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Board games? Help please!!

RdmaggieRdmaggie member
in Special Needs
DD 3 years old, dx'd with Autism last August started ABA based preschool in February. Recently her report sheets have mentioned she's been enjoying board games (with prompting) with a peer. So we've tried a few at home... Candy land, hi ho cherry O, and hungry hungry hippos. She requests to play the games at home, and understands the turn taking bit, she can sit near the board but often flops backwards and rolls between turns. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to get "winning" at all, and she tends to fixate on parts of the game. So we are constantly prompting her/redirecting her. It's beyond frustrating. With candy land she fixates on king candy, on hi ho cherry o she keeps trying to feed the fruit to her Elmo figurine, HHH she fixates on the little balls and only wants to play with those. What do we do? Keep trying to carry her through the game, only let her play at school, wait until she develops enough cognition or understanding to better play? Thoughts please
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Re: Board games? Help please!!

  • funchickenfunchicken member
    My NT three year old doesn't really "get" how to play games yet either. She'll play along for a few turns but then loses interest or doesn't want to follow the rules. We do have a game that we play as a family that she likes parts of. It's called Disney Eye Found It. You play as a team, and part of the game involves everyone looking for objects on the board together (the board is really long)--that's her favorite part. I know I'm not explaining it well, but that's one game we are all able to play together that holds her interest pretty well.
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  • Assembly_ReqdAssembly_Reqd member
    Nate doesn't have the attention span either. You just have to go into it knowing it is going to be a learning experience for her and a pain in the ass for you.

    We do a lot of talking out loud/narrating the steps of the game and hand over hand support. We have also been working on Go Fish with a limited amount of cards face up on the table and Matching games. If I get him to get a couple of matches before tossing and swiping all the cards everywhere, I consider it a success. He gets really hung up on "look at all the cards! I MUST pick them ALL up NOW !!!1111!1111!"
    WAY 2 Cool 4 School


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  • MirandaHobbesMirandaHobbes member
    Agreed- my son was slow to pick up board games. He is textbook ASD 2 years behind in maturity. He's almost 6 and will happily play a boardgame now to conclusion without melting down. But he still likes board games like Candyland which are geared towards 3 year olds. I used to get grief from daycare that DS had a hard time with board games and they once questioned if we ever played them at home- I was like, yeah, we're trying... he's just a late bloomer. When he was 3 I'll be honest we didn't try too often because it was too frustrating for everyone.
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  • annibesannibes member
    DS is 4 and I was elated when he semi-attended to Sneaky Snacky Squirrel one time. He was so bored, but stuck with it with a little help. He has requested not to play the game again, lol. "No? No want to play Snacky Squirrel more?"
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  • JoJoGeeJoJoGee member
    I agree with everything that's been said. DD, who, as far as we can tell is cognitively and socially typical, is still learning what it means to play a game. We have a pajaminal's game. It's pretty simple - you pick up a tile. The tile has a picture. You move your character to where that picture appears on the board. But, the first few times we played it, she had to be reminded of every single thing. Here's a look at what a typical game was like:

    Okay, pick up the tile... What's the picture?... Oh, it's a blank... Can you find the blank on the board... No, that'a the tile... Here, let's go space by space... Does this space have blank... Does this space...great! Now we move the character to the space... Now it's my turn...No, honey, not your turn... Here, can you help me?... My tile has a blank2 on it... Can you help me find a blank2 on the board... Does this space have a blank2... Does this space... Yay! Thank you for your help...(Rinse, repeat)

    DD's getting better, but as I said she is still learning. She's gotten better at turn taking, but matching pictures can still be hard for her (don't know if that's because matching is hard for her or because her visual perception is much better whens she is looking up instead of looking down).
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