The Success of Early Intervention!

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The other day our wonderful consultant Stacy Asay came to chat. Stacy has been working with young children in early intervention for 15 years.  Whenever we look at new products or books, we always ask her to give us an opinion on its value to teaching children on the autism spectrum.

We were discussing the benefits of Early Intervention – what kids on the spectrum are like when they are two years old and the amazing skills and capabilities that they acquire through applied behavior analysis and verbal behavior teaching.  Children who can’t make words or eye contact at 2 are able to hold long discussions about their favorite topics at 4.

As Abigail and I started thinking about the astounding success that these children have been making over the years, it dawned on us that our mission here at Different Roads is being fulfilled by these kids!

Our mission is to make a difference in the lives of children diagnosed with autism, giving them tools needed to find success in gaining independence.  We just figured out that by the time our pre-school students get to a school age program, they know how to label, ask questions and do math.  What they need is guidance in social skills.

We are amazed by the progress of so many of our young students…..we know that our products have made a difference and we’re so happy to share in each child’s success. Many of you have stories of these successes. We hope that you will find the time to share stories of the new capabilities and skills that your child has acquired through early intervention.

Pick of the Week: Know the Code at School & Social Standards at School

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With the school year in full swing now, social skills can be a challenge in any classroom. This week’s pick helps students know the social code and standards expected at school by providing visual cues and checklists to help them both understand and regulate their own behavior.

Know the Code at School Social Skills Cards illustrate 50 social skills in typical school scenarios. Each card shows a skill with a relevant photo, lists five sequential steps to accomplish the skill and suggests a talking point. The cards are great for games and role plays at an elementary or middle school level.

Social Standards at School  is comprised of fifty-three social skills that are involved in a typical school day. From waking up in the morning to going to sleep at night, this guide is a great resource for working with higher functioning children. The book covers skills such as getting ready for school, classroom behavior, transitions, peer relationships and common etiquette. Each skill provides teacher guidelines and a student self-monitoring page. Each of the skills is then broken down into five steps and contains guidelines which include an objective with five benchmarks, problem-solving checklist and a script for teachers to follow when reviewing the skills with students. Self-monitoring pages help students keep track of their social progress. By using this concise record keeping system, users can integrate the teaching of social skills into IEP’s.

This week, help your students develop their social skills independently and save 15% on Know the Code at School and Social Standards at School by entering the Promo Code BLOGSS12 at checkout.

 *Offer expires on October 2, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer. Be sure there are no spaces after the Promo Code when you enter it at checkout.

Building Early Reading and Language Skills in Children with Autism: A Guest Post by Joan Green

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This week, we’re thrilled to share a guest post by our friend and colleague, Joan Green. Joan has taught special education in California for 20 years and was even selected as the Special Education Teacher of the Year in 1997. As a member of an Autism Task Force, she co-authored a certification of competency for teaching children with autism. Based on her years of experience in the classroom, she developed a series of Interactive Reading Books designed to build language and literacy in your learners. These books have been incredibly popular over the years and we thought you all might enjoy learning a bit more about how and why they were created and how she implemented them with her students. Joan’s Interactive Reading Books are all available as this week’s Pick of the Week at a 15% discount. Just enter the promo code BLOGIRB7 at checkout.

 

I taught special education in Los Angeles schools for 20 years. In the beginning I had children with a variety of disabilities including Down syndrome, Williams Syndrome, Kabuki Syndrome and other developmental delays. During this time the students with autism were in specific autism programs and not in my class. After a few years I began teaching Early Childhood Special Education and began getting children with autism in my program.  These children are often diagnosed between 2 and 3 years of age and begin early intervention services. Once the child turns three and they begin public school it is important that teachers know the strategies that are helpful to children with autism. I began going to seminars on Teacch, Floortime, PECS, PRT, and ABA and read many books written by respected individuals who had worked with children with autism. I learned that visual strategies were very important and helpful for these children and incorporated the strategies I had learned and provided visual information throughout my classroom.

All of my students were either non-verbal or language delayed and I began using PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) with all of my students. Picture Exchange Communication does not require that children speak; giving a picture card to someone is their communication. If, however, a child did have some speech, I wanted to hear it. If they could use one word utterances, I wanted two, if they used two words, I wanted three. I began putting sentence strips around my room that the children would bring to me to request objects or activities. All the interesting new materials were put within sight, but out of reach. On top of the cabinet could be a new truck and the sentence strip attached to the cabinet reading, “I want truck please.” Children would bring me the strip and if they had expressive language we would “read” the strip together and they would get the truck to play with. When they were done the truck would go back to the top of the cabinet. I used a Visual Schedule to help the children understand their day, what was going to be happening and if there were any changes in expected activities.

