We’ve marked down prices on more than 40 different products to make room for all of the new and exciting additions in our 2015 Catalog (Vol. 33), so you can SAVE UP TO 30% on puzzles, timers, manipulatives, games, schedules, and more! We still have a few left in stock, but they’re going fast, so act now before they’re all gone!
No promo code necessary. To request a copy of our newest catalog, click here!
No child should be left to flounder in a confusing world of social nuances and expectations. Social competencies pave the way for a child to have fun at birthday parties, resolve conflicts with friends, feel heard, and stand up for oneself.
As our Pick this week, we’re thrilled to feature our newly printed assessment and curriculum guide Socially Savvy. Get your copy for an introductory price of only $39.95!
Socially Savvy: An Assessment and Curriculum Guide for Young Children helps educators and parents break down broad areas of social functioning into concrete skills. The included checklist pinpoints a child’s specific strengths and challenges—which in turn makes it possible to prioritize the skills most in need of intervention, develop strategies to address them, and track the effectiveness of those strategies.
This manual includes targeted, play-based activities that foster the development of social skills critical to a joyful childhood and future academic success. Socially Savvy is designed for all parties—from educator to the parent—working with children in planned and naturally occurring opportunities to help develop essential social skills. This manual serves as a resource to make both learning and teaching social skills a fun, rewarding experience. This guide:
Soft cover, 256 pages, by James T. Ellis, PhD, BCBA-D and Christine Almeida, MSEd, EdS, BCBA.
Don’t forget—you can get your copy of Socially Savvy: An Assessment and Curriculum Guide for Young Children for our introductory price of only $39.95 for a limited time. No promo code necessary.
We’re thrilled to announce the arrival of our 2015 Catalog, Volume 33! Go and request your free copy here. Along with exclusive articles written by our community of experts, you’ll also find brand new products which we’re incredibly excited to share with you. This May marks 20 years in business, and we still find great excitement connecting you with the right products for our children’s progress and potential. And to all of the parents, teachers, therapists, and autism specialists, we’ve loved connecting with you and getting your input on new products and solutions to add to our line.
We hope you enjoy the new catalog, and please feel free to get in touch with us with any questions, comments, or feedback!
Many of the families I work with struggle to get their child with autism through the bedtime routine. An activity schedule can help your child independently manage the routine.
You should select 3-5 tasks that your child can complete independently. The final task should be something that your child finds reinforcing, preferably something that can be done in or near the bed, such as being read to or listening to music. Based on your child’s reading skills, you can use pictures or text for the schedule.
You can arrange the activity schedule as a picture schedule or a checklist. Below are two samples. For the picture schedule sample shown below, I did an online search for the appropriate images, but when possible, I prefer to actually take a picture of the item or the learner engaged in the activity.
PICTURE SCHEDULE: I use self-adhesive laminating paper (which you can purchase at any office supply store) and laminate all pieces. Each task on the schedule has Velcro so the learner can arrange items in the order he/she wishes and can remove them once that activity is complete.
CHECKLIST SAMPLE: I use self-adhesive laminating paper for checklists as well. This way the learner can use a dry erase marker or crayon and reuse the same page each day. For many learners, I attach this to a clipboard and the clipboard hangs in an easy-to-reach spot.
What I like about the activity schedule beyond the fact that it promotes independence is that it also allows for some choice. The reinforcing activity must always come last, but the learner can choose what they want to have for that reinforcing activity. The learner can also have some flexibility for what order to place the items on the schedule. For example, your learner might prefer to pack his lunch before taking a shower. When implemented correctly, it’s a win-win for both parents and children.
For more information on implementing activity schedules, I highly recommend the book Activity Schedules for Children with Autism by McClanahan & Krantz.
Note: if you decide to use the iPad as the final item on the activity schedule, you should set the timer so the iPad turns itself off. To do this:
1) open the Clock app
2) click “Timer” on the bottom right of the screen
3) click “When Timer Ends”
4) scroll all the way to the bottom of that menu and click “Stop Playing”
5) set the timer for the appropriate amount of time,
6) hit “Start”
Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-12 in NYC. Working in education for ten years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam has developed strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. Sam is currently pursuing her PhD in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College.
This newly added game will put a smile on any child’s face! With 56 domino-like cards, Emotion-oes for 2–6 players is especially useful for students who are nonreaders. Players will learn to recognize emotions and identify feelings in facial expressions. This week only, save 15%* on your set of Emotion-oes by using our promo code EMOTIONO at check-out!
To play the game, each player is dealt five Emotion-oes facedown and must match the face on one end of his/her Emotion-oe to one end of the Emotion-oe displayed in the center. An instruction sheet also includes variations on the game for even more fun!
Don’t forget to use our promo code EMOTIONO at check-out to save 15%* on your set of Emotion-oes this week!
*Offer is valid until 11:59pm EST on January 27th, 2015. Not compatible with any other offers. Be sure there are no spaces or dashes in your code at check out!
One of the obstacles I face as a special education teacher is that so much of my work is focused on deficits. I am continually required to report on the milestones my students have not met. After assessing a student, I am required by law to report quarterly progress on IEP goals to help bring that student up to grade level.
All of these mandates are essential to helping my students to progress, but they also serve to overlook my students’ strengths. There is little space on an IEP to focus on what my student is quite skilled at, or to detail a plan for encouraging those skills. The long-term implications of failing to nurture a student’s strengths range from increasing boredom and frustration in school to failing to prepare students for engaging careers.
