Tell me A Story

I wanted to share a cute deck of cards that I find visually appealing as well as clever in terms of starting a story and randomly moving forward to expand in various sorts of directions. Its an imaginative activity that can inspire all sorts of stories. Sparking the imagination. Visit eeboo.com or find out if your local toy store has the various eeboo products.

Asperger's on Arthur!

Apparently there will be a character on PBS's Arthur with Asperger's Syndrome.

Here's one character explaining it to another

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0TyHLWEhII

eSpecialMatch.com – A Social Network for Special Needs!

What is eSpecialMatch.com?

eSpecialMatch.com is a social networking site dedicated to connecting the families of children with special needs and the professionals that serve them. The goals of eSpecialMatch.com are to:

1. Create a community where families can find information, support, friendship, and appropriate peers for their children
2. Connect families with service providers (therapists, doctors, etc.)
3. Help service providers connect with others in their field and across fields for professional development

About eSpecialMatch.com
Mike Radicone, founder and creator of eSpecialMatch.com; A social network dedicated to families with special needs children and the professionals who serve them. But before we get into the wide range of resources this website can offer, here is a brief bio of the founder and creator, Mike Radicone.

After earning a Masters in Special Education, he began working as an Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapist in private home sessions. Throughout his career as an ABA therapist, he serviced preschool and school-aged children with a wide variety of special needs including Autism, Aspergers, Down Syndrome, Speech/Language disorders, ADD/ADHD and Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD), to name a few. His background consists of extensive private school and public school teaching (mainly in a self-contained capacity) where parent interaction and training are at the forefront of responsibilities. In addition to teaching, he currently speaks at educational conferences, provides training to parents and teachers, facilitates social groups and transition special needs students to new schools.

Over time he has met many amazing families who have put a great deal of time, money, and effort into providing the best experiences they can for their children. Several families expressed the challenges they faced in finding other families that have children with similar needs to their own, and specifically in locating social peers, therapists, and information. One day it clicked and he decided to introduce two of these families to each other and, in a short period of time, noticed some very positive results. The children, with different degrees of disabilities, were able to interact with each other and the adults had an opportunity to share information, experiences, and ideas. They continued to keep in touch and set up play dates, no longer needing me to facilitate the meetings. This sharing of information and bringing people together through their personal experiences is the premise behind eSpecialMatch.com.

Please review the website and take a few minutes to create a profile and join the eSpecialMatch.com community! Connect with other families, share stories, blog with a therapist and take advantage of the many other resources that eSpecialMatch.com has to offer. Your feedback is valuable so please contact info@especialmatch.com with your comments/questions.

eSpecialMatch.com – A Social Network for Special Needs!

Weekly Art Projects for kids with Autism, Special Needs

Sometimes a little bit of inspiration and creativity can create awesome moments to share with your child with special needs. Some days you just need a little lift and a guiding push. Weekly Art Projects is an email delivered to you once a week with quick ideas to get your creativity rolling.

After completing a project, you can email us the results and we'll post to our blog for everyone to see and share inspiration.

Join the Weekly Art Projects list by signing up for our email newsletter. A weekly email encouraging creativity and inspiration. A new art project via email every week

Weekly Projects will:

* stir creativity for both you and your child
* bring inspiration as you both enjoy the activities together
* solve boredom
* give you somewhere to "start"

Our hope is that with a weekly jolt of ideas we can individually inspire our kids. Together we can enjoy being creative while inspiring them to come up with great ideas on their own. Some ideas will be an exercise in being silly, a new perspective and others will be works of art!

We will post the Weekly Art Project to this blog as well as email out the Weekly Project. Simply sign up and enjoy!

Causes of Autism Survey

Causes of Autism Survey
by Autism Coach

We invite you to complete our brief survey on what you believe caused your child or you to be diagnosed within the autism spectrum.
In 2004, I surveyed Autism Coach customers to determine what customers believed was the cause of their child's autism. 
Five years later, in 2009, we now have 1 in 91 children diagnosed between the ages of 3 and 17 diagnosed within the autism spectrum.  We need to know more than ever what is causing this high incidence of autism. 

If you could email back your responses to autismcoach@comcast.net, you can help others by sharing your history and story.
Because everyone these days is strapped for time, I'm keeping it short:
1.  I believe my child's autism diagnosis or my own diagnosis was caused by (if you select more than one, please list in order of priority):
A.  Immunization of child, if yes, please specify which immunization(s)
B.  Genetic condition
C.  Environmental toxins (downwind from a coal fire power plant, living in a heavily polluted area, etc.)
D.  Immunization of parent (during pregnancy or in the military, for example)
E.  Illness (of child or parent during pregnancy)
F.  Other (if other, please specify)

Please feel free to share your story, as this information can help other parents make decisions concerning their children. 
Optional questions for parents, if you have time:
2.  What year was your child diagnosed?  At what age?
3.  When did symptoms first appear?
4.  How old is your child now?
5.  What diagnosis does do they currently have?
6.  How are they doing in school, home, and/or work?
7.  What therapies, supplements, other strategies do you feel were most helpful?
8.  What therapies, supplements do you feel did not make a positive difference or were harmful?
9.  If you are a parent or guardian and had one piece of advice to give a parent or guardian whose child was just diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, what would it be?
Optional questions for adolescents and adults diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder:
2.  What year were you diagnosed?  At what age?
3.  When did symptoms first appear?
4.  How old is you now?
5.  What diagnosis does do you currently have?
6.  How are you doing in school, home, and/or work?
7.  What therapies, supplements, other strategies do you feel were most helpful?
8.  What therapies, supplements do you feel did not make a positive difference or were harmful?
9.  If you had one piece of advice to give to another person on the autism spectrum and one piece of advice to a parent whose child had just been diagnosed on the autism spectrum, what would you pieces of advice be?

To my surprise the 2004 survey ended up being included the Wikipedia Autism entry for several years.  Evidently no-one had bothered to ask parents about their own observations concerning their children.

This is an opportunity for you to have a voice  and share your story.  It is intended to be filled out by parents or guardians of children diagnosed with the autism spectrum.  It may also be filled out by adolescents or adults who are diagnosed within the autism spectrum.

For those of you who choose to respond, thank you for sharing your stories and by doing so helping others in the autism community.  The responses will be made public on the Autism Coach web site.  We will be accepting responses through November 30, 2009. 
If you answered the 2004 survey, feel free to respond again - your contribution made a difference and will do so for 2009 survey! 

Again, to complete it, just email your response to the above question or if you have time the additional questions to autism.coach@comcast.net. 

Thank you again,
Sue Bennett
Autism Coach