Perspective taking FREEBIE

Perspective taking is skill that is difficult for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.  Jill Kuzma has great information on Perspective taking skills on her blog.  The games Guess who or Guess where can given you insight on a child's perspective taking abilities.  Many of my clients struggle with understanding that I have a a different character than they do.  Instead, they continue to ask me questions about the person that they are looking at. 

Videos are a motivating way to work on this skill with older clients.  Last week we used the Pepsi Uncle Drew Part 2 video to discuss False beliefs, expectations and how thoughts may shift based on what people believe our true. 

We watched the video twice.  I told my client that we were going to watch a video of a basketball pick up game.  We started by discussing what might be expected/unexpected during a basketball game.  After the two old men were introduced as characters we discussed what we might think of older people-what could they do, would we expect them to be good at basketball against younger people.  When they missed the first two shots, we paused on the audience reaction and discussed what they were thinking.  Once they started to make baskets, we discussed the crowd reactions again.  At the end of the video, you see the two basketball players putting on their make up.  If they haven't figured it out, I let them know that these were professional basketball players that were wearing old man costumes. 

Then we watch it again to as a false belief task.  Even though WE know that they are in costume, the spectators do not. 

After that, we talked about how figuring out what people are thinking helps to make conversations a "slam dunk"  I'm posting a link to this FREEBIE here. 

What activities/videos have you found to be helpful to work on perspective taking skills?