“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.”
By Charlotte E. Thompson, M.D., author of Grandparenting a Child with Special Needs. It is a great responsibility to care for a grandchild, particularly one…
“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.”
Carol L. Spears and Dr. Vicki L. Turner are Speech Language Pathologists, Assistive Technologists, and Alternative/ Augmentative Communication Specialists. Here, Carol and Vicki answer some…
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…
by Charlotte E. Thompson, M.D., author of Grandparenting a Child with Special Needs With the hustle and bustle of the holidays, parents often turn to…
The Extreme Makeover Challenge: Room Re-Design! by Carol L. Spears and Dr. Vicki L. Turner As discussed in our book Rising to New Heights of Communication and…
“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…
“Social enjoyment, as both an important life and employment skill, needs to be taught and practiced as early as possible. We need to provide our young people with safe, predictable situations to practice enjoying a social interaction. The successes I’ve seen in my own work demonstrate that social enjoyment is indeed a skill – and thus, can be learned.”