Dr. Heather MacKenzie

Reaching and Teaching Children with Special Needs

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Resources

10 Ways to Promote Self-Regulation Every Day – follow this link

spark* forms to copy and use with The Autistic Child’s Guide to How to Behave:

Pre-assessment – Behavioral Self-Regulation

Assessment of Progress – Behavioral Self-Regulation

Pre-assessment – Cognitive Self-Regulation

Assessment of Progress – Cognitive Self-Regulation

Pre-assessment – Emotional Self-Regulation

Assessment of Progress – Emotional Self-Regulation

spark* Parent Newsletters for you to copy and use with The Autistic Child’s Guide to How to Behave. One Parent Newsletter will be added to the website each week, starting October 30, 2010.

#1 – Introduction to spark*

#2 – Learning to self-regulate your hands

#3 – Extending self-regulation of hands

#4 – Prompting, reminding and self-advocacy

#5 – Turtle breathing, communicating and 180 degree rule

#6 – Controlling feet, resilience and encouragement

#7 – Voice regulation, talking to help learning and independence

#8 – Whole body regulation, yoga and scaffolding

#9 – Being systematic, modeling and importance of emotional climate

#10 – Taking in complete and accurate information, importance of ignoring

#11 – Signals, clues and models and the rhythm of learning

#12 – Construction of meaning, visualizing and extending use

#13 – Comprehension monitoring, requesting repetition and clarification

#14 – Describing objects, scenes and events

#15 – Introduction to emotional self-regulation, basic gestures – practice and extension

#16 – Emotional expressions

#17 – Breathing, thinking, planning and what about eye contact

#18 – Responding to different people and different places, using models

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Selected Resources

Some resources that can help you honor Learning Preferences and Strengths typically found in people with autism can be found here.

Resources that can help you use shared storybook reading with children can be found here.

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Example Strategies

Example teaching/learning strategies for the typical Learning Preferences and Strengths found in children with autism can be found here.  Please use these strategies with sensitivity to the individual child’s learning interests and needs.

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Storybook Planning Database

We are developing a database of potential goals, key vocabulary, phrases and sentences and materials and resources to support the use of each storybook.  You can download planning documents by linking through each storybook title below.

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything- developed by Heather MacKenzie

Goldilocks and the Three Bears- developed by Heather MacKenzie

From Head to Toedeveloped by Heather MacKenzie

The Kissing Handdeveloped by Heather MacKenzie

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10 Tips for reading to children – follow this link

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Brain Box©

The Brain Box© was named by a boy I used to work with. The concept behind the Brain Box© is to get an idea out of your brain so that you can think about other things.  As we know, children with autism can become ‘stuck’ on an idea or event and have great difficulty moving on.  The Brain Box© is a temporary storage space for the recurring thoughts so that they “won’t bug your brain”.

 

Follow this link for more information on the Brain Box.

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P.O.E.T Notes

I developed P.O.E.T. notes for use by therapists and therapy aides.  The P stands for plan and purpose of a therapy session, the O for observations about how the child responded, E for evaluation about how the child did and T for target goals for ‘homework’ and the next therapy session.

The P.O.E.T. notes allowed consistent communication amongst the various therapists and aides, made sure that everyone had goals clearly in mind and ensured accountability.  When therapy aides observed therapy sessions with an SLP or OT or other therapist, they would complete P.O.E.T. notes during the session.  This ensured that the therapist was communicating the plan and purpose clearly and the aide understood how the child was responding and thought about why the child was or was not achieving the goal.

The P.O.E.T note form is linked at: POET notes