Let's Talk About STRESS---Do2Learn Can Help

Individuals with Autism have a really hard time labeling their own emotions and the emotions of other people. There are many ways to approach the challenge of teaching this vital skill and Do2Learn has designed a wonderful set of materials and activities that can be used at home, in the classroom, small group, or one-to-one setting.

Home Emotion—is the way you often feel when alone with no input from anyone else. D2L has a great Emotional Check-In/Check Out worksheet for use in the classroom as the students enter and exit each day.

Emotion And Scenario Cards—D2L offers 3 Levels of FREE printable cards to be used with individuals in role playing and learning more about emotions in different scenarios.

Signs of Stress—it can be very helpful for individuals with Autism to be able to identify the physical signs of stress. This way if they can identify those signs it may help in preventing meltdowns. Do2Learn has a wonderful worksheet to assist in going through Psychological Responses to different feelings. I recommend having a word bank for the individual to chose from with words that are familiar to that individual to make this activity less stressful.

What are Stress Triggers—what makes your student stressed? D2L's worksheet is designed for the individual or a parent to complete.

The worksheets above are great to use periodically during the year as benchmarks to see how on individual is making progress towards a goal. Often teachers will use these during IEPs to provide information to the rest of the IEP team in a structured and organized way.

Below are more worksheets available under Do2Learn's Social Emotional Skills section of their website. All of this material has been made available to you FREE of charge. You will not that there are explanations for how to use the materials and suggestions on what type of paper to use, when warranted. 

Please see our website to check out the rest of the worksheets that will assist you in teaching about STRESS and then ways of relieving that stress.  You be happy to have discovered a structured way of doing so.

Find Do2Learn Products at the ASNC 2012 Conference

I was at the main office of the Autism Society of North Carolina (ASNC) in Raleigh, NC today for several meetings and had the opportunity to run into the Bookstore while I was there and chat with Dawn Eberwein, the Bookstore Sales Specialist. She was packing up stock to set up the “mobile” bookstore at the ASNC 2012 Conference to be held in Charlotte, NC on March 30^th – 31^st. What a huge task that is for Dawn, because the ASNC bookstore is the largest non-profit, ASD specific bookstore in the United States and she was having to choose a good cross section of what conference attendees would want to purchase to have there on site.

I was excited to see that she had quite a number of Do2Learn products packed and ready for purchase. So if you are planning on attending the ASNC 2012 Conference, make sure you go and see Dawn at the Bookstore. You will be able to pick up the following and more!

• Feelings & Emotions Activity Book

• Feelings Journal (blog post 2/22/12)

• Special Needs Handbook for Teachers (blogpost 2/19/12)

• Fine Motor Skills Activity Book (blog post 2/14/12)

• Faceland (blog post 3/10/12)

If they have sold out of our products at the conference or do not have exactly what you are looking for from Do2Learn, remember that you can always order directly from us when you return. We hope you all have a great time!

Flash Cards—The Power of Something Simple

We had a great question on our Do2Learn Facebook page earlier this week regarding flash cards. One of our followers asked if we offered flash cards on our website. Yes, we do and I will give you the link to get to those in a bit. This question got me thinking about my first flash card experience, at least the first one I could remember. Those multiplication tables! Man, did they give me a hard time. My parent's tried all the educational tricks they could find. They used the grid, then some crazy finger trick for the 9's, but what finally worked was a good old set of flash cards that we went over and over again. I am sure my teachers and parents used flash cards to teach me things before those dreaded multiplication tables, but those earlier memories did not stick like this one. I did learn from that experience though and continued to use flash cards throughout my educational career to learn many subjects and prepare for many tests. I also loved using them with each of my daughters as we learned things from shapes, to letters, to symbols on the periodic table.

Why do flash cards work so well for all of us when we are trying to learn something new?

• You can take them anywhere. Flash cards are just that portable!

• You can study one-on-one with your student/child or turn it onto a group game/activity. Studying can be a lot of fun with flash cards.

• Flash cards make it easy to sort out what is already known from what needs more work.

• All ages of learners use flash cards. Toddlers to college students use them in learning!

Do2Learn has put together several sets of flash cards for you to download and print to use with your students/children. They can all be found here on our products page. Two of my favorite sets are the Preposition Flash Cards and the SignLanguage Flash Cards.