Benefits of a Sticker Reward Calendar

In our experience with Asperger's syndrome, we as parents, have tried many different ways to reward our son's positive behavior at school. We would take him swimming or to the park or maybe buy him a special gift. The only drawback in this type of reward system is, that if your child goes on a run of rough days in class, it's not fair to deny all the fun things you could do together. After much research and learning, we found a fantastic tool that we've easily implemented. We use a sticker reward calendar. Each child with autism/Asperger's might be different in what works and what doesn't, but a reward calendar is a cheap idea and can be very effective in improving and promoting good behavior.

You can use any calendar you like. At first, we just used a regular calendar we had, but shortly after, we decided to get a more child friendly calendar. When we had a regular calendar, Jacob noticed, but wasn't that impressed. But when we got him a Twisted Whiskers calendar, he really took notice and became interested. So we do recommend a cartoon or a sports calendar. They're relatively inexpensive and you can find one with any character or team on them. I've seen Sponge Bob, Looney Tunes and Harry Potter on calendars, so finding your child's favourite should be easy.

Then we went to a dollar store and found hundreds of stickers we could use. You should however, try to find smaller stickers. That way you get more for your money and they'll fit into the squares on the calendar. Right now we have some star stickers and some little animal stickers. During the Christmas holiday we had some snowmen and snow flake ones. There are literally thousands of them and each dollar store carries different styles, so the sticker choices are endless.

What we did was, we installed a cork bulletin board in our hallway. Not only do we put important items for us on it, but it also holds Jacob's stickers and calendar. We just hung the calendar at Jacob's height for easy reaching. Then we divide each school day in half. The left half of the square is the morning and the right half is the afternoon. When Jacob comes home for lunch, if he had a good morning, he'll get 1 sticker. Then when he comes home after school, he gets 1 more if he had a good afternoon. So it's possible to get 2 stickers a day. If your child doesn't come home for lunch, you can still reward them with 1 or 2 stickers, depending on their day. During a week, there's a possible 10 stickers to achieve. So then you can create an overall reward program that's visible for your child.

Number of Stickers (earned during week) Reward

5 or 6 Family dinner at their favourite restaurant

7 or 8 Dinner as above and movie night

9 or 10 Dinner, movie and a toy

These are just examples of rewards that you can use. You can go on a picnic or to the park if you're on a budget. The choices with rewards are very open. You can even take the rewards a step further and develop monthly rewards. During a month, there's approximately 20 school days or 40 stickers. If your child has a great month, maybe you could speak with their school about a special reward to help solidify the good class room behaviour.

We noticed that Jacob's behaviour began to improve almost immediately after beginning a sticker reward calendar. When a child sees their calendar fill up with shiny stickers, it gives them a sense of accomplishment and it can help them in wanting to have good and productive days while at school. And for those of us with kids with autism/Asperger's, we know how easy their day can be off, so if a sticker reward calendar helps, then it's definitely worth it.

Not only special needs children can benefit from a sticker reward calendar. This type of reward system can work with any child, boy or girl. When Jacob was diagnosed with Asperger's at age 6 we were shocked. But the diagnosis did in fact, explain a lot about Jacob's behaviour and issues at school. A sticker reward calendar was an effective way to modify his behaviour positively. Now that we've been using it for 2 school years, we can't imagine not having it. We've even began giving a new calendar to Jacob as a Christmas gift each year. This way he'll always have a new calendar for back to school. The entire calendar/sticker purchase is under $20 and that's with a years worth of stickers. So try it out, and if it works, it sure beats buying all those Nintendo DS games.

My website is called Jim's Autism Blog and together, my wife and I express our feelings associated with the ups and downs of raising a child with Asperger's syndrome. Here's the link to our blog
http://www.jimsautismblog.blogspot.com

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Schools and ABA Training

When a school of any kind seeks to meet federal mandates about inclusion they often have to consider ways of upgrading the staffs education. This is one of the primary reasons that schools seek out ABA training. This is a type of training that uses the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis to develop teaching strategies for children with disabilities like ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders). It is actually the primary method used when any sort of research is done on the development of treatments for Autism, and is considered one of the only effective therapies currently available.

Remember, the ABA training itself is not going to actually be applied to the student, but will instead give the teacher the tools that they need in order to identify some of the reasoning for a student's behaviors and to then formulate a teaching strategy that can help to alter any negative behaviors. A good example of ABA training at work would include a student with a tendency towards anti-social behaviors and the parents and teachers who used their ABA training to develop a treatment plan.

