Building Community: Bricks for Autism
Posted by MeganL,
Holly and I had a chance to talk with Dr. Elinor Brett, one of the Directors of Bricks for Autism, based in the UK:
How long have you been doing this? How did you get started?
I was first introduced to LEGO based therapy in 2011, when I researched its use in schools as part of my doctorate in Educational Psychology. Dr Gina Gomez de la Cuesta kindly introduced it to me, and we have worked alongside each other since. I joined Gina as a co-director of Bricks for Autism in 2018, and we now work together to offer training to professionals. Gina was introduced to the intervention by Dr Dan Le Goff, and she published research evaluating the intervention in 2008.
How long have you (personally) been interested in LEGO?
I used to love playing with LEGO as a child. My favourite set was a Duplo train set; I used to spend hours and hours playing with it as a kid. I think it's a fantastic toy with so many uses and applications. I feel very lucky to be able to use it in my day to day work!
Describe the benefits associated with LEGO as beneficial for children living with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder).
LEGO has wide reaching benefits for many autistic children, as children often enjoy playing with LEGO bricks. When children are motivated to engage with an activity, we have an opportunity to build upon this interest to help them with things they find more challenging. LEGO-based therapy does just that; children are taught social interaction skills through collaborative group LEGO play. The intervention is thought to help develop lots of areas that autistic children find more difficult; shared attention, turn taking, listening, collaboration, and social communication to name a few. LEGO-based therapy is currently designed to be delivered by trained facilitators rather than parents, but we'd love to develop a version for parents in the future.
Who would benefit from this type of therapy; how far reaching could it be?
Most of the research has been carried out specifically with children with a diagnosis of Autism, although the intervention is used much more widely in practise. We train professionals working with children with a vast array of different needs: attachment difficulties, mental health, emotional and behavioural difficulties, speech and language needs, and many more. However, it is important to mention that these areas have not been researched, so it is not possible to say what level of impact it may have. The intervention has scope to be used with lots of different children who need support with social interactions, and this is something we'd love to research in the future.
For children who find manipulating LEGO bricks more difficult we might use Duplo instead. It's great for children who have major difficulties to have an alternative to the smaller LEGO bricks. We also use it with younger children. The research is all from children aged six upwards, but lots of practitioners are using Duplo with young children, even preschool or kindergarten. They create their own instructions to be able to do that because they don't have step-by-step instructions that you get with standard LEGO kits. It's certainly used as a tool in just the same way as the LEGO brick within therapy sessions.
Are you involved with or aware of anyone else using LEGO in a similar way?
There is a large network of professionals around the world using LEGO based therapy. Bricks for Autism has trained over a thousand facilitators and we also have a network of trained trainers. We hope to continue to offer training to facilitators around the world so that more children can benefit from the intervention.
How has this activity been affected by the pandemic?
All of our training courses were delivered in person, so the pandemic has forced us to move to an online training model. Whilst the hands-on component of the training is sadly missing at present, it has meant that we have been able to offer the training to facilitators further afield. There has been a lot of international interest in the course so it's great that we have been able to have further reach and impact. The pandemic has undoubtedly impacted upon the intervention groups themselves, as the children need to be able to interact together to practise their interaction skills!
What are your plans for the future, such as for further research and development?
Bricks for Autism has ambitious plans for the future but we need to see how the situation plays out with Covid. There is scope for wider research, for example, we'd love to be able to research the impact on children who don't have a diagnosis of autism.
Gina and I both started out running groups for our research projects, but we are now training rather than delivering the sessions ourselves. We'd both love to go back to running sessions and incorporate it into our working week in the future. When we started doing this, I was an educational psychologist and she was a clinical psychologist and we were doing this part-time around our other professions, which didn't lend a lot of time for running groups. But now that we are both working with Bricks for Autism as our main employment, we would like to get more groups up and running. We've got sort of ambitious ideas to run groups as development sessions to try out new things and develop new tools. Obviously with COVID, we can't do that at the moment so once we've seen the back of COVID, we'd love to get some groups up and running again.
Where might our readers go to volunteer or donate either to your organization or to get involved with something similar in their own communities?
