Interesting Article from the Philadelphia Inquire

So I was reading the Philadelphia Inquire yesterday morning and on the front page there was an article titled “Building Blocks in Autism Therapy”. I figured what a perfect article to read and it was so interesting that I wanted to share it with you. There is a doctor by the name of Daniel Legoff who is a pediatric neurophysiologist. About 15 years ago he went to Honolulu for post- doctoral training and realized that his autistic patients, who were very isolated and quiet, ignored all the toys except for legos. Furthermore, the children began talking and playing with the legos with each other.

As the article states, “A hallmark of autism is an obsessive dedication to one to two interests or activities- typically involving taxonomies, mechanical systems, and hierarchies.” He found this amazing and soon after developed the “Lego Club”.

The Lego Club is a Social Development Therapy that helps mildly autistic children develop social skills and helps them make friends. The children are divided up into groups of three and each child is given a job: the designer, the builder, and the supplier. The children build and create different figures and then put on a skit with their creation. The parents whose children are involved love the therapy; one mother says “I have seen growth. This has helped him get a group of friends where he fits in. It’s built his self-esteem.”

This therapy session has three trained adult leaders who help then learn to interact and communicate socially. This session costs $45 and there are some downfalls, according to the article, that include: it is more difficult and expensive, not suitable for severely autistic children, and it is not based on any particular theory of what is wrong in the autism brain. Yet, since no discovery has been made to why or how autism occurs, this still seems like a great therapy to help the children become socially interactive. Even principal Matthew Sharp says, “When a child has a birthday now he has friends to invite.”

Resources

McCullough, M. (15 March 2008). The Philadelphia Inquirer. Building blocks in autism therapy.