Overview

Ready, Set, Play! is a social skills playgroup dedicated to enhancing the social and emotional development of children with special needs. The mission of Ready, Set, Play! is to help each child interact appropriately with peers socially in a small structured setting centered around play. We firmly believe that social skills instruction for children needs to be guided in a systematic hierarchy at an early age in order to establish a foundation for them to build upon.

Each playgroup is tailored to enhance a child’s cognitive, social/emotional, and communication skills by incorporating music, movement, sensory, and interactive hands on projects to facilitate appropriate social interactions with their peers. Social Skills playgroups are curriculum-based and structured so that every child can play with their peers while receiving the assistance of an experienced educator. 

Ready, Set, Play! is the only learning playgroup that utilizes the LEARN-THROUGH-PLAY approach developed by Shirley Aninias. This approach educates developmentally delayed children while enhancing their social interactions amongst peers by utilizing motivating activities and positive reinforcement all emphasized through specifically selected play activities. This approach has shown to further enhance appropriate interactions in a variety of social settings.

What is a Social Skills Playgroup?

A social skills playgroup is designed to maximize a child’s social and language potential within a peer group setting using motivating activities to encourage children to interact with one another. The following motivating activities are the fundamental elements necessary to guide children with social and language difficulties. Each class will integrate sensory activities to decrease tactile defensiveness, increase social communication skills using visual cues, and incorporate hands on play activities to encourage appropriate peer interactions.

Ready, Set, Play! Social Skills Playgroups specializes in the following areas:

• Eye contact- initiating, sustaining, maintaining
• Respond to name
• Attending skills
• Follow directions
• Joint attention
• Increase affect
• Improve frustration tolerance
• Cope with minor changes in routines/transitions
• Use social language functionally and appropriately
  
• Initiate and participating in play or conversation
  
• Share and Turn taking
  
• Non Verbal Communication- read social cues, facial expressions and body
  language
  
• Friendships- recognizing someone as a friend, sustaining friendships
  
• Cooperative play
  
• Joining in an existing peer play
  
• Using appropriate tone and volume
  
• Inferences
  
• Negotiating a conflict
  
• Reacting appropriate to others

We use the listed social skills goals above and teach children what to say and do in specific curriculum play themes with their peers. Here are some examples of our curriculum themes:

• Playing Store
  
• Birthday Party
  
• Airplane Ride
  
• Playing Doctor
  
• Talent Show

SCholarships

Please call Shirley at
(646) 641-6464 and inquire about the social skills scholarship.

Shirley Aninias

Shirley received her undergraduate degree in Communications Disorders and her Master’s degree in Special Education from Teacher’s College at Columbia University. Her career began in the New York City public school system teaching learning disabled elementary students. She later accepted a position as a Special Education Itinerant Teacher (SEIT) and worked with developmentally delayed children aged 0-5 years at YAI/NYL Lifestart, a New York City based not for profit organization. Shirley went on to become a lead SEIT whose responsibilities consisted of designing individualized home and school curriculum and leading educational teams for early intervention and preschool cases. She worked intensively with speech pathologists, occupational therapists, and physical therapists to design effective programs for each of her students. In addition to being a lead SEIT, she also provided 1:1 support for students attending mainstream preschools. Shirley then took on a supervisory role at YAI/NYL Lifestart as an ABA field specialist. As a Specialist, Shirley supervised home and school based cases for early intervention and preschool students for the Lifestart Program. Shirley's passion for teaching, and a desire to share her innovative LEARN-THROUGH-PLAY™ approach to social skills development, led to the creation of Ready, Set, Play! in 2007. Ready, Set, Play! is a therapeutic social skills playgroup for children with special needs in NYC. Shirley currently offers two programs through Ready, Set, Play! an integrated after school program and a Saturday social skills playgroup. Shirley continues to consult with families, provide private home/school-based therapy for children, and develop new and innovating teaching methods for Ready, Set, Play!’s LEARN- THROUGH-PLAY™ approach. In 2010, Shirley accepted a position at Queens College as an adjunct professor teaching graduate students in the Educational and Community Program in Special Education.