Many kids with autism struggle to develop their imagination and struggle with enjoying imaginative play. It's something we've really worked on and our middle son is just getting there with some things in it. There's lots of ways to access your imagination but many kids with autism find it difficult to create things from nothing and we've found that providing props and support is a way to support them. Here's some ideas if you are looking for things this Christmas.
Roll play and costumes
Whether it's picking up on their favourite movies, tv series or obsessions, there are many costumes and dress up options to help kids use their imagination. Mirrors can be helpful as the kids can really see themselves as the character, profession, person or animal they are dressed as and can then act out scenes or even start to make up their own stories.
How about being Mirabel from Encanto, Spiderman from the Marvel movies and act out scenes. Or be something from real life like a Firefighter or a chef?
Activity playsets
One of the best ways our kids developed imaginative play is through playsets that act out an activity, like shopping, baking or fixing a car. Anthony was always into Formula One and the idea of being able to fix a car or do a pit stop was a way of connecting the play with him. We could make a big box into a car and he could use toy tools to fix and get it ready to race. The ones that look the most realistic were the easiest to use as they actually looked like the real thing.
It was the same with the tea / toaster set we got. It looked like a small version of the real thing. Anthony knew it was a toy but it wasn't abstract by having a smiling face on it. For some kids this worked great buy Anthony made us imaginary breakfast using his real life looking Bosch breakfast set because he knew what it was. Baking and shopping sets were also a good idea. A baking one could also be used if you got a chef's dress up. The more we were able to fill in for the kids, the less they had to work to engage their imagination.
Books
Books can be a great way of engaging kids imagination. Books provide lots of a story and background for your imagination which means you can just fill in the parts you are able to with your imagination.
Some books come with characters like this one we got about The Gruffalo which came with finger puppets. This allows the story to be run with puppets and helps bring it out of the page. But there are lots of books with different types of puppets that can bring a story alive and help kids engage with books and their imagination.
If you've other ideas, please do get in touch and let me know. We're always interested in helping our kids develop their imagination.
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