Make Play R.O.C.K.: Plan For People Play - Book

This is the first book in the Make Play R.O.C.K.™ series for parents of young children with Autism, produced by The Hanen Centre®.

It provides easy research-based ways of developing social and communication skills during games focusing on interaction with others instead of focusing on toys. The methods detailed are based on current research on what helps children learn best. "Hide and Seek", "Row, Row, Row your Boat" and "Tag" are commonly used "people games" which rely on interaction. During these types of games, children learn key social skills including:

• Connecting with others for social purposes
• Paying attention to others
• Copying what others do
• Taking a turn in an interaction
• Waiting for others to take a turn
• Using sounds, actions and words as part of the game

This resource helps parents and professionals create enjoyable play situations that encourage children to participate, having the best possible opportunities for fun whilst developing social interaction skills in a supportive manner. Strategies and contents include:

• Choosing the most appropriate people games for children to learn based on their unique sensory preferences
• Identifying the next skill that children can learn in a people game
• Using specific interaction strategies during the games to help develop more advanced social interaction skills.
• Examples of over two dozen people games with guidance on how to play them.
• Examples and illustrations of parents using "Plan for People Play" strategies with their child
• "Game Plan" templates to help you plan people games and ways in which you will help a specific child learn new skills

• Paperback.
• Others in this series include "Take out the toys" (55712) and "Put pretending into your child's play" (55713)

"I've just sat and read the Make Play ROCK book in one go. It's very accessible and is a great reminder about how to use Hanen techniques in play situations. The examples are realistic, they sound just like children I work with, and there are lots of game ideas to build interaction skills. I will definitely be recommending this book to my clients, it succinctly sums up the strategies needed to build interaction skills and explains why gees strategies and skills are so important for communication."

Beth Atkinson, Speech and Language Therapist, Chatter Independent Speech Therapy