Don't know what manners to teach kids? There are three common mistakes parents and professionals make when teaching a child with autism manners. It can feel natural to prompt a child with “Say ‘Thank you!’”, but for a child with autism, the timing of when manners are taught matters just as much as the language ability of the child and the prompts that are used to elicit language.
Kate Swenson is a distinguished author, autism mom, and someone I consider to be one of the most inspirational mothers in the autism world. From her books to her community over at Coop Troops, she impacts the lives of children with autism in incredible ways, and I’m excited to welcome her back to share what...
Many toddlers have speech delays, and sometimes a speech delay is a symptom of something bigger, like autism. I know from experience that it’s often confusing and overwhelming to parents who are on waiting lists…
Autism self injury (otherwise known as self injurious behavior or SIB) as well as other problem behaviors may be caused by pain or medical issues that lead to behavioral treatments not being effective on their own. For children with autism who have little to no language, it can be really challenging to determine whether pain...
Potty training and constipation… did you know they go hand in hand and that your potty training problems may be related to constipation? This blog is an excerpt from the Turn Autism Around® podcast number 158 on potty training and constipation with Dr. Steve Hodges who is an M.D. who wrote The M.O.P Book which...
Today, we are talking about using activity schedules for children with autism in order to teach them how to follow a schedule, become more independent, and follow routines things like dressing, independent play time, or an evening routine. These activity schedules can even be used for older kids to learn how to do things like...
Today we are talking all about adult autism services for individuals with severe autism. This is an excerpt from podcast episode 153 that I did with Jill Escher, who is the president of the National Council for Severe Autism. We talk about the challenges with helping adults with severe autism and some steps that we...
What is an IEP? And how to prepare for first IEP meeting? That is a subject we are tackling here with two IEP experts, Amanda DeLuca and Kirby Morgan. This short vlog is an excerpt from podcast number 152 where we talk a lot about the transition from age 2 (when birth to 3 services...
Why is ABA so controversial? I get this question all the time and today I am going to tackle this question from a different perspective. I recently interviewed Armando Bernal, who was diagnosed with autism at the age of three, and he was pretty significantly impaired. Now he’s an autistic adult who is also a...
Are you wondering how you can shift your parenting strategies to a more positive approach? Victoria Boone’s book Positive Parenting for Autism discusses psychology and ABA-based strategies for building desired behaviors and eliminating problem behaviors. In this episode, we are discussing extinction versus punishment, the benefit of differential reinforcement, and the controversy of ABA.
