When working or living with a child/adolescent with an Autism Spectrum
Disorder, meltdowns may occur that may be a result of sensory overload,
cognitive overload or due to inability to self-regulate emotions. This
full day seminar will provide many practical hands-on strategies to:
- Increase positive and acceptable behavior while decreasing undesirable behaviors
- Prevent meltdowns, tantrums, rages
- Provide suggestions for instructional consequences and self-management techniques to help prevent another melt-down
- Provide a system of visual supports throughout the day
- Demonstrate how to use high focus and interest areas as incentives
- View videos and demonstrations using these techniques
This
information and fun-packed seminar is designed for parents, educators,
therapists and all those who are interested in providing supports to
children/adolescents with an ASD, ADHD, behavior disorders or other
disabilities.
Why you should attend
Do you work with children
or adolescents with autism who exhibit behaviors that interfere with
their ability to effectively and efficiently navigate their environment?
They may appear willful, obnoxious, overreactive, anxious, or unfeeling
or withdraw. They may lose control of their ability to cope or regulate
their behavior which can send them spiraling into a meltdown. You may
feel helpless, frustrated, and powerless after each meltdown.
Drawing
on 45 years of experience and research based strategies, Kathy will
lead the viewer with many practical strategies to prevent the meltdown,
as well as intervention strategies and how to address post-vention
strategies. Many videos demonstrating the examples will be presented to
help support and demonstrate the strategy.
Areas Covered in the Session
Participants will be able to:
- Identify the stages of a melt-down
- Distinguish between a meltdown and tantrum
- Differentiate between punitive consequences and instructional consequences
- Brainstorm an instructional consequence as a result of a behavior
- Identify whether statements about autism are myths or facts
- View practical strategies for Social Stories, Power Cards, t-charts, keychain rules, reminder
Cards,
breathe charts, emotion cards, SOCCSS, and many other visual strategies
to meet the needs of the persons who are on the Spectrum or may be
experiencing similar characteristics or needs.
Who Will Benefit
- General Education and Special Education Teachers Serving Students on the spectrum grades 6-12
- Administrators (Principals, Assistant Principals, Deans)
- Diagnosticians
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Parents
- Paraeducators
- School and Clinical Psychologists
- Speech Pathologists
- Occupational Therapists
- School Nurses
Kathy Kaluza Morris has been an
educator for 45 years specializing in autism and behavior disorders as
well moderate to severe cognitive disabilities. As a speech therapist
for students with severe disabilities, a teacher of students with
behavior disorders, including autism and emotional disturbances, she was
mentored and supported by many national/international experts from whom
she gathered many practical experiences and suggestions which she
implemented. Her favorite classroom was a self-contained classroom for
students with severe physical disabilities, including cerebral palsy.
There she was attracted to technology and assistive devices to help
support communication and independence. As a resource teacher and
regular education teacher, she was concerned with the lack of including
students with disabilities and she was an advocate for more inclusive
strategies. She was also a diagnostician and a supervisor that started
two of the first LIFE Skills programs in Texas. In Texas there are 20
education service centers which support school districts in their areas.
Kathy was the autism, behavior and assistive technology consultant for
42 districts, providing seminars and technical assistance across all
grade levels.
She left the service center to continue her
doctoral program in educational psychology and started her own business,
igivuWings, providing seminars and technical assistance nationally as
well as internationally for the last 20 years.
Kathy and husband,
Guy, “walk the walk and talk the talk” after the birth of their twin
sons 32 years ago with autism and cerebral palsy. It has given them a
360 degree perspective of life as parents of children with disabilities
as well as of educators.
08:00 AM PDT | 11:00 AM EDTSession 1 (90 Mins):- Schedules
- Surprise Cards/ Change of Schedule Cards
- Warning Signs of an Eruption
- Tantrums vs Meltdowns
- Meltdown Cycle
Tea Break
Session 2 (90 Mins):- Social Scripts
- Video Modeling
- Neuroanatomy of the Brain
- Implications
- Mirror Neurons
- Sensory Overstimulation
- Levels of Talking
- Power Cards
Lunch Break
Session 3 (90 Mins):- Physical Structure
- Social Stories
- Anxiety Management Strategies
Tea Break
Session 4 (90 Mins):- Classroom Examples
- Reminder Cards
- SOCCSS
- T-CHARTS
- Cartooning
- Instructional Consequences
