Draw-a-Tale Transport
Category: Learning to Draw
Price
Single User Licence $15.00
Description
Kids with Autism often find traditional pencil paper activities to be poor motivators and as a result it’s often hard to keep the kids sitting at the table. If you can get the kids to pick up the pencil then it’s often difficult to get them to actually look at what their hand is doing. The understanding that when you start with something small on the page that you can add other things to make a recognizable picture is difficult for kids with Autism. It is often easier to build it out of already recognizable parts like a puzzle, where you have everything that you need you just need to put it together.
Draw-a-Tale Transport starts with the ‘bigger picture’ already completed, so that all the kids need to do is add in the missing parts. Developmentally kids learn to draw straight lines, circles, crosses – but they need to know where on the page to put them. The templates on each page provide ‘obvious’ missing pieces such as the wheels are missing from the fire engine, or the fireman has no arms and legs.
Kids with Autism benefit frequently learn best with activities that have inbuilt routines as this helps them know what is coming next. When they are given the opportunity for repeated practice they can anticipate what to draw and where. Draw-a-Tale Transport contains 3 individual stories about a Fire Engine, Tractor and Bus. The reason for ‘hiding’ the drawing activities within a story is to assist the kids with the sequencing of steps. Kids with Autism often develop strong preferences for favourite stories, videos / movies, songs or toys. They may be able to recite parts of the story word for word or know the rhythm of a favourite song. Draw-a-Tale Transport is designed to use this to our advantage when teaching drawing / pencil skills. By using a story that has a high level of repetition kids can focus their attention to the details.
Parents enjoy using these stories with their kids and it’s great for reducing our worry about our own drawing skills. The stories are designed to be read to kids for the first few times, so that there is not too many details to pay attention to at one time. As kids start to focus more, parents can draw on the missing details. Often with familiarity the kids start taking the marker / pencil out of your hand – as they are confident that they know what to do. The overall aim is to reduce or fade out your assistance over time so that the kids end up being able to complete the entire drawing story by themselves.
The stories can be laminated and bound together to use with a wipe-off marker or you can print them out from your computer as you need them.
This workbook is downloaded as a PDF file which uses Adobe Reader / Acrobat. It is licensed to be used on a single computer.
