- - -Sensory Activites and Ideas- - -

SENSORY DIET/ACTIVITIES

http://sensorysmarts.com/sensory_diet_activities.html

"Taste"- 4 major tastes: Taste input is perceived by our tongue but how we interpret or experience it is strongly influenced by our sense of smell. As an experiment, chew some gum until the flavor is gone, then hold a lemon under your nose; the gum will taste like lemon. Help your child with to broaden the tastes he tolerates or likes, and use strong tastes he enjoys to help arouse his sluggish system.

1. Bitter- dark leafy greens, grapefruit, pure dark chocolate, herbs, spices
2. Sweet- fruit, grains, natural sugars, milk
3. Salty- nuts, chips, pickles
4. Sour- citrus fruits (limes, lemons), sour milk products (yogart, cheese, sour cream), and substances (soy sauce, vinegar)

http://www.eattasteheal.com/ETH_6tastes.htm

"Smell"- "What does it smell like?" (GAME): Olfactory input (sense of smell) comes through the nose and goes straight to the most primitive, emotional part of the brain. So if your child is upset by something being stinky, it’s no wonder. Certain odors can stimulate, calm, or send him into sensory overload

1. roses
2. vinegar
3. cinnamon
4. vanilla
5. peppermint
6. lemon
7. perfumes
8. coffee
9. ETC.

"Proprioception" : Proprioceptive input (sensations from joints, muscles and connective tissues that lead to body awareness) can be obtained by lifting, pushing, and pulling heavy objects, including one’s own weight. A child can also stimulate the proprioceptive sense by engaging in activities that push joints together like pushing something heavy or pull joints apart like hanging from monkey bars.

1. Push/Pull
2. Weights
3. Jumping
4. Pressure

"Vestibular": Vestibular input (the sense of movement, centered in the inner ear). Any type of movement will stimulate the vestibular receptors, but spinning, swinging, and hanging upside down provide the most intense, longest lasting input. If your child has vestibular (movement) sensitivities, please work closely with a sensory smart OT who can help you recognize and prevent signs of nervous system overload.

1. Swing
2. Spin
3. Roll
4. Turn Upside Down

"Tactile": The tactile sense detects light touch, deep pressure, texture, temperature, vibration, and pain. This includes both the skin covering your body and the skin lining the inside of your mouth. Oral tactile issues can contribute to picky eating and feeding difficulties.

1. Dress up play
2. Play with textures/mixing
3. get in touch with nature! (barefoot on grass)
4. Shaving Cream
5. Oobleck (http://www.wellesley.edu/childstudy/pages/oobleck.html)
6. water play
7. playdoh

"Auditory": Auditory input refers to both what we hear and how we listen, and is physiologically connected with the vestibular sense. In addition to various types of recorded and live music, here are some ways kids and adults can get calming and organizing auditory input.

1. natural sounds
2. listening games
3. calming music

"Visual": Visual input can often be overstimulating for a child with sensory issues. Think about ways you can simplify the visual field at home or school for a calming, organizing effect. Alternately, if the child seems “tuned out” and doesn’t respond easily to visual stimulation, add brightly colored objects to encourage visual attention. For example, a child who has trouble getting aroused for play may be attracted by a brightly painted toy chest filled with toys in appealing colors. A child who seem unable to watch a ball as it rolls may be able to watch it if the ball lights up or makes noise as it moves.

1. avoid clutter
2. seating arrangements (front of class vs. back of class)
3. avoid clothes, toys, colors that are distracting

It Takes Two To Talk- The Hanen Centre

The Hanen Program is currently used in our county preschool programs. Hanen has many programs, and the one that we use most often is "It Takes Two to Talk". This program has three main objectives:

1. parent education


2. early language intervention


3. social support.

Check out the Hanen Centre Website for more information regarding "It Takes Two To Talk", and other Hanen Programs available!!

http://www.hanen.org/web/Home/HanenPrograms/ItTakeTwoToTalk/tabid/76/Default.aspx

Social Stories for Students with Autism

http://autism.healingthresholds.com/therapy/social-stories

Social Stories!!!!

