would house a convenience store inside the school. The goal would be to teach students in special education vocational skills to enhance their future opportunities for employment. Interesting idea! Do you know of any other schools or organizations that offer vocational training such as this?
Monthly Archives: November 2010
Holiday Gifts for Children on the Spectrum
During holiday gift giving, no one wants to present their child with a curriculum wrapped with a big bow. We have loads of wonderful toys that are engaging and fun. We’ll keep it to ourselves that they’re educational. Here are some of our favorites which are great suggestions for friends and grandparents who might be stumped by what to get children on the spectrum for the holidays.
The Shape and Color Coaster has always been a kids’ favorite. The brightly colored pegs and pieces are engaging and fun.
The 3D Feel & Find is a high-quality wooden toy. You deal out the tiles and then children reach into the bag to pull out the corresponding wooden shape, using only their sense of touch. There’s fun for everyone to play together.
Every child loves pretend play. The Coin-u-Lator is an interactive coin-counting calculator that comes with addition and subtraction games. Kids will love pushing the large buttons and hearing the sounds of coins dropping into a drawer.
Puzzles are great for children at all stages of development. They’re fun on a rainy day (and develop key motor and spatial reasoning skills!)
Mighty Mind is another favorite, especially for children who love a challenge. The design tiles and 30 tangram-like design cards that become increasingly more challenging as you progress, developing creativity, visual and spatial relationships.
Have we left out anything that you think might make a good holiday gift?
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Thinking About All the Parents Out There…
With the holidays approaching we all know that gift giving will soon be in full swing. This undoubtedly means that your families will be generously bestowed with electronic cause and effect toys. These types of toys help to stimulate development as your child discovers the function of the toy and how to elicit certain responses from the object. Children with special needs tend to have a longer relationship with these types of toys as they often serve as powerful reinforcers, meet ongoing sensory needs and continue to provide opportunities to address language and motor development. Additionally, it may take a special needs child longer to master this type of play before moving onto more imaginative and creative play. What I’m getting at is that these toys are going to be in your house longer and some of them are LOUD. So when I came across the following post on Apartment Therapy the other day it jumped out at me as a piece vital information for all of you special needs parents out there. We are always thinking about adaptations for toys and games for the kids but what about the parents? A former sound engineer for children’s sound books shares a secret on how to turn down the volume on these toys.
Check it out and Happy Holidays!
Special Screening of Harry Potter for Hearing & Sight Impaired Children
Awhile back, we told you about AMC Entertainment offering special monthly viewings for children with autism spectrum disorders where they dim the lights and turn down the sound to make movie watching less of an overwhelming experience for children with sensory issues. Well, as the latest Harry Potter movie makes its way to theaters, a movie theater in Richmond, Virginia is offering special opening weekend screenings for individuals who are hearing and sight-impaired. We think it’s fantastic that more mainstream outlets are taking individuals with special needs into account!
Preparing for Thanksgiving at School
This is an interesting article about students with special needs at Dexter Middle school “practicing” a Thanksgiving meal. We thought this was a fantastic idea! By preparing children for what to expect at a holiday gathering and meal, either in school or at home, perhaps some anxiety and behavioral issues can be avoided. Do any of you “practice” the holidays to avoid stress and make the event easier for your children?
How and When to Help?
So, I’ve been falling a little behind lately with my blog posts. The main reason is that I’ve been feeling overwhelmed.
My current caseload is four very different children and their even more dramatically different families. I’ve been doing this work a long time and can easily move from case to case implementing programs ranging from simple gross motor imitation to reciprocal conversation to complicated play schemas involving a peer. In fact, I’m feeling invigorated by the current challenge of having children who are in such different places developmentally. When it comes to the kids, right now I’m bringing my ‘A’ game.
The thing that is leaving me feeling a bit discouraged is how difficult it can be to present the same information to different parents and caregivers especially when it comes to family training sessions. One parent wants me to be a straight talking express with no holds barred. Another needs me to tip toe around sensitive issues while modeling techniques and strategies. This discrepancy has left me feeling confused and frustrated. I haven’t felt that it was an appropriate blog topic because quite frankly, the last thing parents need is to listen to me complain about not always knowing when and how to help them.
But then I started thinking… who better to ask than the great group of people we have reading the Different Roads to Learning blog? I would love to hear from parents and professionals alike about their successes and failures regarding communication with each other. Tell us your stories!
Free Rethink Autism Tip: The Building Blocks of Having a Conversation
From our buddies at Rethink Autism, another great video tip! When socializing with another individual, it is important that your child develops foundation skills to carry a meaningful conversation. This tip covers important skills when having a conversation, such as: what to say, when to say something, how to say it and how to maintain eye contact with your conversation partner.
At the Age of Peekaboo, in Therapy to Fight Autism
This is a really interesting article in the NY Times about early autism diagnosis and the steps taken by one particular family. The treatment is based on a daily therapy, the Early Start Denver Model, that is based on games and pretend play. Do you think your child’s outcome would have been effected if they had received a diagnosis by age two?
From Stim to Power Reinforcers
We’ve been through a ton of stimming. Pin wheels, spinning toys, pouring sand, watching water move from container to container were all familiar stims at our house.
The only one that really struck fear in our hearts was flipping the pages of magazines. At first it was only a particular kind of magazine, but later, any would do. Flipping the pages of a magazine always led to a little tear, then a lot of tearing, which led to trying to fix the pages (by us), which led to hopeless fixes and “help me, please” and then aggressive behavior. Some of you knew where this was leading at “flipping the pages”.
This behavior started very early, at age 3. We were unable to control the behavior. Instead by the time she was 5, we wiped out magazines, hid books and reams of paper, everything flippable was gone from the house. We never read a newspaper, never looked up a recipe in a cookbook and kept computer paper high up on the shelf.
Many years, later, that same obsession is a power reinforcer. The magazine is controlled under specific circumstance, perhaps a haircut or a difficult medical treatment.
The whole premise of Applied Behavior Analysis is working to get what you want. As Joanne Gerenser used to say, “Most people work for the most powerful reinforcer: Money!”
I wish we had understood and used the concept of reinforcement at the beginning and used it to the family’s advantage. I was too scared to introduce it but braver parents can use those stims and obsessions to shape behaviors and make life smoother by creating the right delivery of rewards.
– Julie