This might be really obvious to some people, but for me it was a light bulb moment. The trouble I had transitioning from ABA to developmental therapies was about trying to keep track of our goals and how we were working on them. So our RDI consultant wanted me to think about frames, with respect to parenting and teaching my […]
Read more
iPads are everywhere. They are generally popular, and for many children, iPads aren’t just used as toys but as learning tools in schools as well. Families of children with autism seem particularly drawn to owning iPads. Why are they so popular? And how are they helpful for people with autism? People with autism often have difficulties learning and communicating, because […]
Read more
Rosanne Papadopoulos is an occupational therapist and RDI consultant in Winnipeg. You can read more and find her contact information at her website, Discoveries in Therapy. It’s Saturday morning and I am feeling self-regulated! After a long week of work, I had a great sleep, am sitting next to the warmth of a fall fire in the woodstove on my soft […]
Read more
I’m a graduate student in inclusive education, and I love books and reading. When my kids were born one of the first things I dreamed about was reading with them. So I was very excited to come across this book by Paula Kluth and Kelly Chandler-Olcott. It’s about helping kids on the autism spectrum grow in literacy. And it’s definitely […]
Read more
This article is reposted with permission from the Speechworks website. Halloween is tons of fun! Dressing up, trick-or-treating, and getting candy all add to the excitement. It can be tricky, though, for children with autism. Halloween is special – it’s different from any other day! Children dress up, go door to door, and yell “Trick or Treat!” For some children, […]
Read more
I work with a child who’s hard to connect with. Why is it so hard? What can I do to make it easier? Great question! Relationships are one of the things that make life worth living. For children with autism, differences in communication skills, sensory processing, interests and behaviour may all contribute to problems developing and nurturing relationships. Whether you’re […]
Read more
This post is part of a series, taking a quick look at each of the developmental capacities as described by 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 stages. You can find the list of related posts here. After children have become comfortable with interactive […]
Read more
Kids with autism often find it hard to make friends. But that doesn’t mean they don’t want to. It’s also not unusual for people with autism to communicate more comfortably in writing than in conversation. One day not so long ago, a boy with autism in Charlottetown shared on Splash N’ Boots’ Facebook page that he was looking for a […]
Read more
Should your child’s peers know what autism is, and that your child has it? The answer depends on the child and the situation. Our family decided early on that it would be more helpful than harmful, and so every year, when our children enter school, we have made sure that there is an opportunity for our children’s new classmates to […]
Read more
Last May, I shared a list of books that our children have enjoyed. More than that, they were books that led to conversations or activities that we could do together. You can read Part 1 here, and here are some more! Once There Was a Raindrop by Judith Anderson This is one book in a series about science – other […]
Read more