Positive Behavior Supports can be useful to parents working with children with Autism. It combines real rewards that the child is interested in with strategies to teach a variety of behaviors or skills. The skills can be educational or self help skills.

Initially we must think about the things our child will work for. We need to think about our childs’ favorite things. It might even be something as simple as a single skittle or a single piece of a cereal our child does not get very often.

Sometimes particularly with candy or cereal you may want to discontinue having that particular brand on a routine basis and have it only for the reward we will use. Some children with Autism can even tell mom or dad what they will work for.

Ideally parents will look for the one or two behaviors or skills that they would like to work on. It is difficult to work on more than two at a time because we all can quickly become overwhelmed with too many things going on at once. (more…)

Social stories are one of the techniques that are used with children with Autism. Although this is done in a structured way for children with Autism it is a technique that has been used for centuries. Parents have always talked and described upcoming situations in an effort to ease their children’s fears.

Many times social stories are written with the childs’ name as the name of the person in the story. For some children this seems to be an easier way to talk about themselves. It is almost like talking about a child like they are someone else. On some level a child with Autism does seem to understand that the story is about them. (more…)

Services is a term that is used with people with Autism and other disabilities. It is a term used to describe the types of help that people who support people with disabilities may be able to access. The term ’services’ is usually used to describe types of help which are accessed through the assistance of public agencies. The term services is short for Home and Community Based Services. Home and Community Based Services is designed to keep our loved ones with Autism and other disabilities at home or maybe in their own home. Services are used to keep people with Autism from having to be institutionalized when they do not need to be.

Many people with disabilities need a little support to be able to live on their own. Some people with disabilities need a lot of support to be able to live on their own. Parents may also need support to be able to keep their children with disabilities at home. Support services can be a person to help with supervision when a parent is at work. It can be assistance with cooking and washing clothes for an adult with Autism. That adult can be living in their own home or in their parents home.

Sometimes services are financial help that may be available to the person with a disability. Of course as with any type of support this is usually limited. Once again though, people with disabilities like Autism may need only a little support to continue to live in the community. (more…)

Having a child with autism, hearing that first diagnosis, or questioning some of the early behavioral issues, for a parent, can be a trying and often isolating time. Sifting through the voluminous information on causes, treatments, and therapies can also be quite overwhelming, especially with no one to offer guidance.

To begin with, if you’re a parent, or know someone, who has a concern about atypical behaviors in their child, you should begin by receiving a medical evaluation by your family practitioner. If a concern is noted regarding PDD/NOS (some of the characteristics of autism) or autism spectrum disorder, the family or parents can request that their school district provide a comprehensive psychological-educational evaluation that identifies the need for fine/gross motor, socio-emotional, academic, and speech language supports. (more…)

A Circle of Support is a concept that some parents have used with their child that has Autism. The Circle fulfills different needs at different times in the child’s life. It can collapse and another one start or some people’s circle evolves.

Children with Autism need a group of people to help in a variety of ways. This group of people is sometimes called a Circle of Support. The group can be a formal group that meets on a regular basis. It might be a group that is less formal and does not ever really meet.

This group of people may include paid people in a child with Autism’s life and unpaid people. Ideally the unpaid people out number the paid people but this is not always so in the beginning. That issue may be one that the group decides to work on.

In the beginning when a child with a disability is young, the adults may start the group. It may be a parent or a teacher. The idea is to find three or four other children in that age group and invite them to help the child with Autism. If this little group meets on a weekly basis they can talk about what needs to be done. (more…)

Inclusion is a philosophy that many parents of children with Autism have taken into their value system. It can be applied to education or to the community. There is a lot of research behind the benefits to all people of inclusion.

Basically inclusion means that people with any disability including people with Autism live, work, play, and do anything else with non-disabled peers. For children this means the same school that other children in the neighborhood attend. It also means that the child goes to the same classes the children his or her age go to.

For adults this means that people with Autism and more severe disabilities can and should work at the same jobs as other people. They should go to the same church and the same stores. They also should go to the same stores.

It is really a simple concept. It is also a concept that people with disabilities have embraced. Although many people originally thought that parents who were requesting inclusion in the school system were misguided research has supported those very same parents. (more…)

Social skills are one of the areas a child with Autism will have the most trouble in. It is an area a lot of people have problems with but when you complicate it with the communication deficits it is even more difficult. Social skills are a combination of verbal and non-verbal cues which require interpretation.

Children with Autism have problems with communication and do not even seem to realize that there are social rules. When you figure social rules change for different environments and different people it is even more confusing. Another consideration is that different social skills work better for different people.

Then there is the whole issue of non-verbal communication. Typical people can tell by the tone of a voice or the look on someone’s face whether they are sincere, cynical, or making fun of a person. This is extremely difficult to teach a child with Autism.

There are different techniques that can and are successfully used to teach people with autism the social rules. There are also different ways to teach social skills. Many people with Autism can and do learn the way to navigate through these situations. Techniques, to compensate for the lack of non-verbal understanding, is also a possibility for parents and professionals that work with children with Autism. (more…)

Autism – Learning Styles and Life/Educational Skills Attainment

When ascertaining what may be the best ways to help your child with autism to learn various educational, social, behavioural and emotional (etc.) skills; gaining accurate knowledge of what may be your child’s learning style will greatly enhance and promote a higher success or achievement in your child’s learning of such skills.

Understanding their particular learning style/s is imperative too in respecting the unique individual that they are.

Imagine if someone was trying to teach you a skill in a language you didn’t understand and they expected you to get it? This would place an unnecessary stress on you in trying to understand what you were being asked to ‘get’; you would feel frustrated; possibly even feel inadequate or saddened that you can’t understand the method/s or message and misunderstood as an individual. (more…)