Tag Archives: autistic spectrum disorder

Astronauts, Pirates and Superheros. Oh My!

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Many children look forward to Halloween with the costumes, candy, parties and being with friends.  However, for parents of children with autism the approach of October 31 and the extra challenges might bring about stress and anxiety.  Here are some tips to help it go more smoothly.

  • Choose a costume together!  This can take time so start early.  I like to start by looking through catalogs or online with the child to determine which costume they are most excited about.  This decision won’t be made right away.  I find that children on the spectrum need to see their options several times before they can accurately determine which one they would like.  Once you decide on the basic theme it is always a good idea to see the different options in person and consider sensory issues.  How does the fabric feel? Does it require things to be worn on their head? Are there uncomfortable seams or does it require face paint?
  • It is a  good idea to expand your child’s general knowledge on the theme related to their costume and on Halloween in general.  This is easily accomplished with books and videos.  I use YouTube all the time for expanding play schemas.
  • Practice!  It is so simple and makes such a difference when it actually comes time for trick-or-treating.  Takes turns being the one handing out the candy and the one doing the trick-or-treating.  This also involves rehearsing questions and statements they might encounter such as “What are you?” or “You are so scary.”
  • Ease into it.  It’s best not to wait until Halloween to put on the costume.  Set aside time to try on different parts of the costume and use positive reinforcement to increase the number of items until your child is comfortable with the entire costume.

Check out our new YouTube page, it’s a work in progress but we hope to do all the work for you in finding relevant clips for teaching and reinforcement.

Did You Know?

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Did you know that AMC Entertainment and The Autism Society have joined forces and are offering special monthly film showings for families with children diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders to enjoy a movie together? They adjust the lights, turn down the sound and are understanding of variations in attending and sitting behaviors. Find a location near you!

https://www.amcentertainment.com/SFF/

Back to School Basics

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You know it is officially back to school season when the grill in my backyard has been cool to the touch for days and I’ve had my yearly medical exam (PPD titer and all!). I hope it has been smooth sailing for you and your little ones as classes begin. If it hasn’t been, this is what I always try to keep in mind, for all people, big and small:

PREPARE!

It is best to join forces with your child and prepare for the year by making sure you cover what I like to call the 3 S’s.

SPACE

Make sure everything in your child’s work/play space at home is organized and equipped. Play continues to be an important part of learning even when school is in session so take this time to go through toys and arts and crafts supplies and weed out things that are broken or no longer developmentally appropriate for your child. Make sure there is a spacious and uncluttered work space stocked with all of the supplies your child will need to complete homework and school projects. It is also a good idea to keep a space near the work area for a visual schedule to help foster independence during homework time. Lastly, designate a spot near the entrance of your home where your child’s backpack, important papers and your keys can go each afternoon. The last thing you want is to add undue stress to your morning routine and risk missing the beginning of class.

SCHEDULE

We all know that with this population transitions can be especially difficult.  First, take care of as much as you can the night before. Pack bags, sign paperwork, pack lunches, and pick out clothing.  Also, don’t think that a a parent you are the only one responsible for this prep work. Incorporate as many of these things into your child’s evening routine as you can. Having your child participate will foster independence and build confidence. Again, visual schedules and token economies help facilitate independence and provide motivation respectively.  Structure benefits children so it is good to develop a general school year routine and stick to it as much as possible.  Predictability is helpful when it comes to transitions but also remember to build in components that have some element of change to them so that you can facilitate flexibility.  One part of the schedule that shouldn’t change is the sleep schedule.  Keep it as consistent as possible, even on the weekends.  I suggest building a calming activity into the schedule before bedtime and using a timer to help with the transition to bed.

