Lego™ Club is a fun, Lego™-themed group that is designed to build the social competence of children with autism spectrum disorder and social communication difficulties. Through participation in Lego™ Club children learn and practice a range of social skills such as:
- working in a team
- sharing and turn-taking
- negotiating appropriately with peers
- giving and listening to instructions
- using eye contact and appropriate body language
- having conversations
- enjoying playing together to achieve a goal
Play
- Pretends to talk on the telephone
- Gives a response to 'give me a high five'
- Puts sequences of play together e.g. puts man in the car, drives the car up to the garage, puts petrol in the car, pays the money and drives away
- Begins to act out familiar sequences from book or TV shows e.g. pretends to be Fireman Sam putting out a fire
Understanding
- Points to actions in pictures e.g. show me the boy swimming
- Understands big / little
- Responds to simple questions e.g. what is that? where is your ball?
- Identifies several items by function e.g. which one do you read?
Spoken Language
- Uses three-four word sentences frequently
- Uses action words e.g. running, jumping, eating, playing
- Names three common colours
- Uses plurals e.g. cars, socks, books
- Uses position words e.g. in, on
- Says if boy or girl
- Counts to three
When to seek advice:
- If your child does not show interest in other people
- If your child's play is limited to lining up toys
- If your child shows repetitive behaviours e.g. turning light switches on and off
- If your child is not joining words together in sentences
- If your child is not following two-step instructions
- If you can't understand 50% of what your child says to you
Children who have difficulty with /l/ generally replace the sound with /w/ e.g. lion becomes wion. The error is made due to incorrect placement of the mouth to produce the sound.
Here are some ways to help a child produce the /l/ sound:
1. Instruct the child to put the tip of their tongue behind their top teeth (see figure 1). Check the position with a mirror. Ask the child to raise and lower their tongue several time to practice moving their tongue into the correct position. Ask the child to say /la/. Encourage the child to 'smile' as they say the sound to make sure that their lips do not move into a rounded /w/ position.
2. Have the child practice this sequence of sounds /t/-/d/-/n/-/l/. Shape /l/ from /t/ e.g. /ta-la/, then /d/ e.g. /da-na/ and then /n/ e.g. /na-la/.
3. Describe to the child the different mouth positions for /l/ and /w/. /l/ is a sound made with your tongue behind your top teeth; /w/ is a sound made by your lips 'kissing lips'. Practice moving from a /l/ to a /w/ sound so that the child can feel the difference in mouth placement. Use this information when practicing saying /l/ words e.g. What did your mouth do at the start of the word - was your tongue up or did you use your kissing lips?
Figure 1. Tongue position for /l/.
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