I found that when given the visual cue of a picture, the children were beginning to speak and label more than they had before. When the children began increasing their vocabulary by using pictures and sentence strips I thought to myself, “If they can read a sentence, then they can read a book. What is a book but a bunch of sentences?” and this is how the idea of Interactive Reading Books came into being.

 Children with autism are often taught using a method called Applied Behavior Analysis. There is a sequence of activities that are used to help the children acquire language where they match, identify and then label pictures. I utilized this strategy and developed a book called What Color Is It? where the children matched pictures of objects and colors, then identified and labeled them and finally they were to be sequenced into sentence order and read in sentence form. The children would practice reading the sentences with the pictures and finally read the sentences without any picture cues. Since some children with autism are good at memorization, I made put the books on rings so the sentence order could be changed to help determine if the child was reading or had memorized  the sentence order.

Using the students’ IEP goals, I began creating books that taught the skills they needed. Reading color words and number words are kindergarten goals so What Color Is It? and How Many? were two of our first books. We followed up with Things I Do At Home and I Go to School which included the vocabulary and visual schedule of activities that are performed in their home and school environments. All of the children in my class and many children in special education have speech goals on their IEP and therefore all our Interactive Reading Books were created to be helpful in reaching speech and language goals. We now have 18 titles and many cover more advanced language skills, such as idioms, functions, social behavior and more.

 

The full list of titles appears below. Remember, this week only, save 15% on all of Joan Green’s Interactive Reading Books by entering the Promo Code BLOGIRB7 at checkout.

 Action!
How Do I Feel?
How Many?
Things I Do at Home
I Go To School
What Color Is It?
Sounds Good to Me! An Interactive Reading Book with Phonucs and the Alphabet
The Ups and Downs of Opposites
What Do I Do? Appropriate School Behaviors
What Do I Say? Appropriate Social Responses
What’s It For? Function and Categorizing
Meet the Word Family
Show Me A Sign: An Interactive Reading Book About Safety Signs
What Do They Really Mean? An Interactive Reading Book About Idioms

*Offer expires on September 26, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer. Be sure there are no spaces after the Promo Code when you enter it at checkout.

 

Pick of the Week: Jumpstarting Communication Skills in Children with Autism

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Establishing basic communication skills in students with autism is one of the most important goals of intervention and therapy. Jumpstarting Communication Skills in Children with Autism helps explain strategies for parents to do just that in an Applied Verbal Behavior method.

Providing an accessible understanding of Applied Verbal Behavior (AVB) for parents, Jumpstarting Communication Skills in Children with Autism presents strategies for improving children’s understanding of both verbal and nonverbal communication to improve expressive abilities. With an overview of language development, the authors offer practical strategies to address issues such as making requests, perseverative speech, lack of fluency in conversation, and trouble reading others’ signals. Other strategies profiled are PECS, sign language, video modeling, scripts, and social stories.

This week only, Jumpstarting Communication Skills in Children with Autism is being offered at a 15% discount. Simply enter the Promo Code BLOGJSCS6 at checkout to redeem your savings.

*Offer expires on September 18, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer. Be sure there are no spaces after the Promo Code when you enter it at checkout.

A Walk in the Woods

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When you’re a parent of a child diagnosed with autism, the smallest things become a challenge.  Getting to the car without an incident or going to the store always holds a bit of anxiety for me.  My level of parent alertness was and is always on high.

Miranda loves attention and will approach strangers in her own very unique way. She loves elastic hairbands and is always on a mission to find them on the ground. You would be surprised at how many she can acquire on an outing.  All the while, Miranda uses her own version of words.

The other day, we took a walk, an outing with no anxieties.  It was such a pleasure to walk in the woods with her.  She was cheerful, responsive and appropriate.  I could put my arms around her and just walk along with her.  It was a moment of enjoyment together, a moment to treasure.

 

 

Pick of the Week: Social Skills Books!

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With school days rapidly drawing near, many of our kids may be challenged by the social situations that the classroom presents. To help your students and children prepare for what lies ahead, our pick this week is our entire category of Social and Play Skills Books. You’ll find everything from structured curriculum (Improving Social Behaviors) and Assessment (Social Skills Solutions) to books that visually show various social situations and how to handle them (The Social Skills Picture Book).

Using a combination of these books can help students understand and learn the intricacies of social interactions at school including making friends, turn-taking, cooperation, dealing with emotions and much, much more. We wish you all a productive, fun and successful school year!

