Tag Archives: Different Roads to Learning

Pick of the Week: Community Helpers Listening Lotto

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This week’s pick is the Community Helpers Listening Lotto at a 15% discount. This is a creative way to teach young learners about community helpers in their neighborhood. The 12 photographic game boards depict the mailman, firefighter, police officer, teacher and more. The audio CD asks players to “find the person on your game card that helps children learn to read and write.” This is a fun and interactive way to make the community come to life.

Today through February 22, visit our site at https://www.difflearn.com to save 15% on the Community Helpers Listening Lotto by entering the Promo Code BLOGCH3 at checkout.

 *Offer expires on February 22, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer.

Pick of the Week: Shopping List Memory Game

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This week’s pick is the delightful Shopping List Memory Game. The goal of the game is to fill your cart with all of the items on your shopping list. The fun is twofold as the classic memory game also develops personal and social skills.

Today through February 15, visit our site at https://www.difflearn.com to save 15% on the Shopping List game by entering the Promo Code SLDRTL2 at checkout.

*Offer expires on February 15, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer.

Pick of the Week

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Readers! We’re excited to introduce a new feature on our blog. Every week, we’re going to showcase a particular product that we love and offer you a chance to purchase it with a discount! We hope you’ll tune in to see what the Pick of the Week will be, obtain the promo code and start saving.

To set this new feature off, this week, we’re highlighting three brand new sets of sequencing flashcards at a 15% discount! These card sets feature crisp, clear and engaging photos that relate to every child’s daily experiences. The Learning to Sequence Cards come in 3-Scene, 4-Scene and 6-Scene sets.

Today through February 8, visit our site at https://www.difflearn.com and enter the Promo Code SEQDRB1 at checkout to save 15% on the Learning to Sequence series.

*Offer expires on February 8, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST. Not compatible with any other offer.

Free Downloads

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I’ve never been busier during the start of a new year than I have been in 2011.  It seems like many of my students were off to an ambitious start this month as well.  Some students made such significant progress that the revisions seem to never end.  Other students have required a lot of creativity and extra effort in finding ways to reach them and facilitate learning.   I found myself re-evaluating many program books, behavior plans and strategies.  I won’t further bore you with my lengthy “To Do” list but I will share some of the rewards of my work.  The end result is that there are new and improved versions of the free DRL data sheets and graphs along with brief descriptions for each.  I hope you find them as useful as I have. You can find them under the “DRL Downloads” tab underneath the Different Roads to Learning banner.  Now off to work!

Thinking About All the Parents Out There…

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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!

Bringing Down the Volume on Electronic Toys

YouTube!

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Here at Different Roads to Learning, we’re doing our best to keep up with the ever shifting changes in technology.  There’s a ton of wonderful stuff on the internet and on YouTube but who has the time to sift through endless videos, trying to find one that is age-appropritate and addresses the skills you’re working on with your children and students.  To take advantage of some of the great, free stuff out there, we’ve created our very own Difflearn YouTube Channel! Stacy, our fantastic and tireless Behavioral Consultant, has been assembling quality videos that you can use for Feeding & Nutrition, Reinforcement and she’s got a whole section for Play.

Please let us know what else you’d like to see up there or what you’re using for reinforcement or teaching play and social skills. We look forward to hearing from you!

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.

The MotivAider

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The MotivAider is consistently one of our top sellers here at Different Roads to Learning. It’s a versatile and helpful tool that can be used for anything from prompting a child to engage in play to toilet training. The MotivAider vibrates at timed intervals to prompt an individual to engage in a specific behavior. This is an interesting article about how it is specifically used with children with ADD. Have any of you used the MotivAider as a way to teach or change certain behaviors? How have you used it and for what?  We’d love to hear your experiences.

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