Students in the general education population typically have many opportunities for nurturing strengths because they frequently have more free time since their days are not packed with various therapies, and they have access to extracurricular activities and courses that may not be available to students in special education. So how can we, as parents and teachers of students in special education, address this concern?
It is essential for the long-term interests of children in special education that we spend more time considering and encouraging their strengths.
Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-12 in NYC. Working in education for ten years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam has developed strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. Sam is currently pursuing her PhD in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College.
Brand new and hot off the press, this cookbook is not your average cookbook for children. With enriching curricula accompanied with adaptations to fit all developmental abilities, this cookbook goes beyond simply providing recipes to use in the classroom.
Everybody Can Cook was developed to allow instructors in both general and special education classrooms to bring hands-on cooking classes to children of all abilities, ages 2 and up, and to foster a positive relationship between children and food.
This week only, save 15%* on your order of our newly added Everybody Can Cook: Enriching cooking curricula with adaptations for children of diverse physical and developmental abilities by using promo code COOK15 at check-out!
Included in the cookbook are 15 recipes and lesson plans, each complete with:
Children strengthen their motor skills, self-esteem, socialization, teamwork, and independence through cooking and practicing basic cooking skills. In addition, they will enhance skills in other traditional disciplines such as reading, mathematics, science, social sciences, nutrition, music, art, history and geography. The Creative Kitchen offers training workshops on implementing the curriculum. Spiral bound, 124 pages, by Cricket Azima.
Don’t forget to use our promo code COOK15 at check-out to take 15% off* your order of Everybody Can Cook!
*Offer is valid until 11:59pm EST on January 20th, 2015. Not compatible with any other offers. Be sure there are no spaces or dashes in your code at check out!
If I were to describe my job in one sentence, it would be this: My primary goal is to increase the independence of my students in ways that are meaningful to them and to their families. With that goal in mind, it makes sense that I would seek out input from my students and their families, but also seek out writings by people with autism, Asperger’s, and other developmental delays in order to gain a comprehensive picture of needs, desires, and issues of which I may be unaware.
Sometimes a book or article written by an individual with autism hits the news in a big way. I encourage you to read more than one book, because you’ll quickly find that each individual’s experiences and personalities are quite different. It is not helpful to read the perspective of one person with a developmental disability and apply it to all people with developmental disabilities, but this frequently happens with autism. Here are a few resources you may want to check out:
The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida – This book was all over the news last year. Set up as a series of questions and responses, Higashida answers all sorts of questions related to autism. His writing is very direct and he shares a lot about the emotions he feels but is unable to convey.
Any books by Temple Grandin – Temple Grandin is a force in the autism community and has provided a wealth of resources. You can read some of her early work, such as Thinking in Pictures to get a view inside the mind of an individual with autism, but I also have great appreciation for her later work as an advocate for people with autism, such as Different…Not Less.
Episodes by Blaze Ginsberg – This is one of my all-time favorite books. Ginsberg sets up his life experiences and relationships as if they were different seasons of television shows. He presents his teen years as if you were flipping through the channels, seeing different episodes of his life. He even has songs for each episode!
Finding Kansas by Aaron Likens – This one is unique because it is written by a man who was diagnosed with Asperger’s in his 20s. Likens is eloquent in his use of metaphor to help clearly define aspects of his behavior.
www.wrongplanet.com – Wrong Planet is a community forum for individuals with autism and their families. You will see a wide range of questions and opinions here. It also serves as a forum for individuals with autism to express their feelings about topics such as whether or not they prefer people-first language, how people with autism should be depicted on TV, legislation related to autism, and more.
Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-12 in NYC. Working in education for ten years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam has developed strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. Sam is currently pursuing her PhD in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College.
Comparing linear measurements and weights has never been so accessible… or adorable! Use our newly added Buggy Balance Measurement Activity Set to compare weights of caterpillars and leaves in this tree-themed measurement set.
This week only, take 15% off* your order of the Buggy Balance Measurement Activity Set by using promo code BUGGY at check out!
The set comes with 24 caterpillars in two sizes and two weights (8 large, 16 small), and 36 leaves in two sizes and two weights (12 large, 24 small). The balance arm snaps into place for quick assembly and calibrates easily with sliding compensator clips. Balance measures 15.75″L x 4″H.
Don’t forget to save 15%* this week only on your order of the Buggy Balance by using our promo code BUGGY at check out!
*Offer is valid until 11:59pm EST on January 13th, 2015. Not compatible with any other offers. Be sure there are no spaces or dashes in your code at check out!
We love these Sensory Tubes here at Different Roads to Learning! This set of 4 clear and sturdy Sensory Tubes is remarkably versatile.
What we love about them is that you can fill each one with assorted visual or auditory stimuli that a particular student finds reinforcing, completely individualizing them. This week, take 15% off* your order of the Sensory Tubes by applying promo code TUBES15 at checkout!
Each tube features dual openings with 2 solid lids along with four vented lids that let children explore their sense of smell or even observe little critters.
The lids easily twist off and on, and the solid lids hold liquid securely inside. The tubes measure 12 inches in height and 2.5 inches in diameter. These Sensory Tubes will make your student’s reinforcement possibilities endless!
Don’t forget to save 15%* this week on your set of Sensory Tubes by applying promo code TUBES15 at checkout!
*Offer is valid until 11:59pm EST on December 23rd, 2014. Not compatible with any other offers. Be sure there are no spaces or dashes in your code at check out!