TOBY Playpad: A Unique iPad App for Parents, Educators and Therapists

TOBY playpad: TOBY Playpad is a unique, therapist-and-parent designed Early Intervention application for children with Autism. TOBY’s iPad tasks co-ordinate with off-iPad tasks to help your child learn skills in the real world. TOBY stands for Therapy Outcomes By You, because it aims to empower parents to commence early intervention to maximize your child’s development. … Read more

The 16 th Annual Paraeducators Conference (April 10-12)

For paraeducators who wish to learn more, here are the classes and workshops offered in this conference: members.csea.com/cseaMail/attmentuploads/cml_1212_1.pdf The 16th Annual Paraeducator Conference is coming up April 10-12, 2013 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California. Attached is a registration brochure offering a tentative list of classes available to attendees. While this cutting-edge conference has always … Read more

4 Factors Affect A Writing Assignment

It might seem to be a simple request to ask a child with autism to write down a paragraph or even a sentence or two. According to Kathy Oehler, a Speech and Language Pathologist, the process of writing is a very complex task. It engages and sollicits several parts of the brain to work simultaniously in … Read more

Anecdote: A Tip To Modify Handwriting

A student with gigantic handwriting had trouble following directions like: “You are writing too big!” or “Write smaller!” or “You need to fit all the words in the assigned space!” or “You are running out of space!”… Today while the student was writing I told him: “Johnny, are you watering your alphabet letters everyday?” While … Read more

Comprehension Check

There is a way to go into the mind of kids with poor verbal skills and check their understanding of  language. This activity engages several senses along with the thinking process. The kids usually like it because it appears to them as a game. I like doing this activity especially in the afternoon when the … Read more

Improving Handwriting

Autistic children often have poor handwriting. Here are 5 tips to help improve their handwriting. Poor handwriting can be attributed to one of the following reasons or a combination thereof: Lack of eye-hand coordination (very common in kids on the autism spectrum, including the highest functioning with Asperger) Poor peripheral vision Poor fine motor skills … Read more