Autism-World

I homeschool my son who has autism and I just cannot afford to purchase those kit products. So I make most all of his educational/therapy materials for the treatment of autism.

How I make the visual materials of autism is that I purchased a simple print artist software or print shop software. You can buy these types of software programs that are basically really inexpensive. I also use paint program that was installed in windows XP or if you have photo suite or similiar program really helps also. These programs have everything that broadmaker has and is not limited as that software program is.

I use Google.com/image search for pictures that I need. When you type in a word for a picture that you need, you will get hundreds or perhaps thousands of pictures to choice from. I just copy and paste onto the paint program to adjust the size, or tweek the picture by erasing the background if need be so my son just pays attention to just the item that he needs to. I save those to my documents and retrieve them for my print shop software when I turn those pictures into communication boards, reading picture flash card, ABA cards, verbal behavior cards and all sorts of visual materials that the autistic child needs.

After I print out the pictures, I cut them out and glue them onto a poster board and use clear packaging tape to seal them to make them durable.

I have created so many different things for the autistic child that has really helped him the most; such as picture calendar system so he can predict when events will happen and the weeks a head and how to use a calendar, learning the year, months, names of the week and numbers of the month. He runs this calendar with very little help from me. Then I have a transition community ring binder that has all his community outings for a picture schedule system, picture communication system, visual work systems that gives him information in how to accomplish things like going grocery shopping, to purchasing favorite item at the check out and a money section so he know how to pay for those items and it also has a reinforcement section that keeps him motivated to want to finish his community demands.

I also made him many jig-saw puzzles of (9 peice) of die for community outings and use that to reinforcement him for appropriate behaviors that I have targeted that goes with his calendar system. So every time he does the appropriate behavior, he get one piece of that puzzle and when the puzzle is completed he gets to do that community outing. This has greatly improved his severity of behaviors and really reduced those challenging behaviors down to where it can be managable.

It takes a lot of work to make these visual materials, but these are things that you can not purchase in any kit nor buy in any store because it is created individually for your own child’s needs. And every autistic child is different.

You can find a lot of these autism materials tips in Linda Hodgdon’s books teaching visual strategies and other types of ABA books.

Technorati : autism

This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 1:34 pm and is filed under Parent Resources.