Free Printable Why Questions Book for Children with Autism, ASD, PDD

Printable Why Question Book for Children with Autism
by Jamie Sue Austin
Free Printable Fun

Children with autism often struggle with "wh" questions like Who, What, Where, and Why. My son struggles with all of these, but I think his not being able to understand "why" is the most frustrating for both of us. There are books out there designed to teach children with autism to answer "wh" questions. My son's speech therapist uses the Buddy Bear books from Lingui Systems. They are kind of expensive so I decided to make my own versions of them.

My son's nick name is Monkey so the main character is a monkey and since it was written for him it addresses come common occurrences in our house, but it should still be of some use for others. The book addresses three "why" scenarios: "Why" Monkey wants an object, "Why" Monkey is wearing an item, and "Why" Monkey has a particular thing.

This is an interactive book. On the last two pages are images for you to cut out. You are to have the child apply the appropriate image to the story as you read it. I recommend laminating the story pages and cut outs and using velcro dots to attach the pieces to the story.

Printable Why Question Book for Children with Autism PDF

How to article on using Printables to teach children with Autsim

Here is an article written by our favorite printable expert, Jamie Sue Austin. It is posted on the How to site, which also seems like a great resource for information

How to Use Printables to Teach Children with Autism

By Jamie Austin

Teaching children with autism can be difficult at times. Autism affects how a child processes information. Repetition is often the best way for children with autism to learn something new. Teaching materials specially designed for children with autism can be prohibitively expensive. Printables, online items that can be printed for free, can be used to create folder games, PECS cards and picture schedules for children with autism. Explore various ways to use printables in your daily lessons.

Instructions
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Step1
Use printables to create folder games. Folder games help easily illustrate key concepts for children with autism. Folder games are usually comprised of a variety of images which a child can match or manipulate to achieve a goal. For example, to teach a child with autism about animals and their habitats using printables you would search online for clip art of various animals and pictures of various habitats that those animals would reside in. A picture of a frog would match with a picture of a pond. Print out and cut apart all the images. Glue the images of the habitats to the inside of a manila folder. Have the child match the images of the animals to the correct habitats. Use clear laminate, contact paper or packing tape to protect the images.

Step2
Use prinables to create PECS cards. PECS, or Picture Exchange Communication System, cards are pictures used to convey information. A child who cannot verbalize his needs can use a picture to communicate with others. PECS cards can be found online and printed out for use with the child. PictureSET and MESEnglish are two excellent resources for printable PECs and PEC-style cards.

Step3
Use printables to create a picture schedule. Picture schedules help maintain order during a multi-step activity and help reduce anxiety for children with autism. Knowing what comes next in a sequence can help children with autism more easily transition from one aspect of an activity to the next. Print images that can be readily identified by the child and arrange them in order to create a picture schedule. Use a picture schedule to convey an entire day’s worth of activities or as a visual reminder to help the child complete a multi-step activity like using the bathroom. Do2Learn has many free printable picture schedules.

Step4
Use printables to improve coloring and writing skills. Many children with autism need extra practice when it comes to correct writing grip. Printable coloring pages can be found on almost any subject. Giving a child with autism coloring pages on subjects that interest them can help motivate her to practice coloring and writing skills.

Step5
Use printables to improve cutting and pasting skills. Many children with autism need extra practice when it comes to cutting with scissors and pasting. Cutting and pasting are important skills for all children and are a prerequisite for surpassing early education. By using printables focused on subjects that interest the child, the child will become more motivated to improve his cutting and pasting skills.

Free Printable Autism Resources

MouseTrial Autism Software
Fun animated online exercises to help kids with autism

All the items on this page are completely FREE for you to take away, reproduce and distribute as you wish. They are ideal for use on autism-related web sites or for inclusion in information packs for parents and carers. Feel free to take whatever items seem useful and email them to any friends who might find them useful. There's no need to contact us before using these materials (although you are more than welcome to email us if you have any specific queries).

MouseTrial Software
Don't forget that you get lots of free goes in the MouseTrial software itself. Please don't be shy about using up all of your free goes, - that's what they're there for! Each individual game (or "submodule") has its own quota of free goes, so don't give up just because you've run out of goes on the first game you try!

Free Printable Classification Game

Free Printable Classification Game
by Jamie Sue
Free Printable Fun

Autistic children often struggle with classification. Knowing what things go together and understanding under what situations those items go together can often be challenging for autistic children. My son sometimes struggles with this. Recently a visitor named Missy contacted me via the Plugoo widget on this blog to request help in finding a printable that addressed classification.

I looked around, but to be honest, I couldn't find anything. If anyone knows of any good resources I'll be sure to list them. I think part of the problem was not knowing what to search for. I tried "category game" and "classification puzzle" and various combinations involving those words and I even broke down and searched for "things that go together" but I didn't come up with anything printable. I did find a nice board game similar to the one my speach therapist uses named (guess what?) Things That Go Together (looks like they couldn't figure out what to call it either) that was very reasonably priced. Considering how much laminating sheets are it might be worth it just to buy a copy of the game.

