Making Sessions Functional!

You know those sessions that go really well, just as you planned them in your head? I know, I know we don't have them very often, but when you actually do isn't it magical.

I had one of those sessions today so I decided I had to write about it and share with you.

My patient is a 7yo, diagnosed with ASD. He is verbal and I'd say quite high functioning, but he has lots of difficulty coping within social situations and with higher language tasks. His play skills are also delayed for his age, particularly when it comes to symbolic/imaginative play. I've been trying to incorporate lots of his language tasks into many functional play activities that relate to his everyday routines. Today we worked on going grocery shopping.

We played a quick barrier game using the supermarket theme in the Magnetalk Match up adventures kit, to work on following directions and building vocab, amongst other goals.

We also talked about why we go to the supermarket, and the types of things we buy at the supermarket.

I found the perfect link for him, a video which actually shows a pretend play routine for going to the supermarket, so we were able to watch the video and model the steps. I loved that the video used pretend items for the activity, such as balls for fruits, and laundry baskets for shopping carts. We watched the video and made a visual timetable for each set.

It was then time for us to go pretend shopping. We drew our shopping list and looked around the office for items which we could use in our activity. A doll pram served as our shopping cart, balls were our fruits, and some empty jars for our milk, juice etc. Then it was time to go to the 'cashier' - a word modelled repeatedly to make sure he got the concept. We took turns being the cashier so that he could get an idea of both processes. Please remember to note "unload the groceries" as a step, since we tend to jump from putting the items in the shopping cart to going to pay. This is an essential step to note. I got a cool toy cash register that lights up and makes sounds for christmas so it was fun to use. We took turns scanning each item and deciding on suitable prices for them. Then we talked about how it mummy might pay with either cash or a credit/debit card, so we used a different method on each turn. After that we got the receipt and put the items into the bags to take home.

What I love about the adventures kit is that there are worksheets for extension activities that cover a range of language areas. Mum got the worksheets for the grocery shopping theme to carry home and work on. She also has the task now of taking him to the supermarket and talking him through the same visual schedule that we made.

It was a fun afternoon and I hope you can use it sometime in your therapy activities :)