“Communication is life. It is the only vehicle we have for connecting meaningfully with others.” Joseph Grenny, author Our daughter began speaking with words when she was 3. When she was six, she spoke mostly with sentences that she’d memorized or with short words and phrases. She shared requests or comments about what she wanted or was doing in the […]
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RDI Connect offers a podcast series exploring aspects of parenting and teaching children with autism. The following is an excerpt from a reflection of what autism awareness really needs to be, by Dr. Steven Gutstein. “There’s a lot more awareness that there is such a thing called autism, but there is not a great deal of awareness of what […]
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Just before April started, the website The Art of Autism posted a list of 84 or so favorite quotes about autism. Many of them were written by people with autism. It is a great list. I thought that in honor of autism acceptance, this might be an opportunity to play with one of the other things I’m interested in: sketchnoting. […]
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Nadiene is the mother of two children: Lincoln, who is a nine-year-old boy with autism and his 8-year-old sister Charlie. In 2011 she and her husband Jay participated in the Relate program at the Rehabilitation Centre for Children, which was then a pilot project. She wrote about that experience here. We wanted to hear from her again, now that their family’s […]
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Often in the first years of parenting, childcare takes the centre stage. The things we liked to do before we had children can just fall away. Children (with and without autism) tend to like what’s familiar and don’t always behave the way we’d like when we take them out in new situations – so it’s easier to stay home and just stick with […]
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Service dogs can be a great help to people with autism. In October of 2015 Jackie shared about her family’s reasons for getting a service dog for her daughter. Here’s a followup post on how things have gone, and how a service dog has helped Signey grow. So, when we decided to buy a service dog for our daughter, Signey, […]
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More Than Words: Helping Parents Promote Communication and Social Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder by Fern Sussman Published by The Hanen Centre, 1999 After our first child was diagnosed with autism, I went on the hunt for resources that would explain to me what this diagnosis meant, and how I could help. I’ve now read dozens of books […]
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One of the challenges of having a child with a disability is the extra expenses. In addition to increased child care needs (perhaps leading to a loss of income), we tend to have extra costs like therapies and diaper purchases longer than expected for a typical child. We also need to consider the future: will our children need help longer […]
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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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One of ADAPT’s key beliefs is that people are the expert of their own experiences. We advocate to government for a range of autism therapy options because we believe that parents know more about what their kids need than a one size fits all program possibly can – parents have an expertise regarding their children that government officials just can’t […]
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