In the mean time, here is my version of a classification game:

Classification: things that go together puzzle in PowerPoint
Classification: things that go together puzzle in PDF
Classification: things that go tother classification puzzle high res original images for resizing at home .zip

Thanks to Jamie Sue for this wonderful article about Classification systems and creating fun game. Seems categories are not an easy topic and may be worth collecting more resources for. If you have any suggestions or links please feel free to pass on your information to us and others.

Jax Chachitz

Printables to understand the July 4th holiday for kids on the spectrum

Free printables at Family Education has a host of printable options for July 4th. I think using printed materials are a great visual reference and really help kids with Autism get the idea of a holiday celebration. When concepts branch across several avenues then this helps to generalize concepts. Here are just a few that I think are appropriate. Besides printables celebrate by decorating cupcakes or making jello or ice pops, visit a low key event or join in a parade, dress up the kids with red white and blue and join in your local festivities. Happy 4th of July! (I tried to only have ones that were more creative and not just your typical flag.)

Fourth of July Word Search
Printable. Celebrate America's independence with this printable Fourth of July word search.

Patriotic Resist
Printable. Create wax resist works of art using paint and crayons.

Patriotic Hat
Printable. Children create a patriotic hat that will be sure to show off their American pride.

Egg Carton Uncle Sam
Printable. Create an Uncle Sam sculpture and recycle egg chttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifartons at the same time!

Star Design
Printable. Create a picture using the stars and stripes as basic elements.

Mobile of people
Printable. Children can make a mobile of patriotic people by following the directions in this arts and crafts printable.

Patriotic Design
Printable. Everyone will enjoy this collage art activity.

Special Days
Printable. Employ a printable activity that helps build skills in recognizing names of U.S. holidays.

Teaching Children with Autism Categories, Free Card Games

Free Printable Categories Game
by Jamie Sue Austin
Blog: http://freeprintablefun.org/

Jamie Sue Austin has written a game for Categories of objects. Sometimes a difficult concept for kids on the spectrum to generalize.


Categorizing objects into groups (for example: a chair, a couch, and a bed are all furniture) can be difficult for children with autism. Understanding negatives (i.e. this is not food) can also be a struggle. I created category cards to practice these concepts. (If you have problems downloading the cards from that link try it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?isyzmt2hddt)

There are several ways to play:

Sorting:

Print the cards and cut them apart. Help the child sort the cards into categories.

Flash Card Games:

1. Place three of the four cards in a category in front of the child (i.e. three food items) show the child two more cards, the remaining category item (such as food) and a non-category item. Ask the child to pick the one that goes with the cards in front of them.

2. Place two cards in front of the child (i.e. an apple and a mouse) and ask the child to identify which card is not the other (which one is NOT the mouse?)

3. Place three cards in front of the child, two of which will be of the same category, the third one which is not (i. e. an apple, a sandwich, and a bed) ask the child to identify which item does not belong (which one is NOT food?)

Category Memory Game:

Place all the cards face down. Have to child flip over the cards one by one. Try to match categories.

While you are learning about categories Do2Learn has a nice little "what's different" game on thier site. :)

Teaching Children with Autism: Printables Can Help

By Jamie Sue Austin
Blog: Free Printable Fun

Autism is a neurological disorder that usually becomes apparent by age three. It typically causes delays in developing communication and social interaction skills. Autism currently affects 1 in 150 kids.

My son has Autism. He is an intelligent, energetic, and adventurous four year old boy. However, like most Autistic children he struggles with some basic language and speech concepts as well with understand social cause and effect. He is currently enrolled in speech therapy to help him improve his language skills. Teaching children with Autism requires a lot of repetitive instruction and learning materials that break complex social interactions or parts of language down into simple parts. Most of the resources that our speech therapist uses to teach my son come from specialized clearinghouses of special needs educational tools and are visual aides. Some can be prohibitively expensive for the average parent to purchase.

When my son had difficulty learning his prepositions I developed a printable based off of the resources his therapist was using. It worked very well. I began to incorporate other printables into our daily lives. I wrote a blog post about some of the printables I used and recieved a lot of positive feedback from parents.

Printables provide a wonderful free resource teaching children with Autism. Through my searches online I've found that there are free printables available to teach almost any concept. Some require only a small amount of modification and others require a great deal of creative thought. I use printables to teach speech and social concepts.