Let us say that this child had always shown a tendency towards isolated play time and had failed to develop adequate language skills. The parents and teachers who had received the training would have learned how to observe that child for any indicators of the reasons for the behavior. They would then apply their learning to create a plan for positive reinforcement of the behaviors desired, and a precise teaching strategy to begin training that child to learn how to behave in a more productive and meaningful way.

For instance, the parents and teachers might observe that the child preferred to play with a certain set of toys. This is information that could be used to begin teaching that child about the value of communication with a peer. Once that child begins to show signs of a change in behavior, such as seeking out a parent or teacher to play with the preferred toys, this would then be expanded upon to include an ever-widening set of peers or playmates. In this way, the child would have received positive reinforcement of their behaviors and also learned how to communicate more.

Naturally, it isn't as simple or straightforward as that, but the use of ABA training is going to give both the parents and the educators the tools or skill set that they need to get the best results possible.

Garrett Butch is the father of a 6 year old with autism and the founder of Maximum Potential Group.

Maximum Potential has developed courses that train parents, therapists and school systems how to work with children with autism.

http://www.maximumpotentialkids.com
http://www.abatrainingcourse.com

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The Remarkable Value of School Autism Training

It is vitally important for any type of school to remember that inclusion is now the standard policy, and that any teacher interacting with any students should know precisely how to help them in the most productive ways. Things can get a bit complicated though when ASD enters into the equation.

This refers to Autism Spectrum Disorders and covers a range of developmental, communication and social interaction disorders that can range from mild to quite severe. Often, a school will have only well-trained special education staff that is qualified to serve a population of students with ASDs, but this is currently considered to be unacceptable by most educational authorities. Fortunately, there is school Autism training that can be used by teachers, staff, and even parents to help a child with any form of ASD.

This school Autism training should focus on the techniques and approaches that have been proven to work the best for young people with ASD, and should help to teach them the necessary behaviors or skills that are so often a challenge to children with ASD. The National Institute of Health in the United States has done many studies and conclusively stated that Applied Behavioral Analysis, or ABA, is one of the best systems to use when seeking to teach and treat children with these conditions.

Luckily, there are school Autism training programs that actually focus in on ABA strategies and principles, and which provide teachers or parents with a much deeper understanding of the issues. For example, a high-quality school Autism training program would provide its students with information about Autism and its associated issues; a thorough understanding of ABA approaches; and then train the teacher, staff or parents in the best ways of using the techniques.

Consider that some of the traditional therapies used by special education teachers do not fall under the description of ABA, and even a highly-trained professional may not be aware of the ways of most effectively implementing the ABA approach to the broadest spectrum of students possible. For example, a teacher may not realize that incidental teaching is just as important and relevant to an ABA program as the more structured times. This situation arises due to the underlying factors of ASD, and may make it difficult for child to automatically or spontaneously learn behaviors or skills in the ways that traditional teaching allows.

When school Autism training programs are used, the entire range of teachers and staff will be able to be far more effective, and even parents can be included in workshops and training sessions.

Garrett Butch is the father of a 6 year old with autism and the founder of Maximum Potential Group.

Maximum Potential has developed courses that train parents, therapists and school systems how to work with children with autism.

http://www.maximumpotentialkids.com
http://www.abatrainingcourse.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Garrett_Butch

Asperger's And Transitions

Transitions are often a major challenge for those with Asperger's. I witness this first hand with my nine year old son and see the amount of stress and anxiety he endures when he faces change. For example, this past Christmas break he enjoyed two quiet weeks at home mainly playing with his new toys, one play date, and a couple of family gatherings. For the most part his social interactions were limited and kept to small groups or one on ones. All of this came to an end after the first week of January and he returned back to school. The transition back to school was difficult for him and resulted in a minor melt-down. His senses were on overload, especially his audio with frequent requests to turn the car radio off that was barely loud enough to hear in the first place. His stomach was unsettled for a good week as well. His teacher commented that the first week back was a struggle for him. He had had great success at school with regards to his social development for the month of December. I guess two steps forward and one step back in this case. Most of us do not like change, but for those with Asperger's Syndrome that can be a huge understatement. I guess the final message I am trying to drive home is firstly, anticipate the struggle your child/student may have when a transition is ahead. Give them lot's of warnings and instructions for the forthcoming change. Show some compassion and understanding for this period as you know it is only temporary as your child/student adapts to the new routine. Half way through the second week back to school things seemed to have balanced out and my son appears to have settled back into his school routine and all the social challenges involved for a child with Asperger's syndrome. Transitions can be events like the one I mentioned above to less complex situations such as changing class rooms for the next subject at school. It's important to remember, the actions of one child with Asperger's will seldom be the same for the next Asperger child as many will handle transitions differently than others.

