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Journey into the autistic world.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

A Revamped Parent and Educator Training Programme

With the completion of the final week of the ten-week parent training programme, I would like to extend my hearty thanks to all the parents who took a leap of faith in me by participating in my pioneer introductory parent training programme. I sincerely hope that you have increased your knowledge, confidence and courage to embrace the challenge of raising your autistic child. On my part, I have certainly learned a lot from you about the difficulties of navigating the services in Singapore and your efforts to rely on your own initiative to make the best of the situation.

Due to a lack of response from parents, no parent training programme is currently taking place. Nonetheless, I still believe in the value and integrity of this revamped parent training programme. If any parent/educator/school is interested in this parent training programme, please contact me directly at 8163-4509 or email me at kchoo7@gmail.com.


Synopsis of the Three-Level Training Programme

Level 1: Introductory Parent Training Programme (10 weekly sessions)

Learning Objectives

The primary purpose of this introductory parent training programme is to offer parents a comprehensive overview of how they can formulate and implement a holistic and integrated learning programme for their autistic child.

It is important to note that each of these sessions is basically introductory. Since each topic is covered in a three-hour session, the coverage will simply expose parents to a basic understanding of these topics, which will require further exploration and study (Level 2 and Level 3). Nonetheless, these introductory sessions will pave the way for parents to begin to understand their autistic children; reorient their thinking; and empower them to rise to the challenge of raising their children appropriately.

Weekly Session Topics

Week 1: Introductory Session

- Philosophical tenets of the training programme
- Individualised evaluation of the child
- Overview of the five components of the learning programme: Academic, social, sensory, living Skills and exercises.
- Basic techniques for teaching and interacting with their children.

Week 2: Academic Component of Learning Programme
- Designing an individualised learning programme based on the child’s profile.
- Overview of various types of therapeutic approaches and communication systems that are effective for eliciting learning: Behavioral modification approaches; Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS); Floortime; Social Stories; and Relationship Development Intervention (RDI).
- Variety of media and aids for eliciting academic learning that caters to their children’s unique learning styles.
- Designing an appropriate learning environment for their children.

Week 3: Social Component of Learning Programme
- Various socialization approaches: Floortime, RDI and Social Stories.
- Eliciting eye contact from their children.
- Acquiring social scripts for daily functioning: Greetings; basic courtesies; and etc.
- Engaging in spontaneous interactions with their children
- Using embedded teaching to maximise their children’s use of social skills at all times.

Week 4: Sensory Component of Learning Programme
- Sensory profile of parents’ autistic children.
- Helping parents to understand the significance of the sensory difficulties experienced by their children.
- Affordable strategies for dealing with their children.

Week 5: Living Skills Component of Learning Programme
- Teaching their children self-care skills necessary for daily life.
- Helping their children to participate in mainstream activities in public settings.
- Helping their children develop the skills necessary for functioning in mainstream society such as recognising the value of money and using the MRT.
- Dealing with aggression and non-compliance behaviours.

Week 6: Exercises Component of Learning Programme
- The importance of exercises for them and their children.
- Utilising exercises to enhance their children’s functioning.
- Live demonstrations of yoga exercises for children with special needs will be provided.

Week 7: Healing and Stress Reduction Strategies for Parents
- The importance of healing and stress reduction in the autistic children’s learning experience.
- To acquire basic breathing, meditation and acupressure strategies, which can be used by the parents to alleviate their own stress and that of their children.

Week 8: Creation of the Individualised Education Programme
- How to create an individualised education programme based on the profile of their children.
- Small-group discussions and individualised assistance will be provided to help parents create their individualised education programme.

Week 9: Honing the Individualised Education Programme
- After one week of trying out the programme, parents have the opportunity to use this session to identify any problems or strengths in their programme.
- Small-group discussions and individualised assistance will be provided: This is the session to help individual parents to fine-tune their programme.