There are many times that I can't find the printable I want. Last year I wanted to teach my child what type of clothes to wear during what weather. We were struggling to keep him from walking outside in t-shirts during the winter! I couldn't find a printable that conveyed this lesson well. BUT, I did find an awesome picture of a little boy named Tommy at Learning Pages (free membership required). Tommy is the main character in "Tommy Tales", a free online book series available on the Learning Pages website. I used Tommy to create a folder game. My son and I spent time arranging weather conditions and clothing around and on Tommy until we had learned the concept. I encourage parents of Autistic children to create the printables they need when they can't find what they want. Or you can email me, and if I have time I'll create one for you. If you want a copy of my version of Tommy you can download it here, but keep in mind that I am most likely in severe copy write violation of the good people at Learning Pages. ****If you represent Learning Pages and would like this printable download removed just email me and I will do so.****

In this folder game I taught site words using clip art. We first started matching the pictures themselves. Then matching the words to the pictures. We ended with gluing the words under the correct pictures. Clip art is another great resource for making printables to teach any number of subjects. Good clip art (like the kind that comes from English as a second language websites like MES-English.com) can even be used as PECS. I've also used clip art to explain concepts like "Little" and "Big." I still have that printable if you need it you can download it here. The resolution wasn't very good on the clipart so of course the images are kind of fuzzy. But, it works just as well.

Printables are great for teaching children with autism conventional knowledge as well. My son and I just spent a whole day exploring frogs using printables we found online. When teaching about a subject I usually like to include a book, a craft, a puzzle or coloring page, and an activity. All of the information, ideas, and materials I needed to teach my son about frogs were available online and I managed to fill an entire rainy Saturday with froggy fun.

Don't underestimate the power of the humble printable in teaching children with Autism. Printables are a powerful tool for parents and educators. I will be creating and uploading more printables for teaching autistic children so book mark me.

Free Printable Emotions Game for kids with Autism from Free Printable Fun Blog

By Jamie Sue Austin
Blog: Free Printable Fun

Children with Autism often have difficulty recognizing and identifying emotions. They often miss the facial cues that other people rely on to gauge the moods of others. This printable emotions game is designed to help identify emotions on the faces of others.

How to use this game:

Print one copy of Emotions Bingo from either the PowerPoint or PDF file you downloaded. Cut out the blue circles on the last page. Call out the name of an emotion and challenge your child to place the blue circle in the correct spot. The child wins when either all of the emotions are covered or when three emotions in a row are covered (your choice.)

Other Uses:

Print one copy of emotions Bingo. Cut apart the game and use the squares as flash cards. Have the child draw various faces (happy, sad, disgusted) on the blue circles and match them with the flash cards.

Print one copy of Emotions Bingo. Cut apart the game and use the squares to play "memory." Place all the cards face down and have the children turn the cards over to find a matching pair of feelings (two sad people for example.) If the cards do not match turn them face down again. Continue until all cards are paired.

I would not consider this a beginning game for a child with Autism. I would suggest introducing emotions in the form of PECS first. This game serves to bridge between PECS and real life interpretation of emotions.

Printable Emotions Game for Autism PowerPoint

Pritnable Emotions Game for Autism PDF

FYI: Images were obtained from Flikr under the Creative Commons, modify, adapt, build upon, and commercial licenses where ever possible. If an image belongs to and you would like it removed please contact me.

RESOURCES ONLINE:

ABCTEACH: Has a nice collection of free printables for that would be useful in teaching emotions to autistic children available in several languages. My favorite flashcards on their site are here.

Austim-PPD.net: Has an active and wonderfully educational forum devoted to autism and PPD. Many great members work hard to provide each other with the resources they find. Here is a fabulous post giving links to emotion games and learning activities.

Edupics: Has some cute printable coloring pages focused on emotions. A lot of the pages have an Anime feel and would be suitable for a slightly older child.

Do2Learn: I can't say enough about Do2Learn and their AWESOME printables. But, have you checked out their games? The "Feelings Game" is an awesome companion to FreePrintableFun's Emotion Bingo and "Facial Expressions" is a great way for kids to learn how to identify a person's emotions.

This interesting printable from TeacherVision has children draw a face to match the feelings described in the sentence below. These flashcards from Happy Discipline are a quick print.

Enchanted Learning: Is a subscription site, but they do have nice printables. The printables are very well done, but I come across so many free printables that I haven't found justification for subscribing. However, if you are low on time this might be the one stop shop you've always dreamed of.

MES-English: Again, this site, which was originally design to teach English as a second language, shows how well designed their learning materials really are. They are perfect for teaching autistic children!

PictureSET: Actually, I couldn't find PECS for emotions on here, but I bet they are. There are SO MANY AWESOME visual aides that would work great for autistic children on this site, for free, that it's really unbelievable and deserves a special mention.

Thanks to Jamie Sue Austin for her wonderful blog called Free Printable Fun Blog

Puzzles for kids on the spectrum

Free Printable Jigsaw Puzzles
by Jamie Sue Austin
Blog: freeprintablefun.org

Here are some additional resources for people looking for printable jigsaw puzzles. I created a few puzzles using Photoshop. Nothing fancy-- just generic kitten, puppy, pony, and landscape puzzles. Of course if anyone needs a specific printable jigsaw puzzle I'm glad to take a crack at it.

Download Printable Jigsaw Puzzles
from Jamie Sue Austin : freeprintablefun