The VIP Play Skills Profile

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							Background

Venturing into Play:

a play skills profile for children with autistic spectrum disorders

Caroline Smith

The VIP Play Skills Profile (VIP) provides a practical tool for those working with children with autism spectrum disorders (asd). Based on the detailed observations of the play of children with asd and a clear understanding of the play of typically developing children, the VIP Play Skills Profile considers both the social and cognitive developmental dimensions of play. It provides a tool for developing important baseline statements about both the social interactions and the developmental levels of children with asd. On the social dimensions it offers 34 statements about how the child joins with others to play, ranging from isolated play to initiating the play with groups of children. On the developmental dimensions it offers 26 statements ranging from sensori-motor play to the early stages of sociodramatic play.

Subject to extensive use and revision by experienced staff working in mainstream and special schools the VIP provides an accessible tool for accurately describing the play of children with asd, setting targets and identifying the child’s rate of progress.

Each VIP offers a usable resource to complete for a named child. It has been found particularly useful during the foundation stage and key stages 1 or 2 but has also proved helpful in recording the progress of children with severe learning difficulties and autism.

Sample illustration (reduced size) of part of two pages from the VIP

	The Social Dimension	When describing the play it is helpful to give details about any prompts used to promote play, whether the play occurs with familiar or unfamiliar people and to indicate the frequency in the frequency marker column
	Solitary Play	Description of Play
1	The child engages in solitary play for extended periods but is beginning to show awareness of the playful possibilities of others	Date
	Adult coming alongside
2	The child continues to play in the same room when an adult enters	Date

The Developmental Dimension	It is helpful to give details about any prompts used to promote play, whether the play occurs with familiar or unfamiliar people and to indicate the frequency in the frequency marker column
Sensory - motor play	Description of Play
The child happily plays with tactile toys/materials. eg. playdough, sand, water, finger paints	Date Frequency Marker
Relational play
The child relates toys/objects unsystematically. eg. bangs objects together, piles objects up	Date Frequency Marker

Readership

The VIP Play Skills Profile is a useful resource for, parents, carers, speech and language therapists, health visitors, clinical and educational psychologists, teachers, SENCos, teaching assistants and those working in pre-school settings.

About the author

Dr. Caroline Smith is a freelance consultant and trainer in child psychology. Formerly Caroline has worked as a Principal Education Psychologist and a Specialist Senior Education Psychologist working in the areas of early years, language development, autism, emotional well-being and childhood anxiety. Her practical applications of psychology are firmly based on 15 years teaching experience in mainstream schools.

Having obtained her doctorate in 1999 on ‘The development and evaluation of additional training for Portage Workers in addressing the needs of children with complex social and communication difficulties / autistic spectrum disorders’, Caroline has written widely for journals relating to autism and educational psychology in practice. (Other publications include working with a team to draft SIP – Sensory Interactive Profile – an assessment tool for children with profound and multiple difficulties (available from the National Portage Association (www.portage.org.uk), Writing and Developing Social Stories (Published by Speechmark www.speechmark.net)

The combination of practice based on sound theoretical knowledge, matched with a clear communication style, makes the VIP a practical and useful resource for a wide range of professionals.

To order The VIP Play Skills Profile go to the ordering information page