SOCIAL

Sometimes, people find it surprising when I suggest preparation for social interactions but there are a lot of creative ways to help children familiarize themselves with conversational topics, common games and salient information about their peers and teachers.  I encourage all of the families I work with to print photographs of family outings or events that can be used as visual prompts for conversational topics.  Especially good are things that happened over the weekend.  If the picture book is reviewed Sunday evening they will be fully prepared to talk about what they did over the weekend. Additionally, you can find out what schoolyard games are popular with your child’s peer group and practice them at home with siblings or playdates.  If it is an athletic game you might also spend time with your child making a book about the rules that can be reviewed periodically. Lastly, I like to construct a “friend journal” with a child at the beginning of each school year.  You might need to enlist teachers or other parents to help with this but it is such a useful tool that it is worth the extra effort.  Start by obtaining photos of each classmate and pasting them individually into different sections of the journal.  On a daily basis you can help your child fill in something they have learned about their peers.  This could range anywhere from favorite cartoon or tv show to their age or their family members names.

Going back to school can be a fun and exciting time.  With a little preparation and creativity maybe it will be the best school year yet!

Q & A: Margery F. Rappaport

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Margery F. Rappaport, MA, CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist in private practice in New York City. I feel very fortunate to have a colleague as experienced as Margery that I can turn to for advice and guidance.

So, I thought I could share some of her wisdom and experience with a three part ‘Question and Answer’ post. This is only the first question folks. Stay tuned for more!

I am always interested in learning what has drawn a person to a particular field or occupation. What led you to a career as a Speech-Language Pathologist? And how did you find yourself working with children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders in particular?

A lifetime spent in helping people find their own voices may have, in my case, been preordained (if you believe in that sort of thing). After all, more than one psychic has told me that I was born under a ‘communication star’.

As an infant, 11 months of age, my mother suddenly left for a year due to severe illness. At this preverbal age, I learned the torment of being unable to communicate ones feelings and questions in words. As an adolescent with creative tendencies, I studied music and dance, and majored in theatre in college, setting out to become a professional singer. Along this path, I struggled with vocal cord nodules and was put on complete voice rest several times. As I began to question my show business career choice, which was feeling increasingly unsatisfactory, fate intervened. On a flight from New York to Boston, I chatted with a charming, articulate woman in the seat next to mine. Before landing, she said, “You realize, of course, that I am a severe stutterer”. When I registered my amazement since I had detected no signs whatsoever of a speech problem, she said “Well, I have had a lot of therapy”. Astonishing thought! People who were unable to easily express their feelings, fears or questions can change. With help and guidance they can be released from this exile. Her situation reminded me of Jean Paul Sartre’s play, No Exit, where the characters are confined in a room in hell. This woman had been trapped within herself, with no avenue of escape until she received this therapy.

Being able to communicate is so much of what it means to be human, and this notion, that impediments to communication, even severe ones, could be helped, resonated within me on many different levels. To learn more about the field, I found a secretarial job in the philosophy department of Columbia University’s Teachers’ College which allowed me to take free courses at the University. After one year and two courses in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology, I was accepted into the program on a full scholarship plus a stipend to pay my rent and buy groceries. Once in the program, I began to see how Speech Pathology allowed me to tap into dimensions of my personality that show business never had. I found great satisfaction in helping people free their expression. I was enormously stimulated intellectually by the study of neuroanatomy, linguistics, child development, psychology and the evolution of language. I came to specialize in working with children because I found they were ‘in the present moment’ and intrinsically imaginative and creative. I enjoyed working intimately with mothers on the most cherished thing in their lives, their child’s well-being. Like work in the theatre, I enjoyed the comradery of working on a team including the child, the parents, doctors and a multitude of other therapists toward one powerful goal. All these aspects of the work tapped into my essential being. I had found my life’s work. I recall a day towards the end of my training, standing in line for afternoon tea at a resort hotel in the mountains. The beautiful day room was filled with afternoon sunlight and as I thought about my impending graduation, I clearly remember thinking that I was born to do this work.

