Creative Autism Therapy - Mother Inspired Therapy Treatment

Throughout the years we have had many wonderful therapists to treat my daughter's developmental delays and autism. Yet, something I found that was more helpful than any of the therapists was the interaction I gave her. Don't get me wrong, therapy is wonderful... especially when you have the right one. But they aren't with your child daily; they don't feed your child, clothe your child or truly know your child more than you as a parent.
There have been some "therapies" I invented with my own daughter to help her though her struggles of communication, language and understanding the world around her. Although it was never instructed by a professionally trained therapist, I honestly believe "our" therapy was more powerful than the hour sessions she received during the week.
Talk though the animals: My daughter has always connected with animals. To this day, she cares more about the animals at someone's house then the person we are going to see. When she would not talk directly to me (age 3-4), we could talk though her animals. Eventually she learned that communicating with people was not so bad! Not to mention, it gave me a median as a parent to enter into her world to bring her out into "mine"
Step 1: I would give her a stuffed animal dog and I would have a cat. I would pretend the cat and dog were talking. Slowly she began to talk as the dog to the cat. Yet, if I removed the animals she would not talk. It was only when I had the cat/dog (or any other animal combination) she would communicate.
Step 2: Once she built confidence with the basics of communication, I removed the dog from her and I still held the cat stuffed animal. At first she did not want to talk to the cat but eventually learned that talking to the cat was also ok too. To have her talking about more topics, we would have animal parties where I pretended I was many animals. We would have parties where some animals got along, some did not. Some animals did not want to play, and some animals did not want to talk. She slowly learned how to engage in the world of social communication. It was interesting as she would have full conversations, show emotions, and thoughts during these animal parties. What I also found interesting was periodically, she would engage in conversation directly with me and gave directions or ask questions about the animal party.
Step 3: Then I removed all of the animals. At first she only wanted to have conversations about animals but slowly we started to talk about other things. Similar to the animal party, I guided her in conversation until she could communicate. Our first "real" conversation about her day at school was age 5. It took about 2 years of daily interaction though animals but eventually she learned how to communicate with people!
Give me a picture: At age 4, I knew my daughter had a talent for art. I remember the day she decided one night to start drawing a picture. She worked on the picture for hours and hours on end. I thought it was a little bit strange for a 4 year old to be so engrossed with her picture until I saw. She drew a story board of dots called the dottie village adventure... that although they were just dots... the expression and emotion of the pictures around it told me art was another way for her to show me her world.
Therefore when she struggled with emotions and telling me how she felt, I would ask her to draw me a picture. I would always know from her art, although she could not say the words, this was how she was feeling. We would also use visual story boards to show cause and effect to explain social situations. I quickly learned she was very visual and showing me pictures (or me showing her pictures) was another way of communication for her.