Back to School — Autism Speaks Edition CONT'D

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Getting Ready for School: Transition Tips for Students - Autism Speaks

"For many learners with autism, transitions are the toughest part of schooling. Moving from classroom to classroom or teacher to teacher can be stressful enough, but moving from building to building is almost always a process filled with anxiety and trepidation. These four strategies are designed to prepare the learner with autism for a new school or a new schooling experience and can be used days or months before the student arrives as well as throughout the school year."

Click here to read Paula Kluth's article. Visit her website Paula Kluth: Toward Inclusive Classrooms and Communities at www.paulakluth.com for lots of helpful resources and tips for students with autism and their families.

Tips for Reducing the Stress Associated with Back to School
by Dr. Peter Faustino, School Psychologist

"The summer can be an opportunity to recharge and break from school routines, which is why September is often viewed as a mixed blessing. Parents of children with ASD are always trying to plan and prepare ahead of time. Unfortunately, we can’t account for every detail but here are a few tips for reducing the stress associated with back to school."

Click here to read Dr. Faustino's tips.

Topic of the Week: Preparing for Back to School...We Can Help!

We asked families including students, teachers and siblings about what they did to make the transition back to school go as smoothly as possible. Below are some valuable suggestions from our participants!

“To ease the transition, I asked his new school if I could come a few times and walk around the building with him, which they said was fine. I also asked if we could meet the teachers ahead of time, which is working out also. I am writing up a little list for them of things that came up with him during his last preschool year, and the solutions the teachers and I found together.” - Oma (grandma of 5-year-old boy with autism)

“The more proactive you are the better. I would ask to speak with the teacher(s) before school begins. It may be helpful to meet the teacher(s) and tour the school without all the normal chaos in order for him to orient to the new surroundings. If you are able to do this, take a camera and take pictures of his classroom, the bathroom, the cafeteria, and any other place he may go. Even take photos of the principal, the nurse, and the teacher(s).” - Melissa

“My daughter and I put together a little trifold “getting to know ___(Me)__” brochure for the teachers and other staff members which she would give them on meet the teacher days before school started. This included a short intro, things she liked and didn’t like, what strategies worked and didn’t work in the classroom.” As she grew older, she put together the entire thing on her own. It was a short and sweet introduction and the teachers seemed to take it to heart more because it came from her heart. Teachers would also include it with their substitute lesson plans so subs would be aware of her needs as well.” - Helen

Click here to read other comments.

Resources:

The IEP from A to Z: How to Create Meaningful and Measurable Goals and Objectives
by Diane Twatchman-Cullen and Jennifer Twatchtman-Bassett

Autism Speaks - Peer Mentoring Program

The Peer Mentoring program is a collaborative effort from the New York Center for Autism that brings typically developing students together with children with autism. This program is designed to help provide an understanding of autism and what children with autism need in order to learn, and also to teach some basic skills to help parents, teachers and peers interact, teach and play with children with autism.

Click here to view the Peer Mentoring Program Student Handbook.

Click here to view the Peer Mentoring Program Trainer Manual.

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Source: AutismSpeaks.org

Back to School: "School Zone" image courtesy of anankkml / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Back to School — August 15th Edition

Free image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Back to School Survey by AutismSpeaks™

The Autism Speaks Family Services team conducted a survey to help us better understand and support the challenges families face with the transition back to school.

More than 800 people responded to our online survey. 26% of the respondents had children between ages 2 and 6, 62% had children between 6 and 16, and the remainder had children over 16. Of our respondents, 58% had children in a public school inclusion environment, 23% in a public special day class, 12% in a private or special school, and 3.5% had their children home-schooled.

Some tips families recommended to help ease the back to school process included: touring the school building ahead of time, meeting the new teacher before the first day of school, and going on the bus route in advance.

The respondents shared insights into the greatest challenges they face as school begins. We reviewed the responses and all of the additional comments. The top issues reported were:

1. Your child's reaction to the transition
2. Educating teachers and staff about how to meet your child's educational needs
3. Bullying situations at school
4. Peer acceptance
5. Meeting curriculum needs for students with autism.


Tips from Dr. Peter Faustino, School Psychologist
Dr. Peter Faustino is President of the New York Association of School Psychologists, which serves children, their families, and the school community by promoting psychological well-being, excellence in education, and sensitivity to diversity through best practices in school psychology.

Click here (FREE PDF) for Dr. Faustino's Tips for Reducing the Stress Associated with Back to School.

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"School Zone" image courtesy of anankkml / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

"A Schoolboy And His Teacher" image courtesy of Paul Gooddy / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My fifty cents on 50 cent and autism

By Nicky Clark  |  The Independent

Fifty cent is a little wiser about the condition of autism now than he was when he decided to tweet using the condition as a pejorative insulting term.