If people wanted to set up a group in their local community the first step would be to complete the online facilitators course. The course is suitable for professionals working with children with Autism and wider communication needs, and can be accessed at our website. The course is entirely online at the moment, and includes pre and post course learning, and a group webinar.
Thanks, Dr. Brett!
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15 comments on this article
Thank you, my little brother was diagnosed with autism after birth and while he is now in this early 20's it was an uphill battle for my parents seeking the care he needed in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico as officials came in and said on TV that there was no autism in existence, boy did my mother got angry when she saw that in the screen. She even told his teachers in pre kinder that he didn't had the skills to be sent upwards so actually told the lm.he needed another year to catch up, he now is on track to his final year of college of his agriculture bachelors degree. He loved to carry a Lego pickaxe and put it on his shoulder to sign Aye Ho from Disney Snow White, the times.....
Where I live, in North Tyneside, brick therapy is one of the things that is used to help children with language and communication difficulties. It's usually a 15-minute session with a few kids in a small intervention group at school. My son, who has ASD has done it and he has brought some of the techniques home.
Thank you for the interesting and informative article, @MeganL. It’s great to see how LEGO can be used to help children and even adults in various ways.
Of course, ASD presents itself very differently in different people, as it is a wide spectrum. Oddly enough, my son was recently diagnosed with ASD but doesn’t really take to LEGO at all. He falls more along the lines of what once would likely have been called Aspergers, and his perfectionism and aversion to imaginative play really make LEGO a tough chore for him. Still, I can understand how brick therapy can be useful and beneficial to many.
I’m a father of a 13 year old boy with Autism, Global Developmental Delay and Epilepsy. LEGO has been a small part of his life. I’d like it to be larger, but I don’t push it unless he is into it, and he is sometimes. I’m curious to learn more about how this program functions specifically so I’ll dig into it more from here. Thanks for the article. :)
Cool program. Always great to see our favorite toys used in another way.
My daughter, who with spectrum disorders, loves Lego and it's digital cousin - Minecraft. There's a great AutCraft community she's part of.
@CarolinaOnMyMind said:
"Thank you for the interesting and informative article, @MeganL. It’s great to see how LEGO can be used to help children and even adults in various ways.
Of course, ASD presents itself very differently in different people, as it is a wide spectrum. Oddly enough, my son was recently diagnosed with ASD but doesn’t really take to LEGO at all. He falls more along the lines of what once would likely have been called Aspergers, and his perfectionism and aversion to imaginative play really make LEGO a tough chore for him. Still, I can understand how brick therapy can be useful and beneficial to many. "
If imaginative play is a tough chore would following Lego set instructions be the opposite of that? Just wondering if he would get more joy out of that.
This is really heartening to hear that people are branching out into different mediums to provide therapy to those with autism. My wife was a special education teacher before we started our family and she constantly tried new things with her students.
Wow, this heartwarming.
Thanks for posting this great article @MeganL !
I was diagnosed ASD at the age of 54. Self diagnose at 49. I’m nearing 60 now. LEGO is the best thing that happened in my life ever.
Thank you for the good you and your organization is doing in the world.
What a great way to connect with the kids. I'm on the spectrum myself, and LEGO helped me express myself when I was younger in ways that speaking just couldn't. Not to mention, people with autism are generally very good with spatial awareness and organization, so LEGO is a perfect medium for them to communicate with.
@Feroz said:
"If imaginative play is a tough chore would following Lego set instructions be the opposite of that? Just wondering if he would get more joy out of that."
If he plays with LEGO at all, yes, it is strictly according to the instructions. He does not deviate at all and he leaves everything built as is, indefinitely. He will occasionally build a smaller set, but usually, it’s just not his thing.
My aunt does this in the primary school she works in. They use Creator 3 in 1 sets (because for the cost it gets more variety of things to build).
I'm not surprised that there's several autistic adult fans of LEGO (I'm also autistic). There's a lot of options to follow the rules exactly or do what you please (or some of both). Plus there's a collecting aspect which is often a common thing autistic people enjoy.
Sounds like a great program. I’m on the autism spectrum myself, and didn’t have these opportunities during my primary school days, despite having a very close attachment to LEGO.
I’m glad some children do get this experience.
Keep up the good work!
Interesting. I'm autistic as well and I'd like to add to the people saying LEGO has been a help!