What a wonderful last few weeks we have had at Spectrum Autism Services! We are so grateful for the Stafford community for welcoming us with open arms and for supporting the opening of our clinic!
In addition to providing one on one ABA therapy, our clinic, located at 35 Walpole St #204 in Stafford, Virginia, also offers both Full Day and Half Day Programs for children ages 2-5.
Our Board Certified Behavior Analysts, Registered Behavior Therapists, and certified teachers will develop individualized programs for your little one with ASD.
At the bottom of this blog post we list recommended books to read with toddlers who have ASD
Reading to our children is a time-honored parenting tradition. Experts in education and child development are continuously touting the benefits.
These research based benefits include*:
increased communication skills,
a larger vocabulary
stronger child-parent bonds
enhanced imagination
Although they are eager to share this bonding experience, parents of children with autism can often be at a loss when it comes time to engaging their children during story-time. Here are a few of the techniques we have found to be successful with many or our earliest learners and most resistant little readers:
Begin by:
Limiting distractions
Sitting face to face
Reading while your child is seated in a confined space such as a high chair or child-sized desk
Read developmentally appropriate picture books – Children with ASD tend to be very visual and vibrant pictures may be needed to capture their attention
Touch and feel books are great for making reading a multi-sensory experience
Make sound effects when narrating the story – Remember we all learn best when we are having fun!
Additional Tips:
Pull-tabs and books with flaps can be a great way to keep a little one engaged with a story while working on fine motor skills
If you are working on eye contact and your child is highly engaged in the story, pause when it’s time to turn the page and wait to see if they will make eye contact as a request for you to continue
This is a great time to work on following a point as you gesture to interesting images on the pages
Recommended Children’s Books with Toddlers with ASD:
Summer days can be sunny and magical, but they can also leave parents wondering how to keep their kids from climbing the walls.
That’s why having a few go-to warm weather activities can make an otherwise stir crazy stay-at-home afternoon a little more enjoyable. We have found that using daily visual schedules helps ease our kids’ anxiety.
This type of home schedule can help maintain routine and predictability for your child.
There are endless possibilities for at home activities, but these are some of our household favorites!
1. At Home Obstacle Course
There are endless options when creating your own obstacle course. Consider activities you already have, that your child finds exciting, and add a few new items to keep it entertaining.
Components of an at home course:
Take advantage of any stable trees in your backyard and add a few pieces of 4×4 or wall climbing pieces to make climbing steps along the trunk of it, or attach a rope to a branch that can be used to climb up the base as well!
You can make a tree climb as complex or simple as you want! Kiddos will still enjoy conquering a mammoth tree 🙂
Take a portable slide that you might already have and add it to the “course.” Considering it’s summer weather, putting the slide into a kiddie pool makes a fun splash!
Consider the toys you already have around the house, write out the sequence of events in the course, and get racing!
2. Sensory Sandbox
Creating a sensory box can be an indoor or outdoor experience! If you are interested in a traditional sandbox outdoors, here are some fun additions to keep it exciting:
Create a summer recipe book with your child’s favorite meals or baked goods, consisting of at least 5 items that include pictures of the dish and the ingredients!
Have your child brain storm the meals and help with compiling the images into the recipe book/scrap book with you. That way, when you need an interactive activity together, they can pick out their favorite summer snacks/meals and help make them with you!
Fellow blogger Thirty Hand Made Days has some great images and details of ones she has created!
This activity helps teach valuable skills such as following multiple step instructions and team work!
5. Make A Home Garden
The wonders of new life mystify all of us, and it is especially exciting to witness it in the eyes of children!
There are many ways to begin a home garden with your kiddos. Some fun and mostly fool proof items to plant in a garden are herbs and potted plants! Some go-to favorites of ours are the following:
Tomato plants- they are exorbitantly fruitful and often produce en masse! So you won’t have to worry about “nothing showing up”! Make it a weekly outing to the garden to pick a basket full for the week’s meals!
Basil- A generally easy plant to maintain in the home or outside! The magnificent smell provides a sensory experience your child won’t want to miss! They also produce quicker the more they are plucked, so don’t hesitate to have your child pick a few leaves off each week!