A great idea to use with students with Autism...or any student who needs help with transitions or with understanding concepts (real life, social situations, academic concepts, etc). Social Stories are a great teaching tool! Boardmaker or other picture icon/symbol softwares can be used to create social stories, along with actual pictures, drawings, anything that will help your students!Check out the link above for more information and great ideas!

***Enjoy***

Autism Videos

http://www.autismspeaks.org/video/index.php

Autsim Speaks is a great site. Information for warning signs, early intervention, involvement, advocacy, etc. Click the link above and see some informative and encouraging videos!!

Boardmaker Uses in The Classroom Enviornment

Boardmaker is a computer software program that allows individuals to create picture icons/symbols for a variety of words and phrases. The picture/symbol icons can be use for a variety of purposes; teaching visual learners, scheduling activities, communication exchanges, matching activities, reading introductions, etc. Boardmaker has numerous uses and can benefit a variety of individuals of all academic levels.
Boardmaker has been very beneficial in my classroom environment. Teaching preschoolers with Autism can be challenging, especially when the students have little or no verbal abilities to communicate needs and wants. Using boardmaker to create visual icons/symbols paired with written words has greatly and positively affected my students’ abilities to communicate as well as follow directions.
I primarily use Boardmaker for students to communicate (exchanging pictures to make requests) and for visual schedules. For my students who are non-verbal, I was able to use Boardmaker to create a variety of picture icons to be used for communication purposes and for other learning concepts. I was able to make a variety of food icons for our breakfast, snack, and lunch items throughout the week, along with pictures of things the students thoroughly enjoyed (i.e. toys, food items, animals, activities). For students who had limited cognitive skills, we were able to provide a limited amount of pictures to choose from, and we directly taught the students to make choices and to make requests for items and food they desired. Higher functioning non-verbal students were able to choose from emotion icons to communicate their feelings.
Visual schedules were also created using Boardmaker. Many of my students use visual schedules to aid them in transitions throughout their school day. By using Boardmaker, I was able to create classroom master copies for all of our activities throughout the school day. All students who are in need of a visual schedule have been taught to “check their schedule” independently and to take each icon off their schedule and match it into an icon pocket at each activity. Not only has this greatly decreased negative transition refusals, it has also provided a sense of independence for my students. Students are provided with a transition signal (timer), and are now able to check their schedules independently.
Boardmaker has also benefited my high functioning students who are transitioning to Kindergarten by providing interactive reading exercises and sentence stem activities. I have used Boardmaker to make letter identification activities, word matching activities, sentence structure activities, opposite activities, association cards for matching games, and numerous other activities that help my students stay actively involved while learning a variety of academic skills.
I have nothing but positive things to say about Boardmaker. I currently use Boardmaker v.6 and for my Autism Preschool classroom, it has been greatly beneficial. I have used it in collaboration with our Speech Therapist, as well as with general education teachers. Some of my students are dual enrolled in Special Day Classes and General Education Preschools. With the help of Boardmaker, my students have been able to actively participate in the general education preschools by transitioning and following directions using their individual schedule that have been created by myself in collaboration with their Gen. Ed preschool teachers. I also provide my parents with copies of our master icons for them to use at home with their children. This has also been greatly beneficial, because it allows students to have consistency both at home and at school! Boardmaker has been beneficial for most of my students throughout my 3 years of teaching this program!!

Resources:

http://www.mayer-johnson.com/products/boardmaker/

http://region2library.org/boardmaker.htm

http://www.ceo.woll.catholic.edu.au/home/jdavies/access/boardmaker/boardmaker.html

Great Site for Teachers who work with students on the Autism Spectrum

This website provides great information! There are sample lesson plans to view, ideas of how to create the most beneficial classroom environment, gives basics regarding adaptations, and provides a list of valuable resources to search for other beneficial information!

http://autism.lovetoknow.com/Lesson_Plans_for_Autistic_Children

***PhotoStory***

PhotoStory...This was such a big help for one of my students! I have a student who is very impulsive and has a lot of difficulty with transitions. I used the PhotoStory program to give him another type of schedule for his day in my classroom, and we took pictures of him and myself doing activities that we do everyday. I also made a social story for him to look at on his way to school. He has it memorized. When he arrives to school, he immediately goes to our computer station and we watch his PhotoStory picture schedule and label each activity as it shows on the slide. The music I used was for only him. He likes music, where as some students would be very distracted by it. It has helped him start of the day calm as well. As we watch the short 1 min and 30 second PhotoStory, I brush his arms and legs. It is a perfect time for him to calm down before any activities take place. So beneficial!