Week 10: Bring Your Child Day: Application of Behavioural and Sensory Strategies
- This will undoubtedly be a highly challenging session because we are introducing our children.
- Its purpose is to allow parents to apply some of the educational approaches and sensory strategies discussed in this programme.
- A nurturing and fun setting will be provided for the children.

* Only parents who believe that their children will be able to function in a new group setting are encouraged to bring their children. Otherwise, it is up to parents to decide whether to skip this session or to learn from observations of other parents’ work with their children. The objective of this session is to allow me and other parents to see whether parents’ application of the approaches and strategies is appropriate for their children.

Level 2: Design and Implementation of An Individualised Learning Programme (Micro-Context) (15 weekly sessions)

Learning Objectives:
Parent training programmes at the second level will hone in on some of the topics that have been covered in the ten-week parent training programme in far greater detail. While the introductory parent training programme is important in shaping the mindset of the parents and preparing the groundwork, parents may still lack the confidence, the knowledge and the experience to apply their learning in the parent training to their children.

This series of parent training programmes will focus on helping parents to acquire educational, sensory and behavioural strategies, which will be important for the formulation and implementation of a learning programme. At the same time, the sensory and behavioural strategies will also be useful in settings beyond the home or learning setting. Throughout the weeks, parents should try out some of these techniques and strategies acquired and assess their effectiveness, along with their ability to implement them effectively.

Weekly Session Topics

Session 1: Introduction
- Identification of the diverse educational and therapeutic approaches and demonstration of how these approaches can be integrated together in one coherent learning programme: PECS, Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA), Floortime, Social Stories, RDI, Sensory Integration and Acupressure. Each of these approaches will be discussed in greater detail in subsequent sessions.
- Parents’ construction of unique profiles of their children that focuses on their children’s interests, learning styles and preferences, communication, functioning level and sensory issues. For their ongoing homework, parents will be asked to fill out the template to the best of their ability.

Sessions 2-3: PECS, Visual Schedules and Related Spinoffs

Session 2: Diverse communicative possibilities of PECS and visual schedules.
- Creating and utilising PECS books and visual schedules.
- Using spinoff ideas of PECS to teach autistic children how to read and write words and sentences.

Session 3: Actual creation of PECS books
-Creating PECS books.
-Justifying the rationale of their PECS books and incorporating them into their lives.

Sessions 4-5: ABA

Session 4: Utilisation of ABA techniques for academic learning, self-care skills and management of inappropriate behaviours.
- Academic learning tasks.
- Step-by-step teaching of self-care skills.
- Behavioural strategies for managing inappropriate and non-compliance behaviours.

Session 5: Addressing specific behavioural concerns of various parents.
- Small-group discussions of behavioural challenges.
- Big-group discussion of diverse suggestions of behavioural strategies.

Sessions 6-7: Floortime

Session 6: Essence, strategies and objectives of Floortime.
- Fundamental principles and objectives of Floortime.
- Techniques of Floortime.
- Specific examples of Floortime activities.

This discussion will go into the subject matter in greater depth than in the introductory parent training.

Session 7: Specific concerns of parents regarding spontaneous interactions.
- Small-group discussions of interaction difficulties experienced by parents.
- Determination of how Floortime techniques can be utilised and incorporated into their lives.

Sessions 8-9: Social Stories

Session 8: Concept, structure and function of social stories.
- Fundamental principles and framework of social stories.
- Examples of social stories used with Sebastien.
- Utilisation of social stories to prepare children for challenging events, teach language and increase social awareness.

Session 9: Application of social stories to actual challenges of parents and autistic children.
- Creation of social stories to deal with actual situations raised by parents.
- Analysis of the appropriateness and likely effectiveness of the social stories created in class.

Sessions 10-11: Relationship Development Intervention (RDI)

Session 10: Purpose and structure of the RDI programme.
- Structure and different stages of the RDI programme.
- Sample RDI activities.

Session 11: Creation of RDI activities
- Modification and creation of RDI activities to match the actual needs of the children.
- Analysis of these RDI activities.

