Educational Toys for Children with Autism

The difficulties experienced by each child with autism and the symptoms they show are not the same. For this reason, buying toys supported by special education method is difficult. One of the most effective methods for treatment of autism is game therapy to support gross motor skills. Especially, in the first years of life, for a child with autism, the most appropriate narrative form to express feelings and get to know the world he/she lives in is playing with educational toys for kids. Selection of educational autism toys tailored for autistic kids having sensory issues has a huge importance on special education.

Autism Toys for Training

For children with autism, the choice of both game types and toys is slightly different from other children because of the sensory integration needs. Although the needs and expectations of each child are different, sensory toy is required for every child with special needs in order to teach fine motor and gross motor skills. For this reason, it is very important to include sensory toys to activities to provide imaginative play and to attract attention of children with autism.

The first goal should be to teach playing games with toys instead of the self-motivated behavior generally observed in children with autism. To this end, toys that reduce self-motivating behavior should be selected. Things to be aware of when selecting educational autism toys are as follows:

Visual Supports

The eyes of the children with autism pay attention to rotating objects. They enjoy looking at the bright colors, examine their hands and bring their fingers in front of their eyes and move them. For this reason, to reduce the need for visual stimulation, it is suitable to select autism toys such as lamps, flashlights, sandglass, wheels, light bars, magnetic balls, fidget toys, sound puzzles, writing boards, light guns and binoculars.

Autism Toys for Children with Autism

Auditory Processing

The children with autism who try to sing songs, sing by muttering as if they vocalize. The ones who also like to snap their tongue, click their fingers on different things. For this reason, it is necessary to select the autism toys that sound with the aim of supporting the auditory processing. Thus, sound puzzles, bells, whistles, radio, talking toys, vehicles sound toys, animal sounds toys, music boxes and piano-style autism toys are suitable.

Tactile Stimulation

The children with autism who love to caress their own bodies and pinch themselves also put their fingers in their mouths. To decrease the motor delays, motor toys such as fish hooks, puppets that can be moved with ropes and flutes must be chosen.

Body Stimulation

Children with a diagnosis of autism put their bodies in different shapes. They walk on their toes and walk by bending their heads. In order to improve their fine motor and gross motor skills, the most suitable autism toys are horses, farm animals, wagons, swings and hammocks.

Educational autism toys and games have a huge impact on kids with autism having sensory issues. Otsimo, designed for the need of sensory toys, is effective to teach fundamental life skills to children with educational toys and games. It can be downloaded to both phones and tablets free of charge and allows you to continue sensory integration and develop fine motor skill at home at any time.

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