In observance of the holiday season, CeDIR will be closed to the public starting at 4:00 p.m. today. We will re-open for library circulation on Monday, January 3rd at 8:00 a.m.
Happy Holidays!
17 December 2010
15 December 2010
Autism-Friendly Austin
Want to get away to a warmer climate this winter? Got a child on the spectrum? Try Autism-Friendly Austin, Texas! The state's capital is a fun, vibrant city with thoughtful people and thoughtful rooms. Thoughtful rooms, you ask? Check out this blog post from National Geographic:
13 December 2010
Coloring Outside Autism's Lines
Looking for family-friendly adventure that includes a child on the spectrum? Written by a mom who has a child with autism and a set of twins, Coloring outside Autism's lines: 50+ activities, adventures, and celebrations for families with children with autism can help. Find out what works best for your family. Suggestions include:- Unconventional backyard fun: zip lines, trampolines, tree stumps, and even exercise bikes!
- Easy ways to adapt public places such as bowling alleys, ice skating rinks, and swimming pools into stress-free outings
- Surprising activities that can lead to lifelong interests
- Dreaming big: there's a world of amusement parks, water slides, camping, and other family getaways that are truly within reach
- Special activities for grandparents and extended family members
- How to team up with other parents to maximize the fun
10 December 2010
How do I teach this kid to read?
Coming from a special educator with over twenty years of experience, the book How Do I Teach This Kid to Read?: Teaching Literacy Skills to Young Children with Autism, from Phonics to Fluency reminds us that reading is so much more than words on page. Get help with teaching phonemic awareness, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency to young children. This book also includes a CD that has:
ABC Books Text-Picture Matches Songs, Chants, and Poems Word Webs Visual Organizers Sentence Builders And many more!
Interested? Send us an email at cedir@indiana.edu, or you can use worldcat.org to find it in a library near you.
Interested? Send us an email at cedir@indiana.edu, or you can use worldcat.org to find it in a library near you.
09 December 2010
Teaching Life Skills
Written by Jennifer McIlwee Myers, Aspie at Large, the book How to teach life skills to kids with autism or asperger's will make you laugh and make you cry. Most importantly, however, it will help you understand that children on the spectrum will function better as adults if they learn basic skills, from personal hygiene to punctuality. Learn how to:- Create opportunities for children to learn in natural settings
- Teach vital skills such as domestic tasks and being polite
- Improve time management skills, and more!
Interested? Send us an email at cedir@indiana.edu to check out this title, or try worldcat.org to find it in a library near you.
03 December 2010
Gluten-free kids
Email us at cedir@indiana.edu to check out this book, or tryworldcat.org to find it in a library near you.
02 December 2010
The best kind of different
The best kind of different: Our family's journey with asperger's syndrome is written by Shonda Schilling, wife of the former Boston Red Sox pitcher, Curt Schilling. In this book, Shonda chronicles her life with her baseball husband and their four children, one of whom is diagnosed with asperger syndrome at the age of seven. She retells their journey of discovery and her anguish at having missed the cues that something was not quite right with her son.Interested? Send us an email at cedir@indiana.edu to check out this book. You can also use worldcat.org to find it in a library near you.
01 December 2010
Good Job by Dan Coulter
What’s your child with Asperger Syndrome going to do for a living?
Too early to start thinking about that? Really, it's not. While your ten year old or teenager doesn’t have to immediately choose a career, he’s much more likely to find and keep a job when the time comes if you start preparing him in two important ways.
First, assess any social skill deficits your child has and help him work to overcome or mitigate them. Many people with superior job skills have trouble getting hired or staying employed because they lack basic social skills.
Second, expose your child to a variety of jobs and careers. Don’t apply pressure to have him pick a job or even a career field, but make it an interesting topic of conversation. Take him to see people working. Your goal is to have your child find something that sparks his interest so he tells you what he wants to do with his life. From my experience, when a child with Asperger Syndrome latches onto a special interest, you don’t need to do any pushing.
