Framework for Autism NZ Course

18/19 October

A very valuable 2 days.

Strategies of note:

Teaching the Toy:  using e.g. lego figures to teach behaviours/social situations

Try activities with 'no talking' to help teach children to read faces/body language

Velcro spots: to use as countdown visuals - they don't need to be at say 1min intervals on a formal timer, can be adjusted to each situation, could use pegs instead

Ingrained behaviours/patterns; take away the steps that lead up to the pattern and change to a new pattern - you don't have to try and change just the step with the problem

Rehearsal: preparing for new situations, : e.g. have 'big kids desk' in room for turns at  sitting to transition to a new class

Backward chaining: do first steps for child; they do the final step, continue reducing the number of steps you do, one at a time, until child can do all

Plan for success: analyse in detail (using framework) order of events, visual supports, triggers, calming strategies/distractions, exit strategy, afterwards

Use functional analysis of behaviour: settings, triggers, results, prevention

One idea that clicked for me was about using children's intersest (obsessions??) An example of using maps was given. That gave me an idea to address an issue with a child at school who doesn't have much spatial awareness, impacting on the classroom when he just barges through the room, not worrying about where anybody is etc. talking to his TA, she reminded me about how he loves mazes. So I have been working on a plan of his classroom so that he can use it as a 'maze' to plan his route to different places in the classroom, and/or use the "Teach the Toy" strategy, using the plan. We'll see how the practical application works.