Eileen Lamb is both a writer and a photographer. She was originally born in France, but now lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and two sons. She is the author of "All Across the Spectrum" and the founder of The Autism Cafe, which she uses as a space to describe the reality of being on the spectrum and raising a severely autistic child. On her blog, she features an article that she wrote on "How To Stimulate Your Child's Imagination and Creativity." In this piece, she writes that "By encouraging your child to play creatively and think outside the box, you're helping him develop essential skills for life." She then goes on to explain that imaginative play helps your child develop social skills, problem-solving skills, language skills, emotional skills, and gross-and-fine motor skills. When her children were a little younger, they showed some signs of regression, which is common in children with autism, she tried to solve this by buying toys that would help them work on and perfect these skills while also still being fun to use. The search for this specific type of toy led her to Grimm's Toys, which are natural and sustainable wooden toys that are all unique and made in Germany. These toys are brightly colored, like the rainbow, and shaped in a pattern that encourages the use of matching skills. Any toy that is vibrant and clear in its usage of color is going to promote not only the learning of colors, but also matching skills. It would be good to find toys that also encourage your child to do things like stacking or stringing to help them work on their fine motor skills. There a lot of toys on the market that can help you encourage your child to understand and see a variety a colors as well as do things that help and guide their development of motor skills. Try and find toys that are sturdy enough to withstand any rough play or missteps when trying to match, stack, or string. Make sure these toys are within reach of your child and that you allow enough time in their daily schedules to ensure they are able to focus on these tools and really get the chance to use them to their advantage. While children with differing abilities may have a harder time developing these skills, it's not impossible for them to acquire the necessary abilities to do these tasks, they just have to be given the right tools.
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