Tag Archives: language development

Pick of the Week: The VB-MAPP Set

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DRB_680_VB_Mapp_SetAssessment and data collection are critical for every student on the spectrum…and can get expensive. This week, we’re thrilled to give you a bit of a break by offering the VB-MAPP Set by Dr. Mark Sundberg as our Pick of the Week. This week only, SAVE 15% on the VB-MAPP Set, VB-MAPP Guide or VB-MAPP Protocol by entering in the promo code BLOGVBM9 at checkout.

Dr. Mark Sundberg’s Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP) is an assessment with a curriculum guide and skill-tracking system that assists educators, speech pathologists, psychologists, and parents in creating individualized intervention programs for children with autism or language-based learning disabilities. Continue reading →

Pick of the Week: Earobics Interactive Software – Sound Foundations for Reading & Spelling

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For years, the interactive software program Earobics has been teaching the phonological awareness and auditory processing skills that learning experts recognize as critical for learning how to read, speak and spell. The program has finally been updated to run on the newest Windows and Macintosh platforms.

Earobics Foundations is the updated version of Earobics: Step 1 and features six interactive learning games with over 300 levels of play. The program is designed for 2 players and recommended for ages 4-7.

Earobics Connections is the updated version of Earobics: Step 2 and features five interactive games with 593 levels that teach the essential skills required for learning how to read and spell. It is also designed for 2 players and is recommended for ages 7-10.

Earobics automatically adjusts to the appropriate skill level of the user based on the correctness of their responses. Earobics uses adaptive training and acoustically modified speech and carefully controls important learning variables. You can use the automated data collection tools to monitor students’ progress, print reports and guide remediation. For each activity, the program automatically generates IEP-formatted goals. Earobics helps students struggling with speech and language while allowing teachers to effectively use collected data to monitor student progress.

Both Earobics Foundations and Earobics Connections have the following system requirements: Windows 7, XP, Vista/MAC OSX 10.2.x to 10.4.x, 10.5, 10.6.

This week only, you can save 15% on the revised Earobics Foundations and Earobics Connections by entering the Promo Code BLOGEAR3 at checkout.

*Offer expires on February 12, 2013 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.

Introducing the Eden Autism Services Assessment & Curriculum Series

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It is with great excitement that we announce the publication of the Eden School’s Assessment and Curriculum Series. This set of seven assessments and curriculum guides provide an expansive range of content for grades Pre-K through 12.

This week only, you can save 15% on these new assessments and curricula by entering the Promo Code BLOGEDA at checkout.

The Autism Assessment provides educators, therapists, and parents with a tool to accurately assess a student’s current abilities and skill level. This assessment identifies the student’s strengths and weaknesses, assists with goal selection, tracks progress, and makes it easy to translate the assessment into concrete IEP goals. The Autism Curriculum is a comprehensive series of teaching programs designed to provide a valuable resource to enable professionals and parents to effectively teach students with autism. Employing a hands-on approach, the curriculum includes practical strategies for each teaching program. In addition, each skill area includes a systematic assessment and flow chart to support appropriate goal selection. Teaching programs are clearly written, with step-by-step instructions, and include target behaviors, prerequisite skills, criterion-referenced assessment, measurement, materials, procedures, and prompting techniques. Each curriculum delineates Primary, Intermediate and Secondary Skills to help structure learning for students of various ages and abilities.

These teaching programs, grounded in the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), have been field-tested with hundreds of students and adults with autism.  They address essential areas of skill such as cognitive, self-care and domestics, speech and language, vocational, physical education, recreation and leisure, employment, and residential living. This series offers specifically targeted curricula for Infants and Toddlers, a 5-part series for school-age students, and an Adult Curriculum.

Teaching programs are clearly written, with step-by-step instructions and include target behaviors, prerequisite skills, criterion, measurement, materials, procedures, and prompting techniques.  Each volume includes flow charts to assist with selection of goals. Teaching programs and data tools are presented in wire-bound format for easy use. Each volume comes with a Curriculum, Assessment and Assessment Score Sheet. Additional blank assessment score sheets are available for sale in sets of 10 for each curriculum volume: Infant/Toddler; Cognitive; PE; Self-Care/Domestics; Speech/Language; Vocational; Adult.

 

Infant & Toddler Assessment & Curriculum

Developed to specifically address the needs of infants and toddlers (up to age three) with autism, the Infant and Toddler Curriculum contains teaching programs for learning readiness, cognitive skills, oral motor/feeding, receptive and expressive language and communication, play and social skills, sensory-motor, self-care, and preschool readiness skills.

 

Eden Autism Services School Curriculum Series

This five-volume series specifically addresses the educational needs of school-age students with autism by skill area: Cognitive, Adaptive Physical Education, Self-Care and Domestics, Speech and Language, and Vocational Education. The curricula can be purchased individually or as a set of five. Each volume contains the prerequisite skills, criterion, measurement, materials, procedure, prompting techniques and teaching tips for each target behavior.

 

Cognitive Volume: School Curriculum & Assessment

The Cognitive volume contains teaching programs to address the educational needs of school aged students with autism in the areas of Learning Readiness (eye contact, gross motor imitation), Pre-academics (block imitation, matching objects, body part ID, etc.), Academics (counting, handwriting, sight word ID, etc.), and classroom language/social play (categorization, pretend play, etc.). There are more than 85 lessons presented with prerequisite skills, criterion, measurement, materials, procedure, prompting techniques and teaching tips.

