Here is a free interactive choice board that links straight to songs on YouTube. The songs are some of the favourites of primary aged children I have taught. These interactive choice boards are easy to make and amend in a program such as Microsoft PowerPoint by creating ‘hyperlinks’ to a Read more…
In order to be ready to learn, children must be regulated and have their physical, sensory and emotional needs met. Let’s face it, a child is not going to learn anything if they are, for example: Over stimulated Under stimulated Very tired/ hungry/ thirsty Needs the toilet If a child Read more…
From left to right: Myself – Steph Reed, Jarymke Malijaars (Ku Leuven), Pat Quigley (The Garden Head of School) and Beth Junor (Specialist ASD Speech and Language Therapist). I was very grateful to attend the ComFor training held at The Garden School in January. The ComFor assessment is a tool Read more…
After I completed the ‘Attention Autism’ training last year, adopting the approach in my class has made a HUGE impact on the children’s attention and interaction levels, the staff teams skills in working as a group, and most importantly, it has been a whole lot of fun for everyone! Read more…
I highly recommend the Intensive Interaction approach to learning early communication skills. I have had many positive and rewarding interactions with my pupils through using the Intensive Interaction principles. “Intensive Interaction is an approach to teaching the pre-speech fundamentals of communication to children and adults who have severe learning difficulties Read more…
ChoiceBoard Creator is a great resource for creating your own customisable choice boards. This could be a choice board for giving a child a choice such as what they want to eat for lunch or to use as part of a comprehension activity such as answering “which is?” or Read more…
The School Setting: A school setting for a child with autism should be highly structured and have familiar routines that the child can anticipate. Communication should be encouraged through speech as well as sign, symbols, photos and objects, depending on the ability of the child. A classroom set up specifically Read more…
I currently have 1 iPad for my class of autistic children and I use it for 1 to 1 and group sessions. IPads are extremely motivating and rewarding for any child and the learning opportunities are endless. Here are some of the iPad apps me and my class love to Read more…
I do a singing session at the end of every day with my class of children with autism. Previously the children were taking turns to choose from a choice of song symbols and now I have moved them on to choosing whether to ‘watch’ an interactive version of the song Read more…