Some strategies you can adopt to help your child/student with Asperger's syndrome and coping with transitions include:

• Lot's of warnings about the upcoming change.
• You could act out or role play the upcoming event.
• Visual aids such as a daily schedule at the child's desk.
• A timer so they can countdown and prepare for the next event.

For more tips and information on helping your child or student with Asperger's Syndrome you can visit http://www.understandingaspergers.ca

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Accepting Autism to Become an Effective Advocate

Did you sense how your identity changed when you became a parent? At the moment of birth or adoption, our lives are never the same because once a parent, always a parent.

Despite the fact that our self-identity shifted once Mother Nature inaugurated us as mom or dad, this new role is not necessarily a fixed one because our children will always impact it.

As a mom or dad we may go from being a working parent to a stay at home parent (or vice versa), from a girl scout parent to a hockey mom, from an elated parent to a stressed parent and back again, but 'being a parent' will remain constant.

Some of the roles we take on as parents are chosen by us but there are times when roles are given to us that we may not like and can do nothing about. We cannot go to the store and exchange our position of night time soother when our infant is up all night with an ear infection for something else and we can't decide we don't want to be parents anymore.

If we are given the role of being a parent of a special needs child, a child with Autism, we can't refuse to take that role. We can kick and scream and pretend it is not happening, we can wallow in self-pity for a while but the sooner we accept our call to action, the sooner we will be able to consciously mold this role into something more effective and easy to take on.

To make the best of any situation our goal as parents is to transform a negative energy into a positive one. True acceptance of the role we have been assigned and the child we have been given is one of the most powerful positive energies to take hold of.

The most important motivator for any human being is to feel accepted. When we feel unconditionally accepted, by others, and ourselves it frees us from the need to justify and qualify our existence. It gives us the ultimate freedom to be real and authentic and secure enough in our skin to explore the possibilities of what we can become next.

Once we accept the reality of autism and whatever our child's challenges are, we open the door for a positive transformation to occur - for our child and for us. When we find ourselves at this threshold we are better able to envision an amazing potential and with that in our mind we are better able to advocate for our child.

Getting to the role of advocacy as a parent may not be an easy one when you have a child on the Autism spectrum but it is one that is extremely worthwhile and much more fulfilling than thinking or feeling that you are powerless and stuck in a role you didn't ask for and didn't want. True acceptance will lead anyone to uncover surprising abilities that will change attitudes and open up limitless possibilities.

I encourage you to fully embrace your role as parent of a child with special needs so you can progress to the position of unwavering advocate. Always be vigilant about limiting your expectations because doing so can unconsciously create a self-fulfilling prophecy that will constrain your child's potential. You never know what your child is capable of or how far he or she can go, so advocate, advocate, advocate, and reach for the stars!

Connie Hammer, MSW, parent educator, consultant and coach, guides parents of young children recently diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder to uncover abilities and change possibilities. Visit her website http://www.parentcoachingforautism.com to get your FREE resources - a parenting e-course, Parenting a Child with Autism - 3 Secrets to Thrive and a weekly parenting tip newsletter, The Spectrum.

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Autism Has Been Cured?

Or so the American Psychiatric Association says. The APA has a new diagnostic definition of Autism which will make the one in 110 epidemic go away. What will really happen is that the children with a higher functioning autism spectrum disorder will cease to get the help they need.

Statistics prove that early diagnosis and early intervention is key. Without the diagnosis of PDD-NOS, PDD, Aspergers, and High Functioning Autism, that help will be nonexistent for a lot of families already struggling to make ends meet. Very few insurances pay for the therapies these kids need in order to be functioning adults in society. The estimated costs for some of these therapies can be from $39,000 to $130,000. In Pennsylvania, some programs can be paid by the state with medical assistance. But, to qualify for the medical assistance, the child needs to be declared as disabled. This new definition will have these kids falling through the cracks.

