Any family is healthier when you have a bit of support. And having some help can give your child some additional hours every week when the focus is on them and their growth. Finding People So, you’ve finally made it through the waitlist to be picked up by a Family Services Worker and are trying to set up self-managed respite, or […]
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From time to time, I read comments from parents who talk about combining therapies – they hope to be working with ABA and RDI clinicians, for example. Or they are doing ABA but are using developmental strategies to round things out. It’s a goal that seems reasonable, on the surface. Why not pull the best from each approach? There […]
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Credit for these ideas goes to Marlaine Willborn, a speech therapist in Winnipeg. This post is based on ideas she had compiled and shared with me when I was trying to get better at engaging my children in play. Her resource came primarily from ‘Giggle Time: Establishing a social connection’ by Susan Aud Somers. One of the most daunting […]
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We love stories – here’s one about a mother and her child, learning to communicate and problem-solve through play. My son has begun his Autism Outreach therapy. For those of you unfamiliar with it – it’s a developmental therapy offered for children with autism. And it’s basically using play to help kids hit those developmental milestones. Our therapist is amazing. […]
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Service dogs are fast becoming an accepted and recognized support for children and adults with autism. In addition to helping with safety concerns such as wandering, service dogs also provide social-emotional and sensory support that can help children cope with a sometimes chaotic world, give them opportunities to interact and play, and even help them sleep well. Here is one family’s story. […]
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Originally published on RDI Connect. Those of us raising children in Canada are keenly aware of and attuned to the seasons and their impact on the flow of our daily lives. There is nothing like living through a harsh, bitterly cold winter, then being able to throw off our winter boots and mitts on the first warm, sweet spring day. When the temperatures […]
Read moreHow can we help our children flourish? And what is required for them to reach their full potential as human beings? On May 29 in Winnipeg, Gordon Neufeld spoke about how we can help all children grow to be the best people they can be. Much of what he had to say speaks to addressing the needs of children with […]
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This post is part of a series, taking a quick look at each developmental level, according to the work of Stanley Greenspan and Serena Wieder in their DIR/Floortime framework. As a child grows, they add new skills to what they learned in the previous levels. You can find the list of related posts here. When we meet children on the autism […]
Read moreThe last post was on understanding our children as the key to helping them be alert, calm and ready to engage with their world. To expand on that idea, here are some thoughts about what to do when they aren’t calm at all… What do you do if your child is yelling at you all the time? We arrive at […]
Read moreOne of the important foundations of successfully working with kids is that you need to get to know them. Each child is a unique individual. Kids with autism are no exception. Under what conditions do they feel comfortable and curious, so that they are ready to learn? The idea to understand is regulation. It’s the main concept of the first […]
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