5 Adapted Book Activities for Autistic Preschoolers

Adapted books can give young autistic children so many different ways to connect with a story. We can add visuals, objects, movement, play, and communication supports without changing the book or expecting every child to participate in the same way.

And once you've created or downloaded the visuals for an adapted book, you don't have to use them in just one way.

Those same little pieces can become matching activities, vocabulary supports, story props, communication opportunities, and hands-on play. So instead of thinking about an adapted book as one more activity to complete, let's look at a few different ways you can use those materials with the children in front of you.

What Activities Can You Do With Adapted Books?

Adapted book activities can include matching pictures, exploring vocabulary, modeling communication, using story props, and adding hands-on sensory or play experiences. The same adapted book materials can often support several different learning opportunities without requiring teachers to create something new.

And you definitely don't need to do all five of these every time you read a book. Choose what makes sense for the child, the story, and what you're already doing that day.

1. Use Adapted Books for Matching Activities

Adapted books can support early matching skills by giving children opportunities to match identical pictures or connect a visual with the corresponding illustration in a book.

For a very foundational matching activity, you can print two copies of the same visual. Attach one picture to the book page and give the matching picture to the child. Now they have an identical picture-to-picture match.

You can also remove the duplicate visual from the page and have the child match the picture directly to the illustration in the book. That adds another layer of visual discrimination while keeping the story and activity familiar.

But remember, we're not reading the book just to get through all of the matches. If a child wants to explore a picture, flip backward, skip ahead, or spend some time with one particular character, we can follow that interest.

The matching gives us a way into the book. It doesn't need to become a requirement for enjoying it.

2. Use Adapted Books to Explore New Vocabulary

Adapted books can make new vocabulary more accessible by pairing important words from the story with visuals, objects, actions, and repeated experiences.

Books introduce children to so many words they may not hear during everyday routines, and the visuals from an adapted book give us another way to make those words meaningful.

If you're reading a book about farm animals, for example, you might pair the pictures with small animal figurines. Find the cow in the book, look at the cow visual, play with the toy cow, make the cow move, and model the word while you're doing it.

Now vocabulary isn't something we're asking the child to identify on a flashcard. The word is connected to a picture, an object, an action, and an experience.

And after the book is finished, those little animals can stay out for play. Actually, the book doesn't even have to be finished.

You don't have to finish a book just because you opened it.

If three pages led to ten minutes of meaningful play and connection around the animals, that's still a pretty wonderful experience with a book.

3. Use Adapted Books to Support Communication

Adapted books create natural opportunities to model communication because stories give us meaningful reasons to talk about people, objects, actions, feelings, locations, and what happens next.

Instead of reading a page and immediately asking, “What's this?” or “What color is it?”, try modeling some of the language yourself.

You might say, “I see the frog!” or model GO when a character moves. Maybe MORE, STOP, LOOK, ON, IN, or HELP naturally fits something happening in the story.

For a child who uses AAC, you can model those words on their communication system as they come up. There is no expectation that they need to select the same word after you.

We're not using the book to test communication. We're using something we're already experiencing together to show children all the different things communication can do.

4. Turn the Pictures Into Story Props

Adapted book visuals can become simple story props that children hold, move, match, sequence, or use in their own play during and after reading.

This might be as easy as handing a child the character visual when that character appears in the story. They can hold it, put it onto the page, move it around, or do something completely different with it.

You can also bring in small toys or objects that relate to the story. Animal figurines, vehicles, play food, felt pieces, puppets, or other classroom materials can help bring what's happening on the page into something children can touch and explore.

And don't worry if the child's play doesn't follow the story exactly.

If the book about farm animals suddenly turns into a very elaborate cow-driving-a-tractor situation, go with it. The story gave you a starting point. The child's interests can help decide where you go next.

5. Add a Hands-On or Sensory Experience

Adapted books can extend into sensory and hands-on play by pairing story visuals with simple materials children can touch, move, scoop, build, or explore.

This does not need to become an elaborate Pinterest sensory bin.

You might add play dough and let children squish it onto a matching visual as they find something in the book. Add story pieces to a bin of rice with cups and scoops. Put characters into a simple fine motor activity. Take a book about leaves outside and look for leaves.

Use what you already have. The goal isn't to create another activity just because you read a book. It's to notice when a simple hands-on experience could give a child another meaningful way to connect with the story.

Do Adapted Book Activities Have to Look the Same for Every Child?

No. Adapted book activities should reflect the individual child's communication, interests, sensory preferences, regulation, motor skills, and current support needs rather than requiring every child to participate in the same way.

One child may love matching every visual in the book. Another may want to hold one picture through the entire story. Someone else may listen while moving around the room, and another child might not be interested in the book during circle time but happily explore it with you later in the day.

All of those responses give us information. We can offer different ways to participate without deciding there is one “right” way to interact with a book.

Keep Adapted Book Activities Simple

You don't need five separate activities every time you pull a book off the shelf. In fact, please don't read this and think I've just given you five more things to prep. 

Start with the book you're already using and the child in front of you. Maybe today adding one matching visual is enough. Tomorrow you might bring out the animal figurines. Next week, those same visuals might end up in sensory play.

The materials can stay familiar while the way you use them changes.

That's one of my favorite things about adapted books. A few simple supports can give us so many different ways to help children access, interact with, communicate about, and enjoy a story.

I hope you are able to use these tips and ideas to increase engagement by using adapted books in your special education classroom or at home. You can find the themed adapted board book set here.

If you want to try out adapted books, you can download a free farm adapted book set here. You can also sign up for my free Visual Supports Starter Set, which has the visuals for Brown Bear, Brown Bear, as well as the Go Go Go Stop board book.

Adapted Books for Special Education- Read more here