Bromelaide Plant- the Bromelaide plant has many varieties, and is a simple indoor plant that can survive even unattended conditions (even though we don’t recommend that! We just know it might be easy to forget them 😉 ). Usually only needing watering about twice per week, this can be a source of beauty, nurturing, and responsibility for your child.
There are limitless options with plants and herbs for your young one to water and nurture, both indoor and outdoor! Learning about nature and adoring its resilience and beauty is fun usually for kids aged pre-school and up! Feel free to comment below with any plants your youngster loves to care for, or other go-to summer activities!
This month we are spotlighting a wonderful team member at Spectrum Autism Services!
Emily Taylor has always had a passion for working with children and helping them reach their potential. In 2016, she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from James Madison University. She then began her career in the field of Autism in the school setting by providing both classroom-based and one-on-one services at a Special Education, Applied Behavior Analysis based school in Maryland.
In 2018, she moved to Fredericksburg where she became a part of the Spectrum family as a Registered Behavior Technician.
It wasn’t until joining Spectrum that Emily truly realized her calling for working in the field of ABA. She is currently enrolled at The University of Southern Maine in pursuit of a Master’s in Educational Psychology and Applied Behavior Analysis.
Emily is extremely excited to continue her education and to inspire others to find passion in working in the field of Autism! We are so lucky to have her on our staff.
The Social Thinking® initiative creates differentiated strategies and treatments to increase cognitive development and social skills. Often applied to those with ASD, the Zones of Regulation curriculum is rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy strategies for emotional and sensory self-management. These tools can be applied from the age of four to adolescents and through adulthood to assist in conquering interpersonal social skills.
The curriculum’s learning activities are designed to help those who struggle with social skills recognize when they are in different states of mind, or “zones”, with each of four zones represented by a different color.
In the activities supplied in the book and often implemented by our ABA therapists, clients also learn how to use strategies or tools to stay in a specific zone or move from one to another. They learn and develop calming techniques, cognitive strategies, and sensory supports to provide them with a toolbox of methods to use to move between zones.
With the goal of assisting those with ASD to better understand why emotions matter and how to self-regulate, the lessons set out to teach clients the following skills:
How to read others’ facial expressions and recognize a broader range of emotions
Gain perspective about how others see and react to their behavior
Develop insight into events that trigger their less regulated states and why they feel the way that they do
Understand when and how to use tools and problem-solving skills
The curriculum includes 18 lessons with detailed questions and follow ups, worksheets, other handouts, and visuals to display and share. These can be photocopied from this book or printed from the accompanying USB.
The Red Zone describes extremely heightened states of alertness and intense emotions. A person may be elated, euphoric, or experiencing anger, rage, explosive behavior, devastation, or terror when in the Red Zone.
The Yellow Zone describes a heightened state of alertness and elevated emotions; however, individuals have more control when they are in the Yellow Zone compared to the Red Zone. A person may be experiencing stress, frustration, anxiety, excitement, silliness, the wiggles, or nervousness when in the Yellow Zone. Many individuals with ASD believe the Red Zone is the only option when their emotions begin to heighten, but the Yellow Zone is the in-between, an option to catch themselves before they escalate too far.
The Green Zone is used to describe a calm state of alertness. A person may be described as happy, focused, content, or ready to learn when in the Green Zone. This is the zone where optimal learning occurs and where we would like to come back to after experiencing emotions in another zone.
The Blue Zone is used to describe low states of alertness and down feelings such as when one feels sad, tired, sick, or bored.
The zones themselves each offer a range of emotions to accompany many situations, environmental or otherwise, however, it is entirely plausible that an individual may be in more than one zone at any given time. This could occur when someone is too sick (Blue Zone) and may also feel frustrated (Yellow Zone) that they cannot go to a birthday party. Understanding what these zones mean and how they relate to each other is the optimal understanding of the four zones.
It is important to teach that all of the zones are natural and okay to experience, but the idea of the curriculum focuses on teaching individuals how to recognize and manage the zone they are in based on their situation and the people around them.
Spectrum Autism Services LLC 