Just Different

Fireworks for New Year’s Eve are a worldwide tradition. I, for one, love New Year’s Eve because it is a holiday celebrated by the entire world, as far as I know. But imagine if you have a sensory sensitivity or get overwhelmed by excess stimulation. Fireworks shows could be completely terrifying. If I put myself in the shoes of someone with autism, I imagine that by could be scared out of my mind, completely confused, and baffled by the reactions of other people.  I wrote a social story to help with this sort of situation. My goal with this book was to help kids understand why fireworks are being used—people think they are exciting and use them to celebrate various events—and how they can cope around fireworks.  One page of the book In book the book, I explain what may seem obvious to us, but not to a child: that fireworks will not come near you or hurt you. Some strategies mentioned that a child can use to cope with fireworks are: * keeping a comfort item with them * wearin...

Autism awareness month For our students with autism, there are a few areas of need that can be unique (compared with other students in the classroom). I like to focus on safety, communication and social skills, just to name a few. Here are some resources for those needs.  And it's a SALE!! APRIL 5 - 8!! Safety The National Autism Association reports this startling statistic:  “In 2009, 2010, and 2011, accidental drowning accounted for 91% total U.S. deaths reported in children with an ASD ages 14 and younger subsequent to wandering/elopement.” [Autism & Safety Facts. National Autism Association. Web. 9 May 2016.] Print and laminate this book to pre-teach children what to do around water. Clear and simple illustrations help students focus on the main point. Repetitive text helps students remember what to do. At the end are five comprehension questions to check the students’ understanding. The story and questions are also available on Boom Learning:  Communication If yo...

Social stories are an evidence-based practice (EBP) for working with students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (autism). There are plenty of social stories out there on TPT or blogs for almost any situation you can come up with. Then... you have a kid that breaks the mold. But who are we kidding? When you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism.  So here are some tips for writing a social story tailored to a specific need. (I'm also shamelessly including examples from a social story I wrote that is available on Teachers Pay Teachers and Boom Learning. ) 1. Think of a specific problem that you encounter with a child or a class of children. Phrase it in concrete terms for yourself. 2. Come up with concrete steps for a student to follow in that situation. What appropriate behavior should the student do?  3. Write concretely and concisely. 4. I suggest using repetition . Kind of like how I keep using the word concrete . 😁 5. Make sure that you end w...

If I had a dollar for every time I heard myself say, "nice hands!" I could retire now. Anyone else feel that way sometimes??  One difficulty is that we don't want to ignore something hurtful that a student does to another student because the child on the receiving end may feel that their feelings are not being acknowledged. So planned ignoring / extinction is not possible at those times. However, I have some other ideas for you. Remember that understanding the function of the behavior is key! Then when you know the function, here are some strategies to deal with hurtful hands. 1. Positive practice If a student hits another student, you don't want to ignore it. You can have the student practice doing something better, like a hi five. Have them do it 3-5 times, then they will be tired of it that positive practice! 2. Social skills group game Make up a simple game practicing nice hands. This is me making up a game right now: play some music and tell the students when t...

Teaching students to have appropriate behaviors in the classroom is important. Having staff who are strong in their understanding of functions of behavior is crucial to teaching students! I've created a slide presentation that can help with that.  I'm taking advantage of extra time we have during remote learning to help my staff brush up on their knowledge of behaviors.  Here are some sample slides from my presentation:  Get this product here . After you have taught your staff about the functions of behavior, you can quiz them on their knowledge with this quiz. 

More Social-emotional skills! Yay! This actually is really fun for me to teach. Because it's so concrete. After teaching students appropriate things to do with their hands, students can use  this worksheet  to practice what they have learned. They can cut out and paste pictures on the correct side of the T-chart to show whether that activity is showing nice hands or not nice hands. Buy it  here  for $0.95

These  behavior posters  are one of my more popular items on TeachersPayTeachers. There are three basic rules which each have their own poster. On each poster, there are more illustrations so that students know exactly what each of rules looks like in action. Buy this product  here  for $0.99.