From experience, I know that developmental and educational toys alone are not enough to help a child with special needs.

in the first place you can easily help your child learn through play. For example, blowing toys can help to overcome language delay. Therefore sensory toys help to overcome touch reluctance in a child on the autistic spectrum.

child on the autistic spectrum

Children on the autistic spectrum often lack a natural interest in play and will need extra help to learn to play.   regular occurrence is the restricted social skills in autistic children.  Making it difficult for them to accept social interaction during play.

Therefore with autism children are instantly disadvantaged if their play skills are impaired.

children with autism

As a parent of a child with a severe language delay and a child with autism.

However I understood the  importance of play and was particularly aware of the value of play based language development.  Therefore I quickly realised that I too needed to learn to play. Merely presenting my special needs children with an array of toys was not sufficient to help develop their play and interactive skills.

likewise by  spending even a few minutes playing with them, I was able to make a huge difference. being much more confident in my own parenting skills.

Using developmental toys The first step in initiating play with a child with special needs is to gain your child’s attention. Often they need to be attracted away from their solitary play or their favoured activity. This requires a toy that is of interest – it does not have to be a specialist developmental toy.

Once you have your child’s attention you then need to hold their interest long enough to give them enough of a chance to practise the activity and get to like it – both of which will build confidence and eventually mean they will want to do it again.

Peek a boo with a scarf, bubbles, balls, bean bags and puppets are very simple devices for attracting a child to join in with a game and can be started easily anywhere at any time.

 autistic children

Cause and effect toys for autistic children with special needs I have found cause and effect toys are really good because a child will quickly learn that if he does one thing something else will happen – press the button and a light comes on, or a character pops up or as with the Sound Puzzle Box where if a shape is correctly inserted into the right hole it makes a squeaky noise.

Ball or car ramps and pop up peg toys can be used to help queue in a child, who otherwise is reluctant to involve you in their play or to interact during play. Merely holding onto the car or ball at the top of the slope saying 1,2 3 ‘GO’ but only letting go once your child looks at you accompanied with a big whoop is another good way of increasing your child’s enjoyment as well as promoting interaction and eye contact.

Games to stimulate social skills, especially in autistic children Ball and car ramps are also very good for practising social skills such as turntaking and waiting, you may have to work hard to stop your child from grabbing the ball when its not his turn but doing these sorts of activities frequently can really help your child to wait and participate more willingly. These are just some ideas to help entice a child with special needs away from solitary play even for a short time initially and to help develop a desire to play.

About the Author

As the mother of two special needs sons, I became frustrated by endless fruitless searches for toys and activities to help with their special needs. Even when I found suitable toys, I still wasn’t always sure how to use them to help my sons. So I established SenseToys. The SenseToys range has been developed with several leading therapists and Montessori trained teachers ensuring that the products and play tips are appropriate. article written by Lesley Burton updated for yeo 24 feb 2019