His comments about autism and “special ed kids” drew criticism, most particularly from the mother of a son with autism who wrote the singer an open letter from her website detailing why using the condition as an epithet for foolish or stupid is as cruel as it is stereotyping and wrong.

Given the fact that I was in similar circumstances in October of last year I was contacted by many people who drew my attention to the situation.

I was unaware of it as I don’t number one of the singers 6 million + followers – but my feelings on the subject are best described as mixed.

As a disability rights campaigner on the issues of hate crime I was saddened to see the hipster fashion for disability as justifiable insult still being adopted by famous people.

However as 50 cent has deleted his comments from Twitter and posted supportive tweets on the condition subsequently on his timeline.

I think it’s a shame that his crime of ignorance is still being used to define him.

Many activists and parents are still enraged by another aspect of the debacle. It comes down to the apology question.

Whenever I ask famous people to stop using stigmatising language I don’t focus on the apology. Regret when forced is as meaningless as it is pointless.

It brings to mind children facing one another and through gritted teeth saying things they clearly resent and don’t mean, in order to satisfy a resolution in the eyes of an adult. The words I’m sorry can be said politically by anyone but the real truth in the reparation of harm lies not in what we say but instead in what we do or choose not to do.

In campaigning I seek to change attitudes to change behaviours and to enable those who don’t know to learn more. All stigmatising language has at it’s heart a basic instinct wrought through lack of experience or negative experience not truth.

It is framed through the propagation of bigoted stereotypes, myths made truism through repetition and encounters with more ignorance.

These approaches can be and have been used very effectively as the first step on the road to genocide and it is through frequent and deliberate use of stigmatising language that dehumanising attitudes are born. They are necessary in terms of mobilising nation against nation in times of war and sadly common in pitting human against human in times of austerity. If you’re looking to group people together nothing works so well as a common enemy or scapegoat.

In this perfectionism based, botox filled, silicone enhanced, celebrity obsessed culture of ours those who are different have become the go to guys for abuse. It’s unlikely we’ll see a Downs syndrome or wheelchair using Barbie any time soon (although with the proportions becoming ever more gravity defying it may soon be necessary) so the norms of our young are still being framed around the ideal as defined by non disabled people.

My point in raising this is that the further we push people to society’s fringes out of the light and into the shadows, the easier it is to disenfranchise them. Disabled people are expensive and irritatingly for budget holders disabled children can become disabled adults. Not always of course. The saddest fact of my daughters transfer from mainstream school to specialist school was the roll call of “In Rememberance” names printed in the newsletter.

So 50 cent felt the wrath of the parents who love their children in a way parents of non disabled children will never fully understand.

They know the children they love and advocate for will know discrimination as real and as wounding as any other abuse but for some disabled people, particularly it has to be said learning disabled people this abuse is routine.

With lives led at the behest of others, to the agenda and determination of others, learning disability provides a vulnerability that the truly cruel can exploit, sickeningly, with comparative ease.

That’s the background which fuels the rage but once a public figure who controls their fans’ behaviour with a precision which would have Pavlov himself drooling with admiration, has recognised and changed, we too need to move on.

There is nothing to be gained from adopting the “but he said” approach long after the words are silenced.

Ignorance really is a defence at times and for all the warrior parents out there battling ignorance and service providers and educators and the man, woman and abusive child on the street forgiveness can be the better part of valour.

Autism Speaks — Celebrity Golf Challenge

Autism Speaks is proud to present the

FOURTEENTH ANNUAL CELEBRITY

GOLF CHALLENGE

Co-Chairs: Susan & Kevin J. Murray

Honorary Co-Chairs: Suzanne & Bob Wright

• MONDAY, JUNE 11, 2012
• Winged Foot Golf Club
• 851 Fenimore Road
• Mamaroneck, New York 10543-2100
• 
  

• PAST CELEBRITY PARTICIPANTS HAVE INCLUDED:

  James Caan, Billy Crudup, Alice Cooper, Macaulay Culkin, Brooklyn Decker, Josh Duhamel, Boomer Esiason, Dennis Haysbert, Taylor Hicks, Nikki Hilton, LL Cool J, Bruce Jenner, Richard Kind, Nick Lachey, Matt Lauer, Eli Manning, Joe Mantegna, Tim Meadows, Cynthia Nixon, Chris O’Donnell, Jesse Palmer, Stone Phillips, Aidan Quinn, Molly Sims, John Starks, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Donald Trump
  
  
  

  Complete details at: www.AutismSpeaks.org