Regardless of a diagnosis, children with autism-like symptoms need professional help. Teachers don't know how to get through to some of these kids to give them the help they need. Unless they are learning support teachers, they just are not taught how to deal with the behavior problems the students with autism spectrum disorders are plagued with, some times due to the stress of school.

On the other side of this debate, the new definition will weed out the children with autism-like behaviors brought on by abuse, neglect, and attention. Schools will not be allowed to make on the run diagnosis in hopes of more funding. There will be a stricter criteria that must be met for a true diagnosis.

Personally, as a mom with a teenager that has a diagnosis of PDD-NOS, this new criteria scares me. My son has a lot of behaviors that he has outgrown, but a lot that he still struggles with on a day to day basis. Without the special programs in the area, he wouldn't be doing as well as he is. But, the new diagnostic definition is a needed change because I, as a parent with a special needs child, see teachers and other adults that are not qualified to do so, make unprofessional opinions on children based solely on the child's behavior. Which is unfair to that child who has now been labeled by someone who is supposed to be advocating for all children. And that child will now be treated differently by the adults around him all because of one biased opinion based solely on behavior.

My hopes for this new development is that there will now be more money spent on therapies for the children and adults that truly need it.

Sherry Vulgamott has been married to her high school sweetheart for 24 years and together they have 3 great kids. In her spare time, Sherry enjoys being with her family and friends, reading, writing, camping, and taking care of her parrots. Sherry invites you to her blog: http://sherryvulgamott.wordpress.com/ and asks that you comment on her posts with any questions or statements you have.

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Selecting The WRONG Autism Teacher Can Be Disastrous For Your Autistic Child

If you have an autistic child, then it almost goes without saying that you want the best autism teacher that is possible so that your child is able to learn, can be taught how to learn, and not be left behind as his peers advance and mature. But have you really considered the autism teacher that the school district simple assigns to your child? If not, then perhaps you should as explained in this article.
First of all, you need to remember that your child will be spending 30 or more hours per week in the classroom. All of this time, your child is receiving instruction from their autism teacher. This instruction is much more than just basic learning as would be done for normal children, but much of that time is spent in helping the child learn how to learn, learn how to interact with his peers, learning acceptable behavior, and all done by someone who has an understanding of autistic children and their very specific needs and requirements.
As such, the autistic child will frequently look at his teacher as a role model, someone that they respect, they admire, someone who helps them with seemingly infinite patience, and someone that the child will attempt to emulate because of that relationship and respect. But this is not always a good thing if you have not looked a bit deeper into the selected autism teacher to really determine if that person is really worthy of being your child's role model.
Almost all autism teachers have been trained in autism, cognitive learning disabilities and dealing with emotionally impaired children. Many of them even have a Masters Degree which indicates that they have learned the material required at least once and should be capable of being a good autism teacher. But unfortunately, that is not the end of that story, since "academic smarts" is not all that is required to be an effective autism teacher and to be seen by autistic children as a role model to follow and emulate.
Some of the autism teachers in today's world are not worthy to be viewed as role models. Sure, they have the required "academic smarts" but they are a far cry from being the type of person that you would want your child to emulate or view as a role model for their future lives. Although it is unfortunate, some of these teachers have a character and personality outside of the classroom that is simply, putting it mildly, not the kind of person that you would want ANYONE to emulate, let alone your autistic child who NEEDS a role model to help them determine what is good, bad, right and acceptable within today's society and amongst their peers. In the role of the teacher of autism, some of these people are totally superficial, pretending to be one type of person in the classroom, but outside of the classroom they are an entirely different type of person, many times exhibiting traits of coldness towards others, consistently lying to friends and family, and feeling no remorse about hurting others that they have deceived. Is that the kind of person that you want your autistic child to view as a role model? I don't think so, and you should not think so either.
The choice is yours and much of that choice depends on the value that you place on the instruction that your autistic child receives at school, understanding that when they develop a relationship with their autism teacher, that relationship will inevitably extend into viewing that teacher as role model. I would strongly encourage you to ensure that such a person is indeed worthy to be viewed as such a role model, and you are not required to accept the autism teacher that the school district arbitrarily assigns to you.

If you are serious about getting the best for your autistic child, I would encourage you to do your research into the right Autism Teacher for your child and to do the amount of research necessary to ensure that your autistic child is receiving the maximum benefit for their learning needs. For more insights about Autism and to read a case study of two very real autism teachers, please visit our web site at http://www.autism-explained.com/selecting-the-right-autism-teacher-for-your-child/

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