Wind-up Toys

Why use wind-up toys? Most small children lack the motor skills to operate wind-up toys so they have to request "help". This provides an opportunity for the adult to manipulate the child's environment until the child communicates his desire to opperate the wind-up toy. If a child does not yet use the word "help", they can use picture exchange, eye contact, or a similiar word or word approximation (go, jump). Another great communication goal to target while using wind-up toys is "more" because they almost always want to see it again! Again, this can be targeted by picture exchange, verbalizations or simple signs. Wind-up toys are also great for verbal children because they teach a variety of vocabulary and action words (jumping, swimming, walking, flipping, crawling, riding, etc.).