Reach Your Child's Potential with Professional Insights
There is a saying, “love makes the world go round,” but for real it is NOT love. Instead, it is hidden curriculum that makes the world go round! Any autistic adult will tell you that not automatically understanding hidden curriculum will pose numerous social difficulties in every day life! What is Hidden Curriculum? Hidden curriculum [...]
Social interactions and conversations have rhythm and flow. Just like a beloved melody or a good joke, timing is everything. And yet, for some kids, this is just another one of those social nuances that is not salient to them. “Hey, Guess What?” Last month, I began a series of posts dedicated to promoting a [...]
Have you ever known a tattletale? You know, the kid in the class who always tells the teacher what everyone else is doing wrong? We have all known kids from our childhood who had the job of telling. I call it a job because many of my clients feel it is their duty to tell, [...]
Understanding the rhythm of social interactions is something that comes naturally to many of us, but not to all. Kids who don’t intuitively know when to “pass” a conversation along to another person run the risk of being socially isolated. Once a child gets a reputation for going on and on and on, it can [...]
I recently completed a social skills program with Chris, my 11 year-old son, geared toward teaching kids with autism and other social processing deficits the basic pragmatics of engaging in social contact with other people. We saw the usual topics: maintaining eye contact, listening to what the other person or people are saying, facing toward [...]
Learning the hidden curriculum social rules of society remains a struggle for autistics long after they grow up and leave school. For example, even though I am an over 50 woman with autism, over the past few years, I have learned a lot of new-to-me hidden curriculum items. The “hidden curriculum” refers to all the [...]
Communication is difficult for many individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Even verbal individuals with Autism can struggle with communication. It is important to remember that there is more to communication than being able to speak. I am very verbal and enjoy talking to people every chance I get. Yet I still struggle with communication. [...]
Drill, baby, drill! That can be the first instinct when you are a parent of a child with a communication or language disorder. When that child is nonverbal and you so desparately want that child to be verbal. To talk. When J-man was still nonverbal, I dreamed about hearing him say even the most mundane [...]
Children want to interact, join in, play, converse, and have friends. Those who present with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, Central Auditory Processing Disorder, and language and learning disabilities tend to have issues with social skills (pragmatic language). Many times they are isolated and ostracized by their peers because they miss social cues. They may not [...]
This title may seem abstract to you, but by this one question my life was changed. School, for me, was tough; even more so as I have Asperger Syndrome, but I wasn’t diagnosed until the age of 20. Of course, all the signs were there, but no one knew what to make of it. Special [...]
