Dr Paul Taylor is an experienced consultant paediatrician working in a regional general hospital in New Zealand. He specializes in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), working…
JKP attended The National Autistic Society’s conference on Understanding and Managing Challenging Behaviour held at Kensington Town Hall in London on the 6th July. The…
“once people understand meltdown triggers and why they occur the enviroment can be modified to help reduce the number of meltdowns. And more compassion instead of critism can be offered to us because we feel awful afterwards; feelings of remorse and regret are common because we didn’t want it to occur. It isn’t like we have a “quota” of so many meltdowns we need to have in a day. It just happens due to overwhelming factors beyond our (the autistic person’s) control.”
This Spring, JKP author Mary Mountstephen was invited to Singapore and Malaysia to give a presentation based on her book, How to Detect Developmental Delay…
The 2011 American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) Conference took place at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia (USA), this year and JKP was pleased to…
“Music is a medium that can be non-threatening, encourage participation, encourage attending skills, and encourage stimulation or relaxation. Because of these outcomes and more, music can be used to reach a child that may be hesitant to respond to other forms of communication.”
“Children with ASD are not good at generalising. They cannot transfer knowledge from one situation to another. Something as simple as having a different symbol to show ‘choosing’ for example, may result in the child being unable to understand what is expected. Not all schools have access to symbol writing programmes or they may be different from those used by early years practitioners. Parents usually have no access at all and are not even aware of the visual symbols they could be using to aid their child’s understanding at home…The aim of the book is to promote and foster collaboration between the home and the school. This will result in improved generalisation of skills and opportunities to exchange ideas and to decide what methodology works best for the child.”
In December, JKP author John Merges shared some thoughts about his passion: helping young people on the autism spectrum enjoy social interactions – an important skill…
“The important thing for me is that every child is valued and that we look at the causes of their difficulties rather than just the presenting symptoms: Why are they struggling in school and what can we do about it that is simple and easily implemented as the first stage in supporting them?”
The 2010 American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) Conference took place at the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, this year and JKP was, once…