Our carer’s centre ran a Lego Therapy course tailored specifically for ASD. I was intrigued by this, so put my name down to attend.
It was ran by a lovely woman who has set up her own company doing this. I thoroughly enjoyed the course, who wouldn’t enjoy a morning of Lego!
Our son wasn’t interested in Duplo, in fact I have just recently sold the 3 sets he had on eBay as they were brand new and never looked at. I am very keen to get him interested in Lego as everyone loves Lego.
The course told us how it can improve their focus and help with their imagination, something that people with autism struggle with.
Game ideas:
- Make a Lego target for Nerf guns to hit off
- Spot the difference – make 2 shapes/pictures with a difference in one and find the difference between them
- Spot the difference – take a photograph of a shape/picture then make it differently and spot what the difference is
- Make your own instructions – take photos on the iPad to incorporate the iPad into play with Lego
- Make 2 identical boxes of Lego pieces, but have one piece missing from a box, engage by saying “your blue piece is missing, would you like mine”
After discussing game ideas, we were split into groups of 3 and asked to name ourselves:
- Engineer – the person with the instructions who tells the supplier what brick is needed
- Supplier – the person with the Lego pieces who gives them to the builder
- Builder – the person who puts the pieces together
We then had to work together to make the Lego items, in our group we had a house, car, dog, table and chairs to make.
I started as the builder then moved on to being the engineer. It was really difficult to describe the bricks to the supplier:
- Flat white one row four dots
- Thick green two rows six dots
- Blue four dots on top and slant to the left
Try this – it’s not as easy as you think it will be. But we managed it, and it showed us how difficult it can be following instructions from descriptions just like our children do.
Super Autism Mum 