After working in clinics, hospital child evaluation units and then the Head Start program, I opened a private practice at about the time that the autism epidemic began to explode. With more good luck, I connected with professionals who were establishing groundbreaking interventions for children with autism, thus deepening my understanding and passion for helping children with severe communication challenges.

Weekly Autism Tip from Rethink Autism

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Our friends over at Rethink Autism offer a great, FREE weekly autism tip. Check out this week’s tip which focuses on going back to school.

Rethink Autism makes research-based autism treatment tools accessible and affordable for parents and professionals around the world. They have an innovative web-based platform that includes a comprehensive curriculum with over 1,200 video-based exercises, staff/parent training modules, and ongoing assessment tools – all developed by leaders in the field of autism education and research. They also offer virtual support services, ranging from short-term problem behavior assessment to ongoing case consultation with our team of experts.

The TimeBuddy Clock is here!

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We’ve been waiting since February for the TimeBuddy to arrive and it’s finally here!
This wonderful and customizable clock is designed to help young children with daily routines and time management. TimeBuddy is a battery-operated 24-hour activity clock with alarm settings. The alarm can be set for up to three different activities. The clock dial points to visual icons which consist of reusable stickers that are placed at actual times throughout the day by the parent, giving children cues on when to start and stop certain activities. You can also set the clock to literally speak three different phrases in your choice of three languages (English, Spanish, and French). There’s even an option for a user-recorded message of up to 15 seconds to allow parents to record a personalized message and you can insert the child’s name into the pre-programmed messages.

“It’s not me, it’s the Timer.”

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The timer is one of everyone’s favorite tools for structuring time and activities for children with autism. It can be incorporated into all parts of daily living.

It was once explained to me that a parent could blame the timer for everything that has to do with transitions.


“It’s not me, it’s the Timer.”

“I know you want to stay in the playground but the timer said it’s time to go home.” Or perhaps, “The timer thinks you might have to go to the potty again.” My favorite at Christmas is, “The timer will tell you when you can open another present.” At our house, the timer was the higher authority. The timer is a fair arbitrator. It didn’t respond to whining or behaviors and it very coolly and serenely had to be obeyed.

It works! You just have to remember to put it in place and use it before you enter the big struggle of wills.

It’s just a simple kitchen timer….BUT we needed one that could count down and count up, it had to have a magnet so it could be easily found on the refrigerator and a clip/stand so one of us could wear it or place it close to us at the table if we were working.

Along the way, we found the Time Timer, invented by a mom of mainstream kids who needed a visual for transitions to stop her kids from asking, “Are we there yet?” The Time Timer is a visual depiction of time elapsing. Kids on the spectrum have a tangible way to see time passing as the red dial disappears.

There are all kinds of timers, and implementing them into any aspect of the day can significantly help in cutting back problem behaviors and anxiety over what is happening next.
– Julie Azuma

How Do I Get My Kid To Eat?!

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I couldn’t even begin to count how many times I’ve been asked this question. It is an issue that I love to tackle in collaboration with the families that I work with mostly because when progress is made, it makes such a dramatic difference in the well-being of the entire family.

Behavioral and sensory issues of a child with special needs can further complicate the ordinary mealtime struggles of a parent of a small child. Parents are often torn between the interventions outlined for them by therapists and the reality of everyday life. This usually means that at the end of the day, just getting the child to eat anything and by any means necessary. No one is happy when mealtime becomes a battle zone. Use of a token economy or escape extinction is most common and can work if implemented consistently. However, I am always impressed when I come across new and creative approaches to food and feeding issues.

