annual Autism Summer/fall fest

Yesterday was the annual Autism fest in our region again. We were about 40 people, and the kids and Adults had a great fun time. The weather was damp and rainy the days before, but the weather gods were giving us a break and treated us with sunshine and warmth for the day.

Diana(e) took care of the kiddos, and we played ball games, a card game named 'Papperlapapp' where one has to form words from one card of the 16 on the table and one from the hand stack of 17. Whenever one takes a card out of the middle, he has to replace it with one from the hand stack. So the spot is not empty. Once one person in the round has used all their cards on the hand stack, this round is over and the whole group will stop matching cards and discuss the found word pairs for credibility and use a dictionary in case it seems to be appropriate.
This is not a round taking game, all play at once and it can give you the giggle fits hearing the combinations, but while playing it is not allowed to discuss, this is saved for after the round is finished.

We played with relaxed rules, so the less verbose kids had a chance to collect points, and we made a ritual out of explaining the words, and did not write down the points but played for the fun of it and for the training in interaction this game asks for.

Even the most timid boy joined us after the first trial round we played and it is fun in a bigger round. So far I had only played it with two or three players, and with 7 it was so much better, more fun and interesting because of the creativity some kids displayed with their words.

I dont know if this would work in other languages, in german it works fine :-)

Once the pictures are uploaded, I will put one in to illustrate the fun we had.

for curious people who want to try their german knowledge, go to
http://www.autismus-nordbaden-pfalz.de/berichte.htm

there you can see some pictures and small texts to the activities of the past.

From 2006 there are no pictures or text, since the 'journalist' and his mother were not present and nobody else took pictures or wrote about it.

Dianas Homepage is a good collection on Info and personal experiences, she can be found at:
http://www.aspiana.de