Autism Home Learning

Prolonged lock-down and closure of schools may mean that this year's summer break feels overwhelming. Structuring the day and planning activities may feel more challenging than usual. My next series of posts offer some summer tips which will hopefully help to make the summer more manageable and enjoyable.  The summer break can feel overwhelming at the best of times, but when the summer follows on from months of home-learning it is not surprising if you feel anxious, stressed and not knowing where to start. This first tip focuses on how to structure summertime days, with an emphasis on keeping it simple. The secret is to try to find the right balance between providing the structure your son or daughter needs and at the same time making this manageable so that you can have some time to get on with chores, or dare I say to take a break! You son or daughter may already use a schedule at home, or have been using one during home-learning. It may well be that they need the same lev...

If your son or daughter needs to have a COVID-19 test, preparation is essential.  Explain my procedure COVID swab testing video with clear visuals and subtitles This is an important time to use a visual schedule, providing clear information about the sequence of activities and indicating what will follow when the test is finished. In this example the young person can see that they can take their stress balls to squeeze during the test. Boardmaker symbols TEACCH Tip #17   provides some good suggestions for how you might explain the process, find it here: Preparing for COVID test and includes how to use: visual step by step instructions social narrative or social story distraction toys or activity visual countdown for the test This TEACCH tip includes Downloadable stories for testing at home, at the doctor's and at a drive-through. These can be adapted according to the situation and your son's or daughter's needs. Finally, make sure there is a cl...