The aquarium can be a fun and educational place for children and families to visit. Most families enjoy taking trips to the aquarium during the weekends or school holidays, and schools may also organise field trips to the aquarium. Nonetheless, going to new and unfamiliar places can be potentially challenging for children with autism. Furthermore, the aquarium can be dark and crowded during peak hours, which could trigger anxiety in children with autism.
Several weeks ago here in the beautiful city of Kuala Lumpur, a fire had broken out in a school dormitory, claiming the lives of 21 students and 2 teachers. Here at EAP, we were deeply saddened by the news and express our sincere condolences to those affected by the blaze. With that, we would like to take this opportunity to share some insights on fire safety and evacuation planning. Whether you live in a landed house or in a condominium, it is important to have fire safety practices and plan for evacuation in the event of a fire.
Going out to different places in the community is an activity most families engage in to enjoy some ‘Family Time’ together. Most families enjoy going out to places like malls, parks, swimming pools and playgrounds during the weekends and school holidays. Spending some quality family time helps build interaction and strengthen bonds between family members, allows everyone to unwind from work, school and other responsibilities. However, going out to the community can be challenging for families with children with autism, perhaps even for families with typically-developing children. In the community, there are various safety concerns, one particular example is the risk of children wandering off from the adults.
Have you heard of the LEGO-Based Therapy? It is an alternative intervention to help children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) learn social skills and social competence through LEGO play. The developers of LEGO-Based Therapy believed that this intervention approach has long-term outcomes on the child’s social skills, such as improvements in initiation of social contact with peers, duration of social interaction with peers, as well as reduction in stereotyped behaviours.
Going to the cinema to watch a movie is something most children get to experience during their childhood. We all remember the different movies we watched growing up, and how some of these movie experiences become memories we’ll never forget. Most kids nowadays enjoy trips to the cinema to catch the latest release, and would thereafter share about the movie with their parents, siblings or peers. Movies have become a great source of fun for most children and a popular social activity during the weekends and school holidays. Nonetheless, children with autism may not share the same interest or excitement when going to the cinema, and this can become a challenge for the child as well as their family. As a result, families with a child with autism may not get to share the same experience that most families would.
Family photographs are important to most families in keeping special memories and recording milestones of their children. However, a family photography session can have its’ challenges even for children with typical development. It may be difficult to successfully meet the demands of a photography session from having to deal with the multiple verbal instructions from parents and the photographer, fulfill the different poses and possibly costume change as well as tolerate the length of the photo shoot!
“Hey, check out my new fidget spinner! It has red and blue lights!”, “Mummy, all my friends have a fidget spinner, why can’t I have one too?”. These comments may be familiar to most school teachers and parents of children of the current generation. Everywhere we go, we see kids (and even adults!) walking around with this spinning device placed between their thumb and index finger and being spun as they stare at it with fascination.
Hey everyone! We are back with the third part of our Interactive Play Idea series and this time we have structured independent activities…
Hey everyone! Hari Raya is just around the corner…
We would like to take a short moment to appreciate all fathers out there with kids with autism…
We’ve compiled more interactive play ideas that are easy and relevant as a continuation to our first interactive play video…
It can be difficult for parents to engage and play with your child with autism. Especially with hectic schedules, it can be hard for parents to come up with creative ideas…