This week, all of the books in our Social & Play Skills category are being offered at a 15% discount. Simply enter the Promo Code BLOGSSBTat checkout to redeem your savings.

*Offer expires on August 28, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer. Be sure there are no spaces after the Promo Code when you enter it at checkout.

 

Pick of the Week: Hooray for Play! Leading Learners Along the Path to Play

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Pretend play offers children an opportunity for perspective taking, problem solving, cooperation, social emotional skill acquisition and language development. Children learn through their experiences and what better way to engage in the largest possible array of activities than through pretend play? Hooray For Play! is a multi-use deck of 31 beautifully hand-drawn cards that can be implemented initially by parents and educators as an instructional tool and later used by learners independently. An additional card offers suggestions for use that guides users through creative steps in reinforcing learning and play skills.

Hooray for Play! breaks down the components of the 31 individual play schema cards into the three organized sections that provide a memorable framework for socio-dramatic play. The Do! Section explains the various roles, Say!! outlines possible scripted statements by the involved actors and Play!!! offers suggestions for props and set-up.

It is still summer, so let’s have fun!

This week only, save 15% on the Hooray for Play! cards by entering the Promo Code BLOGH4P at checkout.

*Offer expires on August 21, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer. Be sure there are no spaces after the Promo Code when you enter it at checkout.

 

Pick of the Week: Verbal Behavior Targets

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As the school year rapidly approaches, many of you teachers out there will have your hands full with assessments, IEP development and planning, all in addition to the excitement of getting to know your new students. Verbal Behavior Targets: A Tool to Teach Mands, Tacts & Intraverbals can save you tons of time and energy by providing you with comprehensive word lists that can be used for both assessment and teaching. This is a vital resource for anyone teaching language to a student with Autism or speech and language delays.  The book consists of words and word combination lists categorized by word families covering nouns including people, places, events and things inside and outside plus verbs, adjectives, adverbs, verbs plus nouns, nouns plus nouns, fill in the blanks, verb tense, receptive instruction, categories, features, functions and topics for conversation.

This week only, you can save 15% on Verbal Behavior Targets by entering the Promo Code BLOGVBT9 at checkout.

As one reviewer in Wisconsin puts it: “Special education programs are now an integral part of every public school system in the country. Among the student populations for which these programs are purposed are those students who suffer from language delays, most especially the growing number of children diagnosed with various forms of autism. Now classroom instructors and special education support staff working with these children can have access to a vital resource with “Verbal Behavior Targets: A Tool To Teach Mands, Tacts And Intraverbals”, written by Diana Luckevich, an experienced data analyst with expertise in computerization applications in education. With a particular focus on autistic learners, “Verbal Behavior Targets” includes word lists and word combinations categorized by word families; accessible tools for children who are ESL learners; who have Down syndrome; who are autistic; or who are experiencing language delays; and/or are dealing with developmental disabilities. “Verbal Behavior Targets” also features common, functional and relevant language goals suitable for any child who is learning word skills. Enhanced with additional spaces and worksheets for teachers and involved parents to customize and track language for an individual child, “Verbal Behavior Targets” is an especially recommended addition for special education curriculum reference libraries and classroom lesson planning supplements.”

*Offer expires on August 14, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer. Be sure there are no spaces after the Promo Code when you enter it at checkout.

Pick of the Week: Timers & Counters

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Timers help manage all sorts of transitions, schedules and behaviors. The sky is the limit when it comes to how creative you can be with a simple timer. With Back to School creeping up on the horizon, it may be time again to start thinking about schedules and time management. This week only, you can save 15% on our entire category of timers, hand tally counters, and clocks to help ease you back into the biggest transition: back to school time.

To redeem your savings on any product in our Timers, Counters & Clocks category, simply enter the Promo Code BLOGTCT12 at checkout.

*Offer expires on August 7, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer. Be sure there are no spaces after the Promo Code when you enter it at checkout.

Pick of the Week: S’Match! Memory Game

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S’Match! presents a fun “spin” on the classic memory game. The S’Match Spinner tells players whether they’re looking for matches according to color, number or category. The game allows for readers and pre-readers to learn and play together as the colorful cards feature both the pictures and words. You can useS’Matchfor developing language, memory and concentration skills while children learn about sorting and categorizing.

This week only, save 15% on S’Match! by entering the Promo Code BLOGSM5at checkout.

*Offer expires on July 31, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer. Be sure there are no spaces after the Promo Code when you enter it at checkout.