If your child can find a career field that aligns with that special interest, it could be his ticket to an independent livelihood. Of course, you may have to be creative in helping him see a way to capitalize on that interest in a job. Try turning it around, "Gee, look how doing this job would let you do the thing you love."
If your child still has challenges with social skills when he starts a job search, you want an employer to willingly provide reasonable accommodations because your adult child demonstrates he’ll be a valuable employee.
He can also seek a job that’s in high demand but has little competition. For example, I recently heard an interview with Joel Leonard, who calls himself "the maintenance evangelist." He points out that few young people are going into the building maintenance technologies and that buildings are being maintained by older people who will be retiring at an increasing rate in the years ahead. He sees a coming crisis. If your child has a mechanical or electronic aptitude and can make that the focus of his education, he might find a multitude of building maintenance engineer openings with supervisors willing to accommodate some odd behaviors. You can seek out similar "high demand" career niches that might suit your child.
If your child finds dealing with other people especially difficult, he may want to look into jobs that are not "people intensive." An online listing of such jobs I saw recently included accountants, computer programmers, writers, budget analysts, medical transcriptionists, actuaries, and forensic science technicians.
Self-sufficiency is an important goal for children who have Asperger Syndrome. If you can begin a positive, low-key campaign to help your child be "job ready" when the time comes, you’ve managed one of the most important tasks a parent has.
Good job.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR -- Dan Coulter is the producer of ten DVDs about Asperger Syndrome and autism, including "Manners for the Real World: Basic Social Skills" and "Asperger Syndrome at Work." You can find more articles on his website: www.coultervideo.com.
Copyright 2010 Dan Coulter All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
Too early to start thinking about that? Really, it's not. While your ten year old or teenager doesn’t have to immediately choose a career, he’s much more likely to find and keep a job when the time comes if you start preparing him in two important ways.
First, assess any social skill deficits your child has and help him work to overcome or mitigate them. Many people with superior job skills have trouble getting hired or staying employed because they lack basic social skills.
Second, expose your child to a variety of jobs and careers. Don’t apply pressure to have him pick a job or even a career field, but make it an interesting topic of conversation. Take him to see people working. Your goal is to have your child find something that sparks his interest so he tells you what he wants to do with his life. From my experience, when a child with Asperger Syndrome latches onto a special interest, you don’t need to do any pushing.
If your child can find a career field that aligns with that special interest, it could be his ticket to an independent livelihood. Of course, you may have to be creative in helping him see a way to capitalize on that interest in a job. Try turning it around, "Gee, look how doing this job would let you do the thing you love."
If your child still has challenges with social skills when he starts a job search, you want an employer to willingly provide reasonable accommodations because your adult child demonstrates he’ll be a valuable employee.
He can also seek a job that’s in high demand but has little competition. For example, I recently heard an interview with Joel Leonard, who calls himself "the maintenance evangelist." He points out that few young people are going into the building maintenance technologies and that buildings are being maintained by older people who will be retiring at an increasing rate in the years ahead. He sees a coming crisis. If your child has a mechanical or electronic aptitude and can make that the focus of his education, he might find a multitude of building maintenance engineer openings with supervisors willing to accommodate some odd behaviors. You can seek out similar "high demand" career niches that might suit your child.
If your child finds dealing with other people especially difficult, he may want to look into jobs that are not "people intensive." An online listing of such jobs I saw recently included accountants, computer programmers, writers, budget analysts, medical transcriptionists, actuaries, and forensic science technicians.
Self-sufficiency is an important goal for children who have Asperger Syndrome. If you can begin a positive, low-key campaign to help your child be "job ready" when the time comes, you’ve managed one of the most important tasks a parent has.
Good job.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR -- Dan Coulter is the producer of ten DVDs about Asperger Syndrome and autism, including "Manners for the Real World: Basic Social Skills" and "Asperger Syndrome at Work." You can find more articles on his website: www.coultervideo.com.
Copyright 2010 Dan Coulter All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
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