Resource: http://millie.furman.edu/mll/tutorials/photostory3/index.htm

Simple and Very Effective Tool to Help With Handwriting

One thing that I have found helpful is to break all of the crayons in half :) This was something our OT suggested for a student who had difficulty with fine motor tasks, especially handwriting. Preschoolers hands are little enough to do a fisted grasp very easily on a regular sized crayon; however, when you break the crayon in half, it almost forces them to use the pincer grasp/tri-pod grasp to hold the crayon. We use this when they first start out learning how to hold a crayon/writing utensil and slowly fadie the crayon prompt by using a bigger crayon or by using the Pip Squeak Markers (I think Crayola makes them) for the next level of writing can help them become more independent.

Interactive Reading Books!

One thing almost all of my students have enjoyed is our interactive beginning reading books. These books have categories anywhere from letters uppercase and lowercase to emotions to actions to sequencing. Picture Icons are used to tell the story or to teach the concept at hand, while also teaching concepts of print. As the student turns the page, I have them choose the picture that matches the concept or the story sequence (either out of an array of 2 or out an array of 5 depending on skill level), and they match the picture onto each page to create the story. This has also be used to teach sound-symbol correltation with most of my students. It gives them something to do and something to complete for each page, which helps my students with Autism stay focused by having a beginning and an end for each concept or each page.

Interactive Reading Books by Greenhouse Publications! We have the following books in my classroom: How Many?, What Color is it?, I Go To School!, Things I do at Home, Action!, Sounds good to me!, The Ups and Downs of Opposites, How do I feel?, I have feelings, too!, What happened and why?, Who's First?, Meet the Word Family, What's it for?, What do you say?, What do you do?....they have been great teaching tools for a variety of levels. Some of them are similar to social stories, and each book can be used in more than one way depending on the student's level. The website has information regarding pricing!

I've made a lot of sentence stems for my students using boardmaker as well! I purchased a small laminater for my classroom and we are able to laminate them and use velcro with a variety of picture icons for them to create different sentences! I love Boardmaker!!

http://www.greenhousepub.com/

Ideas to Teach Math Concepts in Preschool

In the preschool, we have a mixture of students. Some need discrete trial to learn new skills, while others seem to learn better in small groups with movement, games, and music are involved. We use touch math to teach beginning math concepts (1-1 correspondence). My students really enjoy when we have our number block game. We have a cube that has plastic pockets on each side. We put written numerals and big flash cards with dots and take turns throwing the block (its soft!) in the air and either identifying the number shown when the blck drops, or performing 1-1 correspondence with the dots. I have also used a talking calculator with one of my high functioning students who is transitioning into general ed. kindergarten next year. He is a visual and auditory learning.

PLUK and The Federation for Children with Special Needs

http://www.pluk.org/AT1.html
http://fcsn.org/index.php

PLUK stands for Parents, Let's Unite for Kids. PLUK, (http://www.pluk.org/AT1.html) along with The Federation for Children with Special Needs ( http://fcsn.org/index.php ) combined efforts to create a “Family Guide to Assistive Technology”. The site was edited by Katharin A. Kelker, Ed.D. It is a production of Roger Holt, ATP and was illustrated by Karen Moses in 1997. This site is a beneficial site for families of individuals with special needs. It gives a great overview of how using technology early in an individual’s life can be significantly beneficial to the individual and gives information for parents to becoming advocates of Assistive Technology for their child. It seems that many parents expect the educators and therapists to be responsible for their child’s equipment, but this site shows the parents how they can be effective team members for getting information and equipment for their child, based on their child’s needs. Along with providing information for parents to become advocates for their child regarding assistive technology and equipment, the site gives information regarding types of assistive technology, examples of when assistive technology is appropriate, scenarios that parents can relate to, and factors to consider when determining what Assistive Technology to use. Any student with a disability would benefit from having parents as advocates, and students who need assistive technology would benefit from having parents at advocates for equipment!

