Play Scripts

Last night i went to a seminar about "Play scripting" for children with special needs. Jaidens wonderful EIU teacher told me about it and kindly gave me a lift there!
Basically "play scripting" is a bit like a communication board.
You have a series of pictures on an A4 Sheet of paper.
The pictures usually include Facial Expressions- to indicate how the child is feeling , Choices - this might include pictures of Painting, Drawing, Dress Up.. whatever is on offer really.
Say the child indicated they wanted to paint, you could then show them a colour choice board and they can pick the colour they want to use by pointing to the board.
Ok. That was a terrible explanation. Basically Allison (lady running the session) showed us how to extend the play sequences with children by offering them a select number of choices, Say Jane sees a doll, picks it up cuddles it and puts it down, you could encourage Jane to keep playing by asking "whats next?" and pointing to the play script which might have choices like feed the baby, dress the baby, put the baby to bed etc.

You modify the choices depending on the childs level of play skills. Allison teaches a Special Ed class with 6 children with a range of disabilities, from sitting in a chair only able to feel different objects and interact by the odd grunt through to one girl who was playing imaginary games in pirate costume (im not quite sure why she was in that school actually - she looked, talked and played quite "normally". )

All in all although i cant explain it very well i learned alot and im very glad i went.

On a funny note - Jaiden just came up to me and said "mum, its ok. maybe i have a new nose" - the reason for this comment is because he has had a sore on his nose for weeks, its still there because he keeps picking at it and making it bleed. I told him to stop or it will fall off. So now i think he feels it would be easier to have a whole new nose than stop picking the sore on the old one! LOL