Look guys - we have all been saying it... this year will be unlike any other school year. For me personally, the learners I work with have been home, many with a reduced demand level, with new stressors, without a routine or with MAJOR changes to their routines for SIX MONTHS! We absolutely have to think of this every morning when we walk in that door. This is what we and more importantly what our STUDENTS are up against. With so many changes and restrictions, with so much unknown one thing we absolutely must do is make sure we are ready to reinforce the heck out of every. single. thing. our kids do 🙌🏻 I know that my “tentative and soon to change 1,000 times” plan for the school year looks like this: 1. Teach and reinforce masks, social distancing and basic hygiene 2. Teach and reinforce adherence to new routines (no communal supplies and not touching things which don’t belong to you... even if just to race across the room and put them “away”). This is going to be big. It’s ALSO goin...
Hey Guys! SOOO I posted some pics of the new schedule I'm piloting with my class this fall (well... my aides & sub since I'll be out on maternity leave, but either way!) & got quite a few questions, so here it is! Below are pictures and descriptions of the schedules we follow each day. Our class follows a large daily schedule which is posted on the wall. It displays the start times & major activities of the day (we recently added an additional visual which a student checks off the type of schedule that day - early dismissal, regular schedule, delayed opening, etc.). This is what the students copy into their planners each day. (There are also day of the week schedules nearby which highlight major events BUT I of course don't have a picture saved in my phone & have already dismantled my classroom for the year, so that will have to wait for a future date! ) We also have a schedule on the Smart Board which gives clarification to the current day's expectation...
Guys... I'm pretty excited about this! I have to say, this idea stemmed from a meeting with my OT (who is amazing) on Friday afternoon. We sat down to discuss the results of an assessment which had been sent home to parents in the beginning of the year regarding daily living and self help skills. Honestly, some of the parent ratings REALLY surprised me! I know that after 12 years in the field of special education teaching students with autism, I should not be alarmed by a lack of naturally occurring generalization across settings and people, but after working with many of the students in my current class for the past 4 years and seeing how independent they have become, I was shocked to see low ratings in some of the areas where they truly excel in school. This highlighted for me the need to increase the amount of communication, collaboration & training that I do with parents regarding ways to transfer skills to home. I wanted to share two ways I will begin to address this, in a...
Hey Guys! This is my second week back to school and I am excited to share my new approach to staff training this year. I tend to fall into the "we have no training time" trap and the extravagant plans I have for staff training fall to pieces as we scramble to put out fires in the little amount of time we do have set aside for meetings. This year, I am trying a new plan and I am VERY hopeful about it! The first thing I did was set up a Staff Information Station on a whiteboard near staff cubbies. There I have posted inspirational quotes, schedules, calendars & staff reminders for classroom expectations & strategies (download my Staff Strategies Cheat Sheets here ). This is what my Staff Information Station looked like during initial set up (It is now VERY full of information!). The next step in my plan is doing weekly theme based trainings for staff. Every Monday (or preferably Friday afternoon's before leaving!) I set up our This Week in 206 board in order to l...
{Guys... We are running an exciting Back to School Giveaway from Sept 1st to the 8th! Check out the details below. But FIRST, I wanted to chat with you a bit about getting back into language facilitation while you're getting settled in back at school this fall!} If you've worked with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders, you know that verbal and non-verbal language, communication & social skills are at the top of the list of challenges they face (to varying degrees). Not having the skills or being able to generalize those skills in order to effectively communicate is not only frustrating and limiting to the functioning of your student out in the world, but it can also cause lots of other issues, including challenging behaviors. Needless to say, one of your biggest jobs as a teacher of students with autism is to support the language needs of your students. ALL LANGUAGE, ALL DAY, EVERY DAY is the new motto of our classroom & I hope I can persuade you to adopt a simil...
Ever get to that point in the year where you see and hear WAYYYYY too much verbal prompting and over prompting in general? That's where I'm at right now. And with only 4 1/2 weeks left of school and a BILLION deadlines looming (and a few that passed...which I sadly did not meet) the last thing on my mind is stopping everything for some staff training. Well that attitude was clearly getting me no where and cringing is unfortunately not an effective method of delivering feedback SO I bit the bullet and wrote up some new guidelines which I have just started reviewing in my class. Our first training took place this afternoon during our built in meeting time (we get 15 minutes every day which is both never enough and a total lifesaver) and it was mostly an introduction. We started off addressing issues related to independence for our kids, especially as they are growing older and the absolute necessity to get the most out of their last few years of intensive support and instruction....
A few months back I had the chance to do some in district parent training on success in the community and promised to share the slides with you all (sorry for the delay!) so here it is! I may try at a future date to do a more in depth series on community instruction and building success. If there are any specific areas you are all looking for help with please reach out on the blog or email me at autism.theteenyears@gmail.com The main areas covered in the training are: (Keep in mind this is a HUGE topic and I could literally talk about it for days. And days. So many areas were an overview and a lot of individual details and discussions came up during the training.) 1. Safety & Preparedness 2. Readiness Skills 3. Strategies for Success 4. Defining Success 5. Final Tips & Reminders...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)