Best And Easy Autism Therapies To Try At Home

If you’re a parent or caretaker of an autistic child, we know how hard or challenging it can be to promote therapy in front of your child. Apart from seeking therapy, it’s always useful for us to try activities at home that unknowingly work like therapy! For example, children’s most brain development occurs during playing, and play therapy for autistic children can be very useful for improvement and bonding with the children.

Similarly, there are several other activities that can be used in the form of autistic therapies and can be really beneficial for your autistic child. In this blog, I will be enlisting some easy and best autistic therapies that are well-researched, well-established, evidence-based, and risk-free for your autistic children and do not require any extra cost. So, let’s get started!

Best Autistic Therapy To Try At Home

1.Play Therapy

Play therapy as it sounds is not only about playing but learning through the different types of playing techniques. Research shows that autistic children are more into solo-playing or repeating the same things again and again. With the help of play therapy, we can engage our children in playing which can help in building social interaction, motor skills, communication skills, and other important skills.

You can begin with pretend play or symbolic play to keep your children engaged in play therapy. Additionally, you can include simple and quick techniques in the play area to make your child understand effectively such as bubble blowing, sensory activities, simple identification, and more. While performing play therapy at home, make sure everyone joins around and encourages the child to perform better.

2.Speech Therapy

Speech therapy is for those autistic children who struggle with speech or language skills. Speech therapy can help you improve your communication skills. Speech therapy is a vast and complex field but with a little bit of research, understanding, and training, you can try this therapy at home. For effective training, you can use signs, pictures, or gestures to improve communication, speech, and language skills in your autistic children. Additionally, you can also download different activities that can help you bond with your child.

You can simply sit with your children, use different activities and techniques, and encourage your children to follow you. Moreover, you can also get DVD or guidebook combos for proper learning and establishment of speech therapy. During speech therapy, you can try:

• Singing
• Reading
• Naming things
• Explaining or providing a small and easy description of things
• Creating art
• Playing games based on activities
• Role-playing
• Matching pictures

3.Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA)

Applied behavioral analysis (ABA) is one of the best and most useful techniques for autistic therapy at home. It is one of the commonly used therapy techniques with specific and reachable goals. This therapy is based on the pieces of evidence of behavior modification principles that are easy and safe for your children. You can simply take courses and get your certification to apply this therapy technique to your autistic child. During the training sessions, you will be able to:

• Teaching different important and regular skills to your children, for example, bathing, brushing, and others
• Breaking down a major task into smaller steps so that your children can understand the process effectively
• Showing the first step is effective to your child so that they can get encouragement to do so.
• Appreciating and rewarding your children with small treats so that they can stay motivated regularly.
• Teaching the steps effectively and then repeating them regularly for motivation and proper regulation
• Chaining the steps and process with your children for effective training

During ABA training, you can try teaching skills like:

• Bathing
• Brushing
• Toileting and flushing
• Eating properly
• Labeling items
• Requesting

4.Floortime

Floortime is similar to play therapy but it is a different technique because it promotes “circles of communication” with your autistic child. It helps in improving interaction and participation in different activities to expand social skills and improve bonding with your children. Floortime consists of different simple play activities led by parents, siblings, or caretakers.

Floortime is one of the easiest and most effective autism therapies that can be effectively tried at home. This therapy generally lasts around 20 minutes and can be done anytime and anywhere.

5.Relationship Development Intervention (RDI)

Relationship development intervention (RDI) is one of the best autistic therapies specially developed for caretakers and parents with autistic children. It is based on developmental approaches which can help in building social communication skills. The activities included in RDI are somewhat similar to Floortime but yet they serve different benefits such as increasing flexibility, handling social situations, and understanding perspectives.

RDI comes with a series of specific goals and activities that require both parents and a consultant. RDI can be an effective choice if you are ready to hire a consultant. It can be really beneficial for the overall development of autistic children.

6.Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)

Parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) is specially developed for treating or managing aggressive behaviors in autistic children. You can easily get training and certification for PCIT and effectively escalate negative behaviors in your children. Additionally, this therapy can be really effective for improving parent-child bonding and establishing healthy and positive boundaries with your children. PCIT helps in building secure and strong relationships with your children and enforces discipline to improve the overall well-being of the parent and child.

7.Sensory Play Activities

Sensory play activities can be really effective for children with autism as they offer different sensory processing techniques and understanding. Sensory play activities are not only therapeutic but they also offer different benefits such as navigating different relationships, getting comfortable with different sensations, trying out different activities, and motivation to stay consistent.

For sensory activities, you can use home-based ingredients such as beads, rice beans, sand, and different textures so that children can utilize their senses and develop different sensory-based skills.

8.Social Stories and Role-Playing

You can try social stories or short descriptions revolving around everyday situations, expressions, or skills that can help children develop and understand social sequences, cues, and responses. This type of therapy serves various benefits for autistic children. Always behind with short, simple, crafty, and illustrative stories based on regular situations so that they can develop skills accordingly.

For example, you can build short stories around bathing, waiting in a line, responding after someone finishes speaking, going to birthday parties, and more. Keep the social stories realistic and fresh so that whenever your child encounters such social situations, they can remind themselves, and act accordingly.

9.Social Skills Training

Social skills training is developed for people who lack social skills and want to develop skills effective for their social encounters. Autistic children can also seek various benefits from this training as it involves teaching social behaviors, role-play situations, and more techniques that can be really beneficial for the social development of autistic children.

Benefits of Autistic Therapies at Home

Below are some benefits of trying autistic therapy at home:

1. Reduces stress and fatigue
2. Provides extended support to the children
3. Establishes a schedule
4. Promotes consistency and learning
5. Reduces distractions, tantrums, and meltdowns
6. Reduces frustration
7. Provides innovative learning and idea-building

Techniques to Use While Providing Autistic Therapies

While using the above-listed autistic therapies, here’s what you can do to make home activities more effective:

1. Observe your child: While providing autistic therapies at home, observe your child closely so that you can build new interests, hobbies, and motivation based on the observations.  
2. Take the help of Autistic Resources: One of the best techniques to make your therapy-at-home effective is to take the help of online autistic resources so that you can find more recommendations, ideas, activities, or apps that help in managing ASD.
3. Join a support group: Meanwhile, you can also join a support group to learn and seek recommendations from other parents. Additionally, you can get valuable advice on building social skills, improving communication, and more.
4. Work with the teachers: You can seek extra support from the school, teachers know what works for your children in a better way and they can also recommend some more home activities.
5. Establish a strict and regular routine: While providing therapy at home, establish a strict and regular routine such as eating, sleeping, and more so that you can always plan ahead and handle your child in a better way.

Wrapping Up!

If you’re interested in providing autistic therapy at home, make sure you’re picking short and easy activities in the first place so that you can help your children reach their goals. Additionally, always be consistent with the therapies so that you can maintain a proper schedule or routine with your children.

I hope this blog helps you with the best and easiest autistic therapies that can be tried at home. Comment down and share your pick from the list. For more such content, connect with us through all social media platforms.

Thanks for reading!