Rocket Ship of the Imagination
A rocket ship can be anything you want it to be. I used this activity to work on social responsiveness with my little pal with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) last week.
I
used exaggerated facial expressions and reactions to get him to look to
me for eye contact and this means he was learning that people's faces
are rich sources of communication and information! And even better: we
built a fun-based connection together naturally and without artificial
prompts.
I love working on social cognition through goofy play and
he did, too! He kept breaking the rocket ship to watch me act
dramatically heartbroken and then fixing it to see me act super
relieved, looking at me frequently and with joy throughout. It was so
great to see! A great reminder that joint attention is the foundation of
communication and worth focusing on — sometimes heavily!