I went to a Tony Attwood seminar a couple of weekends back. He is a fantastic speaker and had some very interesting points.
As always seems the case the best bit was right at the end when he had finished the official presentation and was answering some questions from the audience.
Regarding Aides at School.
Tony recommended not changing Aides at the beginning of the school year when there is already so much change occurring. Rather wait until mid year if there needs to be a change.
Also after 2-3 years there should be change of Aides so that the child does not become too dependent on the one familiar person.
Homeschooling
Homeschooling saves lives – his own words there. If you have a child on the autism spectrum who can not handle the pressures of school, then leaving them in the school environment could lead to suicide, or relief of anxiety through drug use.
The worst years at school are apparently 7,8,9 (which is the first 3 years of secondary school here in Australia). That seems to be the years of the worst raging hormones also so it made sense to me.
Interestingly Tony Attwood said that Mum should not be the teacher, she has enough work being Mum. Now I assume this would also relate to Dad if Dad was the primary carer. Did leave me wondering exactly *who* would be the teacher.
He recommended a homeschooling routine of formal type education in the morning and then in the afternoon getting out and pursing a special interest or some other activity that will put the child in social situations. This way the social curriculum of school is still addressed.
He also mentioned that 10% of ASD kids will not have a special interest – which is certainly something we’ve noticed with Heidi, either that or she has not developed a strongly focused special interest as yet.
Emotions – Facial expressions
This one I like and we have done something similar in the past with Heidi.
Scrapbook emotions – use pictures of family members expressing those emotions, add pictures of items that cause child to feel that emotion. Also read Mr Men books that relate to that emotion and listen to music that matches the emotion.
Tony Attwood recommended the Mind Reading CD Rom by Sasha Baron Cohen – I’m still trying to recover from the price tag on that one!
Fear
Finally in relation to a question about fear of going on school camp – to conquer fear an ASD child needs knowledge. Make sure you prepare the child with as much information as possible when going into a new situation. Also try for shorter duration when first trying something and make sure you compliment success.
There was lots and lots of great information in the formal presentation as well but as I said these bits at the end really were the most interesting.
Maybe over our upcoming school holidays I might work with Annie and Heidi on an emotions scrapbook.
6 responses so far ↓
Jayne // June 22, 2009 at 9:50 am |
That’s interesting about the Aide – Feral Beast’s Aide was contracted to the school until he was in grade 6 and the employment was entirely dependent on the funding FB received from the Ed Dept, tying the two of them together – so the principal informed me when I began homeschooling FB and the school had to continue employing the Aide at their own expense.
I think the old adage had come true with his Aide, the old ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ as she was dismissing a lot of things that needed better attention, etc.
Amanda // June 22, 2009 at 10:27 am |
Thanks Marita – as a student teacher, I find this very interesting.
Mistress B // June 22, 2009 at 4:06 pm |
Tony will be around our way in late August talking about managing feelings and challenging behaviours as well as strategies to reduce bullying and teasing. I’m thinking I really need to get to that. Every bit of info helps right?
widdleshamrock // June 23, 2009 at 12:35 pm |
I don’t want to sound like a homeschooling Nazi. I think Tony probably says not to have Mother as the teacher to placate all the eduaction people who come to his seminars. I can imagine he can’t be seen to be backing it. Some teachers/teacher aides feel quite threatened to think that the untrained parent is capable of educating their own child. Most parents wouldn’t be able to hire a tutor. (Though, one on one, you wouldn’t need 6 hours a day of ’schooling’)
Squadron from Aussie Bloggers Forum // June 25, 2009 at 11:28 pm |
Fantastic post and so clear. We recently got a dog. Best thing that has happened to our 12 year old son with Aspies.
Son and dog doing really well. Love and care for each other.
Puts school in perspective.
leechbabe // July 4, 2009 at 10:28 am |
I wish we could have pets at our rental property. When we eventually move to house of our own we will get pets.
Kids need something to put school in perspective.
BTW Squadron your comment landed up in the spam box. Sorry for taking so long to find them there.