Take Out the Toys: Building Early Toy Play for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Other Social Communication Difficulties

Take Out the Toys is the second booklet in the Make Play R.O.C.K.™ series for parents of children on the autism spectrum. This series provides practical, research-based strategies for expanding children's play skills during everyday play activities.

The Take Out the Toys booklet gives parents the tools to help their child develop early toy play skills. This early type of play, known as functional play, is an important step on the road to developing more advanced play skills, as well as building social skills. Functional play involves playing with toys in "expected" ways, such as putting shapes into a sorter or building a tower with blocks. This booklet has a play checklist, which helps you identify how your child currently plays with toys. from there, you learn how to expand functional play skills by helping him learn to imitate new play actions using a variety of objects and toys. As your child learns to imitate new and more complex types of functional play, he is not only learning new play skills, but is building the foundation for improved language development.