Since the day Emily was diagnosed, our play time morphed into hidden therapy session.
She was 15 months old, just a tiny little girl who didn’t do anything. Nothing at all! The last thing we needed was for her to decide that she wasn’t going to do those “exercises” anymore. So, it was all labeled as game time. We even tried to make the stretches fun … 🙂
Years later, I buy board games who are fun and educational. I found a great store that carries tons of great games! Emily loves trivia questions, she knows some answer and takes in all the answers she didn’t know. Next time, she gets more questions and so on. It’s amazing to witness her retain the information.
Some games I bought a while back but Emily was never interested.
Math games are not her thing!
Story games are fun!
Social interaction games… We’ve never finished one until tonight!
Yeah us!!!
Just before dinner, Emily came in the kitchen and ask if we could play her Socially Speaking game!
We’ve had this one for quite some time and Emily has never agreed to play it.
I had to read the rules in order to get us going.
The game is to help someone figure out what to say, recognize emotions and talk about themselves, answer questions appropriately and pay compliments!
It’s awesome!
Emily got that situation!
Her answer? Watch AFV and The Big Bang Theory.
She paid me compliments, ask good questions, answered all the questions I asked her, did some reading and explore saying “I have peas for tea” showing various emotions!
She can’t do “scared”. I guess that can be see as a positive thing. She hasn’t been scared much in her life!
She is also not good at comforting someone who just lost their cat! She said: “let’s get you a dog!” LOL! We will have to practice this!
Bottom line, Emily and I spent almost an hour playing a board game and we had fun while learning about appropriate conversation skills!
I guess she’s getting older!
Lessons from my daughter 
That’s so awesome! I’ll have to try and find the game for Olivia!
It’s a great game. Hope you find it!
What an awesome game! And I love how engaged Emily was while you guys played! Empathy is not an easy skill to teach or to learn, but I have to admit, I kinda liked her ‘let’s get you a dog’ attitude! 🙂
Emily shows empathy in her actions not with her words. She hugs and cuddles. When she was 5 or 6, I lost a colleague tragically. When I got home, I laid on the couch fighting tears. She climbed next to me, scoutched under my head and pet my hair just like I would to calm her. I thought that was amazing how she could relate and find an appropriate action to help me. She knows empathy, now she needs more words to express it :).
Ah! I see!
she is growing up! i would love to get this game for my class to play with all of them, it does not come naturally to everyone as you know. thanks for this post ) beth
Hope you can find the game. Let me know if the picture isn’t clear enough, I can get you more information. I got conversation cards too, they were quite expensive and Emily outgrew them almost right away. Not good for my wallet but awesome skills wise!