Just Different

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...

For our students that are non-verbal, it seems like you hit a wall in math because they cannot count out loud. However, ALL students can learn to count regardless of whether they are able to do so out loud. They can use their "inner voice" to count.  I have been developing some Boom cards and a TPT resource for these kids.  TPT Resource Here is a sample video of this product in use:  Boom Cards The Boom cards come in decks of 1-5 and 1-10 and there are 3 levels of each.  Level 1: This deck does not let the student put a counter in the wrong place. The highlight on the drop zone is a cue to students as to where to put the counters. Level 2: This deck allows the student to put counters anywhere on the 5 spaces. However, only the correct number of counters is provided. Level 3: This deck allows the student to put any number of counters anywhere on the 5 spaces. There are 5 counters available so they must pick the right number of counters based on the number shown at ...

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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. 

Today I begin on an adventure of poop training one of my students.   I will call him A. He is 8 years old and non-verbal. And my class is a severe needs class. This is what led me to embark on this challenge: He is able to make himself pee when he sits on the toilet. He poops regularly after eating—he usually poops twice during the school day, in the morning and then after lunch. He doesn’t like having poop in his diaper. He won’t let anyone know he pooped, but after a few minutes, he will start digging.   He gets fed by G-tube so we have control of the timing of his food and water intake.   He is highly motivated by the iPad. He will do ANYTHING for it. This is the golden ticket. He's also familiar with token boards. My main goal right now is for him to poop in the toilet. Then we can transition him to wearing underwear instead of a diaper which will help him to feel when he’s wet. Baby steps to full potty training. What we’ve been doing with h...

This is my favorite Autism product! It's a book about being safe around water . Do you know that the greatest risk to kids with autism is wandering off and drowning? It's so important to teach water safety! This book is 20% off this weekend and next! (April 19 - 22 and April 26-29)