"It is NOT about the toy"

Hi all, I was reading this great article from a SonRise teacher (Aaron DeLand -- he is one of Megan's friends) about toys for SonRise kids. I thought these ideas were very important in our cases. Below is only a little part of the article. If you want to see the whole story, follow this link:
http://www.examiner.com/x-10067-LA-Special-Education-Examiner~y2010m7d18-For-children-on-the-autism-spectrumIt-is-NOT-about-the-toy

"Choose toys for your child that will support your person to person, face to face play. You want to think of toys as props and tools for you, rather than the driving motivation for your child. Remember the driving motivation should be YOU.

Here are some good examples of toys and activities that stimulate rather than detract from social interaction: dress up clothes, masks, paper and markers, blocks, blanket and pillows, puppets, balloons, plastic food, songs, and make believe.

One little girl I work with, Sam, loves Sesame street, especially Elmo and Cookie Monster. If I gave her a figurine of Cookie Monster or Elmo she would probably play exclusively and repetitively with it.

One day I drew two pictures—one of Elmo's head and one of Cookie Monster’s head and started to feed each of them pretend cookies. After each cookie I pretended to feed them, I sang their signature song. Sam laughed and giggled at the sight of this. Before I knew it, she was playing with me and wanting to feed cookies to the cut outs herself. Her use of eye contact increased as well as her spontaneous language.

More importantly she was aware of wanting this interaction from me. I was the one making interaction worth her time. That is a key aspect of a relationship based approach to interaction: be aware of your child’s motivations, and use them to make yourself more inviting and intriguing to your child.

When I say “It's not about the toy,” I mean that people are far more dynamic, fun, interesting and useful than anything a toy company could ever produce. Besides, no toy can teach a child to be a social being—only people possess that magic!"