The Flexible Thinking Series Part 2: The Many Facades of Sounds

Flexible thinking activities allow the child to grasp the idea that there are many variations to a single concept. In this part of the series, we are going to explore how sounds can be used as a fun tool to promote learning to variations of a concept.

(Sound is everywhere and very often, children with autism are caused to feel anxious by incoming sounds and noises that are unfamiliar to them. By teaching them about the various transformations of sounds, they may be able to learn in the long run that the unfamiliar sounds they are hearing could actually be related to ones that they are familiar with).

Sound Discrimination:

Play the sound and let the child guess what sound it is. Then play variations of the same sound. For example, the sound of one person clapping, the sound of many people applauding and the sound of fast versus slow clapping. 

Play Pretending with Imitation of Sounds:

      Have the child pretend to be an animal or doing an action while making its sound. For example,   

1.  Pretending to be a lion and then making roaring sound, growling sound and any other loud, angry sound.
2. Pretending you are driving a car, “Vroom, vroom”, “Rrrrrreh vroom” and “beep beep”, “honk honk”.
3. Pretending you are a musician playing different kinds of instruments and making sounds from them.

Same Tune Different Lyrics.

Use same tune for different songs. You can replace the lyrics to a song that your child knows to make a song of your own. For example, while playing with toy car, sing “The car on the road goes vroom, vroom, vroom…” to the tune of Wheels on the Bus. Teach your child lots of different tunes and then gradually incorporate singing into playtime. Encourage your child to think of a tune to sing together so that you can make up lyrics together while playing.

That's all for now. If you have any comments and suggestions, please drop me an email at davensim@triumphantkids.com. Also, please do visit my website for more details about the services I provide in Singapore. Together we can empower your child towards a brighter future.

Till the next post, regards,

Daven.