Located in Simsbury, Connecticut, Across the Board is dedicated to providing opportunities for building social communication skills through use of table top games. We strive to provide an accepting environment for children to explore new games and use those games as tools to strengthen social communication skills.  This is an opportunity for children to strengthen areas of weakness, build on their strengths, and build self confidence enabling them to be more successful in a social setting.

Games assist with vocabulary building as well as pragmatics, the social use of language. Turn-taking skills can be learned and applied to conversational language. Multiplayer games encourage social interaction and conversation, and the preset rules of the game provide a sense of structure in a social setting. Though gaming may evoke negative as well as positive emotions, active participation in social gaming is a great platform to teach about emotions and encourage sharing, being a good winner, and being a good loser.

We hope to include social gaming opportunities in the form of:

• Monthly game days with professional and/or paraprofessional support open to children in need of improving social communication skills and their families.
• Game workshops where we will focus on caregiver education of a featured game(s) and how to implement these games as tools to support the child’s goals and objectives.
• Private game sessions with a small group.
• Game lending library.

There is so much benefit to be derived from table top gaming, and with the wide variety of games now available, the possibilities are endless. Across the Board would like to provide a fun way to build social communication skills in children with special needs, and we will do that by bringing these games into our community.