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The Autistic Child’s Guide to How to Behave – spark* program:
Positive About Autism™ June 2011 Newsletter: The Autistic Child’s Guide to How to Behave introduces spark*, the Self-Regulation Program of Awareness and Resilience in Kids. spark* is an innovative programme for teaching self-regulation of behaviour, thinking and emotions to young children on the autism spectrum as well as those with other developmental disabilities.
I have to admit I’m a big Heather MacKenzie fan. That’s the bias out in the open. The Autistic Child’s Guide to How to Behave represents a really new direction in teaching. Heather describes her approach as establishing a ‘positive working alliance with a child’. It’s this mediational approach that’s key.
“For many years, I have watched these children grow up to be dependent on adults for absolutely everything that happens in their day. They wait to be told to do some things and not others; when to stop or start an activity; to calm down, stay still, even when to eat and sleep. They never get a chance to shift from being adult-regulated to being self-regulated,”
The book contains 69 step-by-step lessons for helping the child move from imitation of easy actions through to self-direction and self-control. What’s more they are fun (for therapist and child!).
The focus on ability and the positive belief that independence isn’t a pipe dream for these youngsters is stamped all over this brilliant book. Sometimes (with the best of intentions) we teach dependence rather than independence. This great resource shows us another way. Well done Heather.
I adapted one of the ‘lessons’ and incorporated it into a recent workshop with a group of support staff. We worked all morning on how we could improve a child’s “ignoring skills”! It was great to see the group get hold of this approach and run with it.
Reaching and Teaching Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder:
Positive About Autism™ March 2009 Newsletter - Reaching and Teaching The Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder by Heather MacKenzie. This book takes a really positive look at the learning style of children on the autism spectrum. It’s jam packed with really great ideas for using interests and learning preferences as a springboard to effective learning. The key ingredients of programme planning are explored in terms of style, content and delivery. Worth £15.99 of anyone’s money!
5 average rating – An effective way to communicate more with Autistic Children – January 4, 2009. By Yasmin878 from Malta on TES Connect in the UK.
No matter how much I read about autism there is always something new that has been discovered and various tried and tested methods which focus mainly on generalised outcomes. Children who are born with an Autism Spectrum disorder see, hear, feel the world around them differently. One particular thing that I appreciated in this book is the readability, variety of examples and ideas that can be adopted to work and live with autistic children. You can never use certain methods with everybody since you get different outcomes sometimes, even undesirable ones. I have tried and tested some examples from the Learning Preferences and Strengths (LPS) model and have had a positive response. A stop sign to indicate that certain things which the child might like can be used for a determined period of time is a clever aid to reduce stressful give and take wars. Obviously, if you overdo it, it will backfire and the system will fail. The LPS model is not just another method to deal with autistic children but a collection of theories related to personality, multiple intelligences and mediated learning moulded to create a better communication tool such as: • Learning to detect and respond to real friends. • Dealing with figurative language • Strategies to determine whether the information has been understood • Plans and routines • Control of emotions The various examples which portray mini case studies are extremely useful as they provide a better understanding of what might happen by adopting a strategy. By using a strategy I’m not referring to extreme complicated theories but by using everyday objects to utilise the strengths and weaknesses of the child to obtain the desired or planned outcome. The drawings are very useful and also provide some good ideas but I personally think that more drawings or perhaps even photos to provide a broader and clearer understanding of what can be done to make environments more welcoming and understanding. A collection of such images could be included in the appendix area and specify whether certain visuals could be reproduced. I suggest that this book should be purchased by educators, parents and relatives of an autistic child as it focuses on the positivity of Autism rather than the difficulties this condition might bring. A great deal of talking is done and very little is worked out from what is said. This book does a lot of positive and practical working. Also, there is a list of free internet resources!
Using a broad spectrum of proven autism teaching skills to reach kids hitherto deemed ‘unreachable’, November 16, 2008Speech-language pathologist and educator MacKenzie has developed a comprehensive model based upon both theory and extensive clinical experience that she believes is effective at growing lifelong independent learning skills in children aged three to 12. She focuses on learning preferences, strengths and interests as she reframes the traditional definition of autism, describes the workings of her model and its program content, analyzes behaviors of children with autism, and shows how her findings apply to the model. Her suggestions are very practical, and she provides the addresses of free Internet resources and a wide range of forms to use in planning and observations.
By Book News – September 2008