Fun and Educational Online Games for Children with Autism

Children with Autism in public schools are required by law to receive services identified in an Individual Education Plan (IEP). Some of the most common areas addressed on an IEP for a student with Autism are language arts related to acquiring adequate vocabulary for communication and social language skills. It is very common for public schools to have at least one computer in each classroom. Having computers in the classroom has an advantage for students with Autism as many times they have a particular interest in technology and will focus on fun computer games for a long time. A brief search of the internet brings up many excellent educational sites that offer online computer games that are appropriate for addressing the language skills in IEPs.

Fun Online Vocabulary Games for Children with Autism

Vocabulary refers to the words a person is familiar with in their language. Vocabulary generally expands and changes with age. Vocabulary is the most basic tool used in communicating and supports our ability to learn information. A fun online game, related to vocabulary development, can be found at funbrain.com. The purpose of this game is to help students with Autism look at a picture and then locate a word that describes the picture. This game supports not only vocabulary development but reading skills too. Another fun online language game that focuses on vocabulary development can be found at scholastic.com. The gist of this game is to develop categorization skills. This is accomplished by having the students sort several items according to the rules explained in the game. The games on this website are most appropriate for students with Autism because they take advantage of one of the primary ways children with Autism learn - visually or through pictures.

Fun Online Social Language Games for Children with Autism

One of the markers of Autism is difficulty in social situations and using social language skills. Because of this, children with autism often receive IEP supports related social language development. A key part of social adeptness is the ability to read the emotional and facial and body language of others. There is a very helpful website that addresses these issues at dotolearn.com. This website uses interactive facial expressions in an effort to teach children with Autism about reading these appropriately. In a similar way it is difficult for children with Autism to understand and identify with their own emotions and the emotions and feelings of others. Since students with Autism learn well with visual learning strategies, there is another game at the dotolearn.com website that teaches about visual attentiveness to facial expressions. The point of this game is to let students have an opportunity to see three dissimilar face cards where each individual pictured is exhibiting a different emotion. Students select the picture that portrays the emotion.

Using technology to support the development of language and social language skills for students who have Autism is an effective educational strategy. Using the web to find educational games works well at school and at home.

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