• http://www.nsnet.org/
• http://www.nsnet.org/atc/tools/
• http://www.nsnet.org/atc/tools/lowtohightech.html
  (Low Tech Assistive Technology and High-Tech Assistive Technology)

The site http://www.nsnet.org/ provides links to help support students and adults that have a disability. NSNET is run by Nova Scotia Community Organization Network. The site provided a “Tool Box” that was full of; “Assistive Technology Tools, Tips and Tricks” This was prepared as a presentation by James Roy, a Coordinator for Technical Resource Centre (TRC) in Waterville Nova Scotia. This site benefits all students and adults with “Learning Disabilities and Cognitive Challenges.” In the site, the list of Low Tech Assistive Technology and Mid-High Tech Assistive Technology was great because it provided specific examples in a list format. This was a great site for my parents who were interested in the types of Assistive Technology, because it was a list that was easily read and followed. The site also broke down different types of Assistive Technology for different areas of concern (i.e. Writing, Spelling, Reading) Students who have SLP, Autism, MR, and Orthopedic Impairments would benefit from Assistive Technology listed on this site (depending on the individual student’s needs of course!)

::USEFUL SITE::

Assistive Technology for Children with Autism

http://www.specialed.us/autism/assist/asst10.htm

This site is very beneficial to parents and educators of students with special needs; especially students with Autism. The most widely used and known Assistive Technology for students with Autism are visuals. Visuals can be used as daily schedules, reinforcement systems, choices, pictures exchanges for communication, and can be anything from actual objects, to pictures of objects, to picture icons to represent objects. “Boardmaker” is referenced on the site, http://www.specialed.us/autism/assist/asst10.htm and is described as a “user-friendly program for both adults and children [that] offers a 3,000 Picture Communication Symbol (PCS) library in either black/white or color, and can be accompanied by any written word/message.” Boardmaker is a great program that can benefit students. For example, in my classroom we use pictures schedules and icons all day, everyday. The information regarding the different types of visuals (i.e. real objects, photos, lined drawings, etc.) was beneficial to myself, my staff members, and the parents of my students, and we have become more aware of all of the visual techniques we use throughout our school day in our Autism Preschool. This information has helped my parents begin to incorporate visuals in their home environments. As an educator, I have been able to use Boardmaker to provided picture icons for the families of my students, so we can focus on transition goals and communication goals in the home and at school! The information regarding visuals has also given my parents more comfort in using visuals in general. Along with information regarding visuals, the article was written by Susan Stokes under a contract with CESA 7 and funded by a discretionary grant from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Susan Strokes, an Autism consultant , gave great basic information of what Assistive Technology can be used for and why it is beneficial. Students with MR, Orthopedic Impairments, and SLP would also greatly benefit by using visuals throughout their school day.

**Lil' Fingers Storybok Site**

Came across another great site that I can use for my preschoolers! This site has pre-made interactive storybooks, games, coloring books, and other learning activities. I especially like the ABC Mommy and Me, and I'm excited to use it with a few of my students who are learning the letters of the alphabet, receptively and/or expressively!! Not only will it help my students progress in their Reading programs, the interactive story books can also be used as a teaching tool for computers and mouse use. Fun!

http://www.lil-fingers.com

A website I have found some great ideas at for the Preschool Level!!!!

http://www.childcareland.com/free.html

This site was listed under our Resources section in SPED 671 from California State University, Chico. Assistive Technology Specialist, Glenda Anderson listed this website and while browsing the Resource section on Visita, I discovered it and am sooo happy I did! There are so many great ideas for art work, themes, and a variety of activities that can be incorporated into my students' programs on an individual level! I found ideas to use for small group instruction, individual one on one work stations, art, and for our independent work station. Great Site that I wanted to share :)