One such example of creativity comes from my experience with a great family and their two young boys that I worked with for several years. Their mother was a force to be reckoned with when it came to approaching the introduction of new foods and organizing play dates. I don’t remember how it started, or if it was a conscious plan but the weekly play dates she organized for socialization quickly evolved into preschool foodie events. The children were much more likely to try new foods and like them when their peers were trying them too. It was also a great opportunity to work through sensory aversions and begin to enjoy getting messy. I was recently reminded about these special food play dates when I came across a post on https://special-needs.families.com about a food centric play group started by some parents in Texas.
Currently I am experimenting with new ways to expand the diets of the children on my caseload as well as improving my own health through my food choices. My own mantra for health is to “Eat the Rainbow” so that I make sure I get a nice mix of fruits and vegetables. In my research I came across a great book for one child who has a strong interest in letters. The book is “Eating the Alphabet” by Lois Ehlert and it has inspired a new token economy type system for him and his siblings. Check out the template for the chart in the DRL Downloads! All you have to do is add your child’s picture and a picture of anyone else in the family wanting to participate, laminate, start checking off new foods with a dry erase marker and let the eating begin!
What have you tried?

Fun (And Learning) In The Sun!

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Discrete trial teaching and a home-based ABA program, without a doubt, play an integral part in a child’s ongoing progress.  However, during the summer months here in New York City all I can think about is PLAY. The sun is shining, playgrounds are full of children and there are child friendly events for free all over the city.  I can’t help but seize these summer moments and optimize the huge array of incidental teaching opportunities they provide.  The playground is the perfect place to start to generalize all of the play skills that the child has mastered with you during the year and facilitate them with novel peers.  The headache of trying to schedule play dates during the winter months fades, there are children everywhere you turn, and kids outside ready to make new friends.

The novelty of an outdoor children’s concert playground or sprinklers can be motivating enough to get the child in the mix with other kids.  I find that having the child I am working with take a popular item on the outing can serve as a really powerful icebreaker and readily grab the attention of all the kids there.  Items to consider include; sidewalk chalk, bubbles, water balloons, a foam rocket launcher or a bug kit.  It is easy to rehearse possible scenarios the child might encounter with one of these items in hand and the rehearsal can lead to greater success and less prompting once you are at the playground.

Another programmatic shift that happens for me during the summer is to take time to help the child see the bigger picture.  Many children diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder understand the parts of things but may have difficulty conceptualizing ‘the whole’.  For example, if the child is showing an interest in airplanes take some time before heading out to expand on this interest.  I like to sit down with a child and draw out what I call a “Play Map.”  It is a flow chart of all of the things connected to an airplane, drawing arrows to show how all of the parts connect together.   This is a great way to flesh out a larger play schema and rehearse possible play scenarios other children might generate at the playground in relation to the toy airplane.  All of this preparation will ultimately lead to better outcomes at the playground and more fun had by all!

Welcome to the Different Roads to Learning Blog!

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Family and community mean the world to us here at Different Roads. Technology has given us an incredible platform to reach out to the parents, teachers, grandparents, and consultants who love and educate children on the autism spectrum. We are thrilled that our blog, along with our Facebook and Twitter pages, has given us the opportunity to move beyond products and sales and be an active member in the autism community.

Our Difflearn blog was created specifically for sharing. We’ll be sharing our experiences, our concerns, new and exciting products and events and best of all, our collective treasure of information. It is our hope that you will find the information posted here helpful, practical, and interesting and that it will help all of us – especially our children – learn and grow.

We’re thrilled to have partnered with Stacy Asay, a wonderful, energetic creative behavioral consultant with 14 years of experience in the field. Her work with special needs children integrates a strengths-based, holistic approach to child and family with the tools of Applied Behavior Analysis. Her focus is on equipping children with the tools they need for learning and living while honoring their unique spirit. It is our joint hope that this blog will lead to a dynamic and exciting dialogue between parents and providers, where the free exchange of ideas promotes growth in both our communities and our homes.

And this is just the beginning…We hope that professionals and parents who have advice, information or a story to share will contact us and submit thoughts and ideas for blog posts. We intend for this to be a true community and all who are interested in the education of our ASD children are invited to participate.

Welcome! We look forward to hearing from all of you!

~Julie, Abigail, Jeana & Stacy