The center

Autistic children do not find much interest in the people around them. They prefer to play by themselves with whatever pleases them.

We need to get their attention. We would like to be more interesting to them than the object with which they play. Socialibility has to do with people, with relations between them. Since our goal is to implant the seed of socialibility into their soul, we have to place ourselves in such a way in their space, that they want to give us attention. 

How do we do that, relaxed, without saying: "Look what I do", or "Come and play..... ". If we try to attract their attention with words, the message that we pass on to the child will be very different. Then we will show him, that we don't expect anything from him, that whatever he does is not good enough for us, that we know better. We also show him that we don't want to loose control. - We don't differ at all from the autistic child! He will feel pressure from us. He is no longer in control!

The children are in control while we are playing and we follow. Without requirements, relaxed, and with enthousiasm! Our expressiveness helps them to pay attention to us. Our facial expressions, our sounds and maybe our excessive crying when something drops on the floor (of course the child always knows that it is just play!), or our laughter enhance the level of our being together a lot. All this add so much to the sociability of the playing. It doesn' t matter with what object we are playing, but our participation is crucial for the children to obtain sociability. The way we respond to whatever is happening is the key to succes. When we are expressive, we will help create many reciprocal games.  

But watch out: We cannot invade the children's world in order to attract their attention. It must not become suffocating for them. The children are in control and that is why we have to observe well their reactions and act as it pleases them. If we do something that they don' t like, we stop that immediately.