THE JOYS OF PLAY

Author: Andre Velho | Sep 22, 2016

A major achievement in my professional career this year was the completion of the Autism Intervention Training Program conducted byUmmeed Child Development Center, Mumbai. Through this course, I met and have been in touch with the ever-dedicated and talented Ummeed Autism Team.

Recently, Gopika Kapoor, a Senior Autism Intervention Therapist at Ummeed and author of the best-selling book ‘Spiritual Parenting’ visited Sethu Centre while on holiday in Goa. I seized the opportunity and requested her to share a fraction of her 6 years of wisdom and experience with some of our parents from all over the State. She eagerly agreed to this and on the 16th of September, she conducted a workshop on the “Joys of Play” for 15 families of children with autism.

It is known that many children with autism lack age-appropriate play skills with toys. Their play is often repetitive and restricted to a few actions like moving a car back and forth over and over, lining up trains, building a block tower and repeatedly crashing it down etc. Further their engagement with parents can be limited to requesting for things they want like water or chocolates. In addition, their communication skills may be restricted to pulling mum’s dupatta, or grabbing dad’s hand and pulling him to the biscuit container.

The workshop conducted was about using “play” to build engagement between parents and their children, helping them strengthen their play and communication skills and improve their behaviour. It was an interactive program with many mock examples of how to use toys that children enjoy, like pompoms, bubbles, cars and balloons, to promote their play skills with parents and siblings. Through demonstrations, parents learnt how to use their children’s favourite toys to teach requesting, by keeping these in sight but out of reach. Parents were taught how to identify their children’s current level of communication and use play to take it to the next level. In two and a half hours, parents discovered many new ways of spending time with their children more meaningfully than before. Here is what two parents had to say about the workshop.

Mr. K: “Gopika’s workshop was of the highest quality. It was very informative and the demonstrations with Mr Andre helped us understand what was being taught. We learned how to imitate our children through play. This workshop changed our thinking as to what is important when working with our children and we thank Sethu for organising it.”

Mrs. R: “The workshop conducted was informative and excellent. I learnt to imitate my son when he plays with his drums after school and we bang on the drums together. The response from my son as a result of this has been very good!”

Sethu is very grateful to Gopika, and we hope to welcome more members of the Ummeed Autism Team to our centre to enhance our autism services.

 

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