Sessions 12-13: Sensory Integration and Acupressure Techniques

Session 12: Understanding and practicing sensory integration and acupressure techniques.
- Application of actual techniques by practicing on one another in pairs.

It is important to note that the theoretical aspect would have been covered in the introductory session. This session will devote the time to allow parents to practise these techniques and strategies in class.

Session 13: Construction of the sensory profile of the children and the application of techniques.
- Construction of the sensory profile of the children in class.
- Application of acquired techniques to the needs of the children.

Sessions 14-15: Creation of a Learning Programme

Session 14: Creation of a sample worksheet or activity
- Utilisation of profiles, actual objects and descriptions of activities that are an integral part of the lives of the children.
- Creation and analysis of a sample worksheet or activity in class.

Session 15: Analysis of the outcomes of sample worksheets or activities.
- Analysis of implementation outcomes of the sample worksheets or activities.
- Suggestions for future sample worksheets or activities.

Level 3: Raising Your Autistic Child within the Family and Mainstream Society (Macro-Context) (6 weekly sessions)

Learning Objective
This series of learning programmes move beyond the micro-context of the relationship between parents and their autistic children to take into consideration the family dynamics and the interaction with the public, professionals and institutions in mainstream society.

Weekly Sessions

Sessions 1-2: Family Dynamics and the Autistic Child

Session 1: Parents and the Autistic Child – Couple Issues: How raising an autistic child affects parents as a couple.

Session 2: Siblings and the Autistic Child – Sibling Issues: How to include the siblings in interactions with the autistic child so that they do not feel excluded.

Sessions 3-4: Advocating for Your Autistic Child
The purpose of this workshop is to empower and teach parents to assert the rights of their children, particularly in negotiations with schools, professionals and governmental agencies.

Session 3: Belief systems of parents as precursor to advocacy.

Session 4: Using real-life examples to explore advocacy strategies

Sessions 5-6: Integrating Your Autistic Child into Mainstream Society
This particular workshop addresses the challenge of bringing autistic children into mainstream society.

Session 5: Balancing expectations with child and consideration for the public space.

Session 6: Addressing strategies to help parents deal with real-life concerns.

Depending on the demand, each level (Levels 1, 2 and 3) of the training programme will run concurrently on a weekly basis. In my opinion, each level has been crafted to match parents at different phases of their journey of autism:

• The Level 1 programme is targeted at parents who have just embarked on this journey. They are parents who have only recently learned of their child’s autistic condition, for instance, only in the last three to six months. This course will help them to gain an overall perspective of their challenge and highlight various options for them, while supporting them during the most difficult phase of their journey.

• The Level 2 programme is targeted at parents who have known about the diagnosis of their child for more than six months and have done some research on various therapeutic and educational approaches. While they are familiar with some of the educational and therapeutic approaches, they want to hone their knowledge and experience to help them apply them to their children. Level 2 training delves into the topics raised in Level 1 in considerable detail. Moreover, it offers additional classroom time for parents to work to create programmes and practise techniques.

• The Level 3 programme is targeted at parents who are well-versed in dealing with their children in their small one-on-one contexts. However, they require additional assistance and strategies for negotiating their work within their family context, schools and organisations, as well as the mainstream society.


Training Programmes for Educators

The second level of parental training (15 sessions) can be modified to apply to educators and the classroom settings, either in the special needs settings or mainstream settings. Because many autistic children are educated in the school settings, they need to be guided in their development by educators who have the right mindset and the appropriate training. Thus, reaching out to educators will ensure that the parents are supported in their efforts to raise their children. Instead of creating a profile of their own children, they will be creating one for a special needs student in their class.

However, for educators, there will also be two additional sessions:

Sessions 16-17: Functional Behavioural Assessments (FBA) in the Classroom
Session 16: Conducting Functional Behavioural Assessments
- Doing a functional behavioural assessment.
- Identifying strategies and programmes to deal with behaviours.
- Analysing the outcomes of the strategies and programmes.
Session 17: Case Studies
- Application of theoretical learning from the previous session.
- Development of actual game plan.