It Is About What You Learn In Kindergarten

Yesterday we celebrated the graduation of one of Kaitlin's friends from High School. WTG class of 2012!

What was so special about this celebration was that it was a gathering of teachers, parents, and friends who had all started out together in preschool/kindergarten. The graduate himself requested this. Yes, he has Autism, but let me assure you that is just an aside, because having Autism has never once gotten in his way of achieving any dream or goal. So the goal for this gathering was a reunion of sorts and thankfully all the pieces fell into place. Oh, guess what...you know all those stories about individuals with Autism not being social? Umm, well, I think if you had been with us yesterday you would have seen those stories completely dispelled! In fact it may not have been much different from any other gathering you might have peeked in on. I take that back, it would have been a lot more fun and you would have felt much more comfortable. Here are some snippets of conversation you would have heard...

• “Miss Kat can you do those windshield wipers like you used to do in bus loop when we were little?”
• “Can you believe we both used to wear Harry Potter glasses?”
• “Oh no, Miss Laurie and Miss Carolyn didn't just take us on a train. We went all the way to Rocky Mount!”
• “Don't worry *****,  he is on his way. I just spoke with his dad and they are almost here.” Said in response to a non-verbal individual who was communicating that he wanted to see another guest really bad.
• “I am taking classes at Wake Tech and looking for a job. Your job sounds nice.”
• “Make sure everyone gets some cake now and I will share my lemonade too”
• “I graduate next year. I am going to have a party like this too, okay?”

I could go on and on, but my point is that this group of young men and women socialized together and enjoyed each others company yesterday in a way that was so typical, yet they had to work so hard to get to that point. The teachers that started this are to be applauded for all the hard work they put into these young people. Most of these young people had very little language in preschool/kindergarten and with a lot of patience, structure, and love these teachers taught these kids communication, manners, self-advocacy and more. Yep, all that in kindergarten! All with shapes, stories, songs, snacks, dances, and playground time!

What you learn in kindergarten makes a HUGE difference, so make it count!!

June 9th 2012

Eye Tracking and Autism

The research world has recently come alive with lots of information on eye tracking and how it affects those with the diagnosis of Autism. There are studies on how eye tracking can assist with the actual diagnosis and then there are studies on how eye tracking can help teachers in the classroom, like this one published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

One known fact is, if you have a problem with eye tracking, you are likely to have an issue with reading. Liken it to trying to read a magazine while riding in the back of a pick-up truck while it is going down a bumpy dirt road. That is what children with eye tracking issues experience when they are trying to read. It is a struggle to keep their eyes on the straight line of text. Their eyes may jump (unconsciously) from one line of text to the other and therefore the information they are taking in is jumbled. Eye tracking issues cause problems with information intake even when reading is not involved.

There are lots of programs available to work on eye tracking issues and Do2Learn developed one specifically for early learners many years ago. We knew the importance of eye tracking, emotions, and facial recognition, so we combined them together in a “two games in one” game pack. Fantastic Faces combines our Feelings Game and our Eye Spy game. Eye Spy teaches those early concepts of eye tracking that are so very important for children with Autism to focus on. The Fantastic Faces combo also provides trackable progress reports and printable activities. (this combo is only PC compatible)

Special Education Teachers Are Awesome!

Special education teachers have jobs that are more challenging than ever these days. There is more and more paperwork that must be filled out, even if it is on computers, it still takes valuable time to get it done. With the economy causing systems to make budgets cuts, these teachers are having to do more with less. The student to teacher ratio is beginning to change in some classes, so some teachers have more students then ever and these students have individual educational needs that must be met according to IEP guidelines. How are these teachers doing it? They are educating our students with special needs and doing a fabulous job!

• They love their students—It is obvious that special education teachers love children.

• They engage their student's parents—These teachers make sure there is a home-school connection. This may be by sending a newsletter by email, phone calls, daily notes, etc.

• They are creative educators—With each student in their class having an IEP and each IEP having individual goals, these teachers have to be creative to come up with ways of meeting multiple goals at the same time. That is the ultimate in multitasking.

• They create safe classrooms—Special educators have classrooms where their students feel safe to make mistakes as they are learning. You will often find that these classrooms are where a lot of “typical” students will gather because they feel the security within that class provided by that teacher.

• They have patience—Oh do they have patience! Special education teachers know that they may have to go over and over an educational directive many times before it finally clicks. They also know that they may have to change the approach and these teachers never give up.

Special education teachers are so incredible and so vital to our students. We know (as mentioned in our How To Spot A Great Teacher post) that graduation time is coming up soon and student teachers are in classrooms. We are grateful to those individuals who are going into special education and we have the perfect online resource to help them get started. Our Teacher Toolbox is a compilation of advice from Dr. Claire Coles' team of experts at the Marcus Institute and the Maternal Substance Abuse and Child Development Center at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

We also have the perfect Graduation gift to help them get their new classrooms started. In fact it is a wonderful resource for ANY special education teacher! Our Special Needs Handbook for Teachers will help create an organized and efficient classroom where special needs students will thrive. Resources to help students develop problem solving in reading, language and math skills are included with a whole lot more.

Making this purchase for your favorite special education teacher will be received with such appreciation. They really need all the support and encouragement they can get these days for all the wonderful ways they are providing priceless education to our children.