Playing pretend doesn’t come naturally to kids with autism. From the start, the Menininho’s play consisted of moving objects from one location to another: books, easter eggs, cars, etc. Even with his play kitchen he doesn’t really pretend to cook, just move the dishes and food around. He has started imagining hand dryers out of thin air though, which is both exciting and…loud.

Yesterday I decided to initiate a game of pretend with M. Our couch was a boat and we had to stay on it or else the baby shark (Baby J) might eat us. At one point I tossed M overboard and told him he had to swim. He responded by rolling around on the floor yelling “I swih-ing! I swih-ing!” Pretty cool, right?

It gets better!

A few minutes later M is back in the “water” and I caution him to watch out for the shark.

“Better hurry back to the boat! The shark is going to eat you!”
“Wheh ah yoooooo? Wheh ahhh you shak?” the Menininho called out. “OH NO!”
“What? What happened M?”
“OH NO! The shak POOED! Yuck!”

If that’s not showing some imagination, I don’t know what is. 🙂

What are some fun things your kids have done recently?