn’t learned overnight. Start incorporating a variety of Valentine’s Day activities with friends and families such as books, music, food and songs and their understanding will begin to naturally increase. Check out a couple of our past blogs for ideas on how to make Valentine’s Day a social language learning opportunity and how to help your child show their love towards their family and friends:

Now that you have read our “A Guide to Symbolic Play” blog http://www.autismspot.com/blog/Guide-Symbolic-Play and you have assessed your child’s symbolic play skills, it’s time to get busy and start playing! We have included some ideas on two separate symbolic play activities: one for beginner symbolic play skills and one for more advanced skills.
Beginner Symbolic Play Skills

Symbolic play refers to using objects or toys to represent something else within play. For example, a baby doll represents a real baby. We rock it to sleep, give it a bath and even feed it when it’s hungry. A toy cow comes to life mooing and eating hay while he chases the farmer’s tractor. A kitty cat mask transforms us into a four legged animal, meowing and searching for milk. A child is not born with symbolic play skills; in fact, these skills develop as part of a hierarchy of skills that are mastered over time.

KidSpeak is taking a break from blogging to spend the holidays with our families, to wrap up the rest of the year and prepare for the spring semester! We will be back in mid-January with lots of new ideas and specific ways to work on social communication with your child.

Having your child involved with the gift shopping and present wrapping will provide an endless amount of language, cognitive, fine motor and creative learning opportunities this holiday season. This is a huge Theory of Mind skill…..understanding that giving a gift to a person will make them feel loved and happy, which in turn will help your child create a meaningful relationship with the person. My action affects how another person perceives me.

The holidays are a busy time, filled with running errands, shopping and making plans. Take a break from all the hustle and bustle for an easy to do holiday project with your child! This reindeer art is sure to help spread some holiday cheer and will provide your child with many language learning opportunities!
Materials:

Thanksgiving is just a week away! How can we make the most out of this special social holiday for our children? Here are a couple ideas:
Plan out your Thanksgiving day
Here are some important things to think about to help set your child up to succeed on Thanksgiving:
-Whose house will you be at?
-Is there any area for your child to play?
-Is there any area for a quiet time or break?
-Who will be at Thanksgiving?
-Will it be quiet or loud?
-Will there be other children to play with your child (older or younger)?

Having your child make a photo book for Halloween will help them in many ways:
-Cognitively recall past and future events
-Improve temporal skills (days of the week, last weekend, yesterday, tomorrow, etc.)

Halloween is just around the corner which means there will be lots of CANDY in your house very soon! Some children can’t eat candy due to allergies and special diets and others can eat candy, but as parents, you may try to limit the amount they eat. If this is the case for your family, you just might find the “Halloween Fairy” to be your new BFF. Here are a few ideas on how to use the “Halloween Fairy”:
1. All of the Candy