**Thanks for sharing it was us Glenda!**

Talking Power Point Project

This assignment sure added a lot of stress into my life lol. I've done power points many times, but have never had to narrate a story or add sound. After scanning all of my pictures for my book, I took my voice recorder, downloaded my narrations for each page onto my computer, then inserted them into each corresponding page. I thought I was done....but little did I know that 1) my pictures were too large and took up too much memory to post my ppt onto the Vista website 2) that my sounds would not work on other people's computers because they weren't embedded or linked into the power point itself. So...I basically started from scratch, and uploaded each picture, then compressed the sizes, and added them into the power point. Then I was informed about the narration piece, which was super simple, to get my voice on to each corresponding page. After all the stress, numerous phone conversations (Big thanks to Judy and Megan!!!!), text messages to various friends with tech knowledge, and emails back and forth to colleagues regarding all of the random issues I was encountering...I figured it out :) And even with all the stress...this is something I will actually use in the future, because it turned out to be pretty simple after I knew what I was doing!

So...Tabby Tiger's Treats is one of my students' overall favorite Big Books at circle time. I decided to turn this assignment into an activity that can be done at an independent listening station to help teach early reading skills, concepts of print, directionality, and independent learning strategies.

...Refresher...

This past week was our February break. It was a week off from work, which allowed me to get caught up with my school work and spend some quality time with family. I love my job, but it can be stressful at times. Teaching the Autism preschool for the county, we are constantly receiving new referrals, doing assessments, and there are new students added to my case load throughout the school year. To say the least...this February break was very much needed :) But, I am ready to see all my kiddos again on Tuesday!!!

Intro to the classroom/students I teach!!

Just a little background about my myself and my teaching position...



First of all, I have my degree in Psychology, and which is how I started off with Tehama County Department of Education. I had recently moved from Connecticut (where I went to college), and applied and got a job as a Behavior Interventionist with TCDE. Since I had quite a bit of previous experience working with a wide range of ages of children, and had taken a ton of classes regarding Applied Behavior Analysis, Development of Children, Psychological Assessment, etc., etc., I thought I would come into the job with some knowledge....I was WRONG!



For the first few months, I was able to observe a wide range of students with disabliltes and of all ages, 3-22. Some who were primarily mainstreamed, some who were never mainstreamed. Some with aggressive, negative behaviors, some who needed to learn daily living skills for the future. The observations really made me think, and realize just how exact the term IEP was!



So, after numerous observations and trainings on Discrete Trial Teaching, PRT, Reinforcement, etc., I was put into a classroom full of Autistic preschool students for a summer session. This is where my love of working with these kids started! After just four weeks of extended school year, I was amazed at each and every one of the kids I was able to work with. I was introduced to the idea of applying to a internship teaching program at Chico State...the Autism preschool teacher was moving, and her position was open...



Needless to say, the following school year (just 2 months after my first hands-on experience with the preschool kids), I found myself going through the requirements to get apply for the Education Specialist Internship Program at Chico State!

This is the 3rd year I have taught in the very Special Education Preschool classroom that I started in! I have had the opportunity to work with over 30 children over the past 3 years, and have enjoyed every one of them!

My classroom is an early intervention classroom, primarily for students with Autism. I do have some students who have OHI, MR, and Speech and Language Impairments as well. My classroom is very structured, very visual, very hands-on, very positive, very busy, yet, every student is different and every day is different. All of my students are taught using Discrete Trial Teaching and PRT. 80% of them are on a picture schedule, 100% of them are on a reinforcement system (i.e token boards), 100% of them are able to communicate, just not in the same way (i.e. using pictures, pointing and gesturing, single word labeling, or muliple word utterances with the ability to ask and answer questions!), and 100% of them are unique and wonderful to work with!!

The student to teacher ratio is fairly equal...Most days we have 1:1, and at the very most we have 2:1. This allows for more progress in many areas. We work on everything from communication, to academics, to gross and fine motor, to behaviors/transitioning, to social skills, to toilet training, to self-feeding. You name it, if it's a need, we will find a way to help that kiddo become more independent!

Throughout the 3 years, I have met many wonderful families, and I truely enjoy getting to know each family, and working with their wonderful children!