Social Skills Game

Are you in the mood to make a game? Here is the concept of a new game that you can make:

Stine Levy, a behavioral and educational consultant from Indiana, has developed a game to teach a variety of social skills to children with AS. This game is fairly easy for parents to adapt or construct at home. Using a game board similar to Candy Land or Monopoly, mark out spaces along a path and use color-coded cards to advance through the game. Different-color cards require the players to do different things, including practice their social skills. For example, blue cards might indicate something fun to do (“Make a silly face,” “Jump up and down twice,” or “Pat your head while rubbing your stomach”). Yellow cards might be used for surprise twists in the game’s rules (“Take another turn” or “Go back two spaces”). Green cards could be related to your child’s special interest (“Name five planets” or “What is the capital of Kuwait?”) or other fun topics (“What is your favorite TV show?” or “Who has a pet dog?”). One color, perhaps red, is at the heart of the game and requires the child to perform some kind of social skill or make social judgment (for example, “You want to watch a video, but your mom says no. What should you do?” or “You see a classmate at the grocery store who says hi. What could you say back?” or “Name two things you can do if someone teases you” or “Ask another player how his or her day was”). Red cards allow children to learn and practice social routines and scripts. The child’s answers to the social questions on red cards can be written down in a notebook for later review. Prompting of more effective or acceptable strategies can be given when needed, thus providing another way to teach social skills that makes use of visual skills and structure, while also being fun.