LEGO Therapy

Here is something my son John and I have looked at. My son, Josh, certainly is all about LEGOs! Anyone else have this “problem?”
Here is a little article written by my son John, enjoy!
LEGO therapy

LEGO Therapy: In Brief
Many individuals on the Autistic Disorder Spectrum (which now includes autism, Asperger disorder, and pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified) have difficulties interacting with others. Previous social therapies often see limited improvements as individuals with ASD have little motivation to change.
Many individuals with ASD have a passion for LEGOs and LEGO building, and LEGO therapy builds on this. Other therapies often have a difficult time motivating ASD individuals to participate in, but as soon as you introduce LEGOs they often begin to interact with each other, and often the skills they learn in these interactions are retained long-term and transfer to non-LEGO activities. Those who participated in LEGO therapy often saw greater improvements than their peers that participated in regular therapies.

LEGO Therapy: The Who
LEGO therapy was seen to significantly improve social behavior in high-functioning ASD individuals, regardless of age or gender. The most significant improvements using LEGO therapy were seen in children with ASD that did not have language deficits, although even those with deficits still improved.

LEGO Therapy: The Why
Social competence among individuals with ASD can be divided into three big areas: their desire to initiate contact with peers, their ability to maintain an interaction with peers, and their ability to overcome stereotypical anti-social behaviors often associated with people with ASD, such as aloofness. Although there have been other social therapies that have been used to improve social competence, they often don’t teach social skills that transfer outside of therapy and to real-world interactions. LEGO therapy results in both short and long term improvements in social behaviors, and the improvements were not dependent on the child’s diagnosis (what type of ASD they have).
Many people with ASD seem drawn towards playing with LEGOs, and LEGO therapy uses these natural interests to encourage them to learn how to change their behavior, as well as teaching skills for interactions with peers. Participants in LEGO therapy have an ideal situation to learn skills such as how to take turns, how to give and read non-verbal cues, and how to ask questions or explain how to do something by requiring individuals to participate in cooperative building projects. ASD individuals that participated often began to form a peer group and became motivated by their peer group’s approval and their status as LEGO builders within the group.

LEGO Therapy: The How
There are two different but complimentary ways to run LEGO therapy. The first way is by dividing building into two or three different tasks: the Engineer, who reads the plans and gives instructions; the Supplier, who finds the appropriate bricks and provides them for construction; and the Builder, who takes the bricks and puts them together according to the Engineer’s directions. Roles are regularly switched so that each participant can have a chance to do all of the jobs.

Ideally, LEGO therapy takes place in a medium sized group that is broken up into several teams of 3. In the original LEGO therapy, non-autistic siblings or aides were incorporated into the teams as one of the three members, acting as role models of appropriate behaviors and acting as helpers. Non-autistic siblings, if willing, can be ideal helpers as they are often already familiar with the idiosyncrasies of individuals with ASD.

The second way to use LEGO therapy is to have a free-style building project, and the team members have to agree on a concept and how to build it, and then build it together. Rather than following provided plans, they must develop their own plan and work together to build their vision
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To ensure this process goes as smoothly as possible, there must be a set of rules developed and broken into two categories: LEGO Rules and Conduct Rules. LEGO Rules are rules like “if you break it, you fix it,” or “put the pieces back where you found them;” Conduct Rules would be rules such as no yelling, no climbing on furniture, no hitting, etc.

Based on previous experiences, inviting guests, providing snacks, having parents watch, and incorporating children without ASD (that were not siblings) often disrupted the group. Allowing the children to have 10 minutes of free play time at the end of a session was also beneficial.

It was also seen that having two sessions a week was ideal, consisting of one 60 minute individual session and one 90 minute group session. Initially, the individual session is used to teach the LEGO club rules, learn how to participate in collaborative building, and to develop their skills as LEGO builders. After this, the weekly individual sessions serve as a private “refresher” course for what they’re working on in the group sessions, as well as reinforcing the idea of taking turns.

LEGO Therapy: References
LeGoff, D.B. (2004). Use of LEGO as a therapeutic medium for improving social competence. Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders, 34(5), 557-571.
LeGoff, D.B. & Sherman, M. (2006). Long-term outcome of social skills intervention based on interactive LEGO play. Autism, 10(4), 317-329.