 

Speech and Language Volume: School Curriculum  & Assessment

The Speech/Language volume contains teaching programs for school-aged students with autism which is divided into four domains and then ranked as primary, intermediate and secondary skills. The domains focus on oral motor/feeding, receptive language, expressive language, and pragmatics. There are more than 75 lessons presented in a highly structured, specialized format.

 

Self-Care and Domestics Volume: School Curriculum & Assessment

The Self-Care/Domestics volume contains teaching programs targeting daily living activities for school aged students with autism in the areas of self-care and domestic skills. There are more than 60 target behaviors covering primary skills like dressing, hand washing, and toileting to secondary skills such as bathing, shaving, menu preparation, and food shopping.

 

Vocational Education Volume: School Curriculum & Assessment

The Vocational volume contains teaching programs specially designed to address a variety of vocational skills for school aged students with autism. The skills taught are designed to prepare individuals with autism and developmental disabilities for adult life and the world of work. The emphasis is on using these teaching programs to foster appropriate levels of independence. There are 55 targets in this volume addressing vocational skills like sorting, labeling, packaging, inventory, stocking, and more.

 

Physical Education/Recreation and Leisure Volume: School Curriculum & Assessment

The PE volume contains teaching programs specifically designed to address the physical education, recreation, and leisure skills of school-aged students with autism. While many educators use task-analyzed programs to teach students with ASD, physical education, recreation and leisure skills are often not approached in the same manner. There are more than 35 target behaviors from biking, golf, doing a puzzle to bowling, board games, swimming and video games.

 

 

Eden Autism Services School Curriculum Series: 5-Volume Set

The 5-Volume Set includes each volume in the series for school-aged students: Cognitive, Speech/Language, Self-Care and Domestics, Vocational, and Physical Education/Recreation and Leisure.

 

Adult Services Assessment & Curriculum

The Adult Residential and Employment volumes have been combined into a single comprehensive volume for Adult Services. Developed for adolescents and adults with autism residing in community-based living arrangements, the Adult Services volume contains teaching programs for self-care, domestics, physical education, and recreation and leisure. There is a complete vocational section that focuses on teaching programs to be implemented in an adult day placement with application in employment settings.

ABOUT EDEN

Since 1975, families, educators, healthcare professionals and others with an interest in autism have looked to the knowledgeable, caring and committed staff at Eden for guidance.  Headquartered in Princeton, NJ,  Eden’s expertise includes early intervention services, pre-K through 21 education, adult residential and employment programs, and support and training for families and professionals.  This Assessment and Curriculum provides educators and caregivers with nearly 40 years of Eden’s teaching expertise.

*Offer expires on January 15, 2013 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.

 

 

 

 

Wait, What Are We Talking About?

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I typically work with very young learners in Early Intervention but there was a time I was working with older children, which necessitated work on conversation skills and topic maintenance. With the start of a new academic year and changes to my caseload I am currently finding myself with students who again need some assistance in this area.  Children with autism spectrum disorders often struggle in conversations because of limited or restricted interests, attending issues, difficulty determining what is relevant or salient to the topic and might also struggle with the rapid transitions necessary to shift between speaker and listener.  This change in my caseload has meant that I’ve found myself digging into old files and unearthing some ancient DIY efforts of mine that I had used in the past.  What I came across that I wanted to share was a visual support that I had used in small groups to facilitate a variety of skills.  It’s something I called Chit Chat and it helped to cue the students in shifting from speaker to listener while maintaining a balance in the conversation with turn taking and reciprocity as well as staying on topic.

The idea was that we would all sit down for a “chat” and initially I would go first in order to model how the board was used rather than providing explicit instruction until the group could use the board on their own and I could fade myself out of the conversation.  The first speaker would choose a token corresponding to a topic of interest, make a statement relevant to the topic chosen and then pass the token to a friend.  The token would provide a prompt for the speaker to maintain the chosen topic as well as cue the rest of the group to visually reference the child whose turn it is to be speaker.  Depending on the level of the group I would individualize the number of conversational exchanges on one topic required before bridging to a new topic. The group I was working with at the time was able to talk about more general topics but this could be individualized to more specific topics depending on the group of students you are working with.

I’m excited embarking upon a new academic year with all it’s unique challenges and successes and am happy to dust off Chit Chat and give it another whirl this year with all new students.  I would be curious to hear from other educators and therapists what tools they’ve created that they find themselves going back to year after year.  You might be surprised what you find at the bottom of your file cabinet!

Also, check out this great link I stumbled across from POPARD Provincial Outreach Program for Autism and Related Disorders in British Columbia, Canada.

https://www.autismoutreach.ca/elearning/social-skills/conversation-and-topic-maintenance

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.

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.

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: 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.

Pick of the Week: What Are They Thinking? Flashcards & CD

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Inferring meaning from images and text can be a real challenge for many students. What Are They Thinking? flashcards and worksheets help students develop empathy as they learn to recognize and understand emotions. This is a wonderful resource for initiating conversation and storytelling. Using this set, you can help students explore the relationship between thoughts and feelings as well as teach them to recognize how behavior affects others. The set comes with 30 large photo cards, an instruction booklet and a CD that contains reproducible worksheets for each student.

This week only, save 15% on the What Are They Thinking? flashcards by entering the Promo Code BLOGWATT7 at checkout.

*Offer expires on July 24, 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.