Discovering the Possibilities with Visual Strategies - Linda Hodgdon

Great Falls - October 15

Bozeman - October 16

Billings - October 17

Meeting the Communication, Behavior & Social Skill Challenges in Autism Spectrum Disorders & Related Learning Challenges

Most students with Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome and related communication challenges are visual learners! Capitalizing on their strengths, the use of visual strategies alters many social, communication, and educational challenges. This program will demonstrate effective ideas for using a range of low tech to high tech visual tools, including video and tablets like iPads and Apps, to help students organize their lives, significantly reduce behavior problems, and improve student successful participation. This program will define the need, discuss training, and demonstrate many practical ideas for both special and regular education settings.

Participants will learn to:

• Identify significant factors in student learning and functioning style that affect communication.

• Informally assess the student’s communication strengths and challenges.

• Recognize situations where communication breakdowns can affect the student’s understanding, behavior and participation in social opportunities.

• Use the Guide for Assessing Behavior Situations to identify causes of behavior problems.

• Develop visual tools to support communication, behavior & social skills

• Identify uses for a range of low tech to high tech tools such as iPads, Apps and video for meeting communication & learning needs.

Linda Hodgdon, M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a Speech-Language Pathologist who is internationally known as a pioneer in developing the use of visual strategies to support communication for students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and related learning challenges. Linda is the author of Visual Strategies for Improving Communication and Solving Behavior Problems in Autism.

Register Here.

Billings Autism Conference August 5 & 6, 2014 with Michelle Garcia Winner

Social Thinking

Social thinking is what we do when we interact with people: we think about them. And how we think about people affects how we behave, which in turn affects how others respond to us, which in turn affects our own emotions. Whether we are with friends, sending an email, in a classroom or at the grocery store, we take in the thoughts, emotions and intentions of the people we are interacting with. Most of us have developed our communications sense from birth onwards, steadily observing and acquiring social information and learning how to respond to people. Because social thinking is an intuitive process, we usually take it for granted. But for many individuals, this process is anything but natural. And this often has nothing to do with conventional measures of intelligence. In fact, many people score high on IQ and standardized tests, yet do not intuitively learn the nuances of social communication and interaction. While these challenges are commonly experienced by individuals with autism spectrum disorders (high-functioning), social communication disorder, Asperger's, ADHD, nonverbal learning disability (NLD) and similar diagnoses, children and adults experiencing social learning difficulties often have received no diagnosis. A treatment framework and curriculum developed by Michelle Garcia Winner targets improving individual social thinking abilities, regardless of diagnostic label. Professionals and parents alike are using these methods to build social thinking and related skills in students and adults. Social Thinking books, workshops and trainings, created by Winner or based on Winner's work, now offer a range of strategies that address individual strengths and weaknesses in processing social information.

About the Presenter

Michelle Garcia Winner is the founder of Social Thinking® which specializes in developing treatment models and specific strategies for helping persons with social cognitive learning challenges. She runs and works in her small clinic, has authored numerous books, and speaks internationally. Michelle’s goal is to help educators, mental health providers, and parents appreciate how social thinking and social skills is an integral part of students’ academic, vocational and community success. She was honored with a "Congressional Special Recognition Award" in 2008.

An Introduction to Autism

In this 3 part video series, you will learn about the diagnostic characteristics of autism and things you can do to screen young children for autism.

Discovering the Possibilities with Visual Strategies - Linda Hodgdon

Discovering the Possibilities with Visual Strategies:

Meeting the Communication, Behavior & Social Skill Challenges in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Most students with Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome and related communication challenges are visual learners! This observation has tremendous implications. Capitalizing on their strengths, the use of visual strategies alters many social, communication, and educational challenges. This program will demonstrate effective ideas for using a range of low tech to high tech visual tools, including video and tablets like iPads and Apps, to help students organize their lives, significantly reduce behavior problems, and improve student successful participation. This program will define the need, discuss training, and demonstrate many practical ideas for both special and regular education settings.

 

The OPI Montana Autism Education Project will provide three days of free training from Linda Hodgdon.

Registration will open in September and will be advertised on this blog and the MAEP Newsletter.


The dates/locations are:

 

October 15th - Great Falls

October 16th - Bozeman

October 17th - Billings

ChildWise Institute - Kalispell October 4, 2014

The following speakers are scheduled:

Julia Turner, MMSc, RD, LN - Brain Nutrition Expert

• Shawna Heiser, M.S. BCBA - Behavioral/Autism Consultant

• Audrey Pierce-Seeley, Abigail Hood & Kelly Melius - P.L.A.Y. Consultant/Autism Specialist, Easter Seals Goodwill

More information can be found here.

The cost is $75 for educators and $50 for parents. The Montana Autism Education Project will have a limited number of scholarships available for educators. To request a scholarship send an email to ddoty@mt.gov with the Subject line: "ChildWise Kalispell" and include your name, position and school.

 

Michelle Garcia Winner in Billings August 5/6, 2014

What is Social Thinking?

Social thinking is what we do when we interact with people: we think about them. And how we think about people affects how we behave, which in turn affects how others respond to us, which in turn affects our own emotions.

Whether we are with friends, sending an email, in a classroom or at the grocery store, we take in the thoughts, emotions and intentions of the people we are interacting with.

Most of us have developed our communications sense from birth onwards, steadily observing and acquiring social information and learning how to respond to people. Because social thinking is an intuitive process, we usually take it for granted.

But for many individuals, this process is anything but natural. And this often has nothing to do with conventional measures of intelligence.

In fact, many people score high on IQ and standardized tests, yet do not intuitively learn the nuances of social communication and interaction.

While these challenges are commonly experienced by individuals with autism spectrum disorders (high-functioning), social communication disorder, Asperger's, ADHD, nonverbal learning disability (NLD) and similar diagnoses, children and adults experiencing social learning difficulties often have received no diagnosis.

A treatment framework and curriculum developed by Michelle Garcia Winner targets improving individual social thinking abilities, regardless of diagnostic label. Professionals and parents alike are using these methods to build social thinking and related skills in students and adults. Social Thinking books, workshops and trainings, created by Winner or based on Winner's work, now offer a range of strategies that address individual strengths and weaknesses in processing social information.

You can find a link to the conference brochure and registration here.