6-Hour Virtual Seminar on Practical Strategies for Teaching Self-Regulation, Social Skills, and Instructional Consequences to Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

As more and more students are being identified with Autism Spectrum Disorder, educators, parents and therapists are looking for the best practices to help these students experience success in the school and home setting as well as supports for communication, social skills and behavior. Most seminars address all grade levels, but this seminar will address the teen with ASD. How can we, as teachers and therapists, meet their unique needs in our classrooms and still meet the needs of the rest of the class?

Kathy Morris will engage you in a highly interactive and fast-paced seminar addressing the many questions and concerns you have as a special education teacher, classroom teacher, speech pathologist, occupational therapist, administrator or paraprofessional who works with these students. Using humor, demonstrations, video clips, and real-life experiences, Kathy will share successful techniques and strategies for increasing learning and positive behavior. She will give you ready-to-implement ways to develop predictable schedules, visual supports and organize your classroom both physically and visually appropriate to maximize learning and minimize distractions. You will leave this seminar with dozens of ideas and strategies to help you make a real difference in your students' learning.

Outstanding Strategies you Can Use

Student-proven strategies for working with your teens with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Outstanding strategies that will make a positive difference in the behavior and academic performance of students with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Research-based techniques to increase student learning and acceptable student behavior.
Prevention, intervention, and post-vention techniques for providing greatest possible potential for teens on the Autism spectrum.
Strategies that will also help your students with co-morbid disabilities of ADHD, Learning Disabilities, Anxiety Disorders, Fragile X Syndrome, and Non-Verbal Learning Disorders often associated with ASD.
Proactive, practical and effective strategies that promote self-regulation and appropriate social skills.
Instructional consequences and post-vention techniques that address escalating behavior and meltdowns .
Proven ways to modify and adapt your lessons and instructional materials to meet the highly diverse needs of teen students .
Research-based strategies translated into practical interventions you can use in your classroom.
Tips from an experienced educator on how to best work with teens with ASD.
Ideas for turning obsessive subjects into strengths to facilitate learning.
How to recognize the signs of escalating behavior and defuse symptoms of anxiety .
Provide strategies that infuse structure, predictability and routine in the therapy room or classroom.
Video modeling, Power Cards, Social Stories, Keychain Rules, Social Autopsies, Breathe Cards, Emotion Cards and numerous other visual strategies.
Establishing predictable routines to strengthen independent learning.
How to identify possible misinterpretations of behaviors.

Why you should attend

Working with adolescents with autism spectrum disorders who exhibit behaviors that interfere with social, academic, and self-regulation skills can be challenging. Adolescents with ASD sometimes appear willful, obnoxious, unfeeling and may over-react to a situation (sometimes with a meltdown). As an educator, therapist, clinician or parent, you may feel helpless, overwhelmed, confused and, sometimes, "ready to throw in the towel " because of this teen.

Without knowledge of the Critical Components recommended by the National Autism Research Council, those involved with these students or clients may be ill-equipped to handle the everyday challenges. Furthermore, they may be at a loss on how to provide instructional consequences (not punitive consequences ) to address the behavior.

This research-based seminar will help you teach or treat teens on the autism spectrum who may have trouble getting along with others, recognizing inappropriate behaviors, how to appropriately interact with peers and adults, have a hard time starting and finishing work, asking for help, difficulty with transitions, display anxiety that interferes with their ability to focus, and addressing social skills which start with communication skills.

It will be assumed that the participants already know the characteristics of ASD. This seminar will focus on adolescents and some unique manifestations in the teenage years and addressing supports.

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