Monday, September 30, 2013
Positively Autism September Newsletter
Thanks for reading Positively Autism's September Newsletter! This month, we're focusing on Montessori educational strategies for children with autism, as well as some fun Halloween/Fall freebies!
Main Articles/Resources:
What is Montessori? Video - http://positively-autism.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-is-montessori-video.html
What is Montessori Education? - http://positively-autism.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-is-montessori-education.html
Montessori vs. "Traditional" Approach to Education - http://positively-autism.blogspot.com/2013/09/montessori-vs-traditional-approach-to.html
Treatment Meshes Montessori and ABA - http://positively-autism.blogspot.com/2013/09/treatment-meshes-montessori-and-aba.html
Parallels Between Discrete Trials and Montessori Lessons - http://positively-autism.blogspot.com/2013/09/parallels-between-discrete-trials-and.html
"The Absorbent Mind" by Maria Montessori (Free on Kindle) - http://positively-autism.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-absorbent-mind-by-maria-montessori.html
New Freebies!
Halloween Social Stories and Activities - http://positively-autism.blogspot.com/2013/09/free-halloween-social-stories-and.html
Halloween Math Activity Bundle for Pre-K and K - http://positively-autism.blogspot.com/2013/09/halloween-math-activity-bundle-for-pre.html
Fall Worksheet Packet for Preschool-First Grade - http://daily-autism-freebie.blogspot.com/2013/09/fall-worksheet-packet-for-preschool.html
Other News:
September Positive Autism News - http://positively-autism.blogspot.com/2013/09/september-positively-autism-news.html
Autism Survey for Texas Teachers
http://positively-autism.blogspot.com/2013/09/autism-survey-for-texas-teachers.html
Friday, September 27, 2013
Halloween Math Activity Bundle for Pre-K and K
New! Positively Autism has just released our Halloween Activity Bundle for Pre-K and K. Here's what you'll find in this free download:
- Halloween Patterns
- Candy Corn Small/Med/Large Sort
- Color a Cauldron
- Cauldron Count
- Spooky Comparisons
- “Getting Ready for Halloween” Comparisons
Please help us continue to bring you FREE resources by supporting our affiliate programs! Thanks!
Thursday, September 26, 2013
September Positively Autism News
Helping Adults With Autism Find Meaning: Roses for Autism
September 6, 2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randy-hain/roses-for-autism_b_3873903.html
Worried About Special Interests of Autism and Your Child?
September 23, 2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-rothman/worried-about-special-interests-of-autism-and-your-child_b_3953796.html
Autism Can’t Slow Teenage Golfer in Lutz Tournament
September 24, 2013
http://tbo.com/carrollwood/autism-cant-slow-teenage-golfer-in-lutz-tournament-20130924/
September 6, 2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randy-hain/roses-for-autism_b_3873903.html
Worried About Special Interests of Autism and Your Child?
September 23, 2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-rothman/worried-about-special-interests-of-autism-and-your-child_b_3953796.html
Autism Can’t Slow Teenage Golfer in Lutz Tournament
September 24, 2013
http://tbo.com/carrollwood/autism-cant-slow-teenage-golfer-in-lutz-tournament-20130924/
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Free Halloween Social Stories and Activities!
If you're getting as excited about Halloween as we are, check out Positively Autism's collection of Halloween freebies!
- Halloween Vocabulary
- "What to Expect on Halloween" Social Story
- "Travis the Train Goes Trick or Treating" Story
- "Things That Are Black" Activity
- "Things That Are Orange" Activity
- Songs/Videos
- Books
- And More!
Monday, September 23, 2013
"The Absorbent Mind" by Maria Montessori - Free on Kindle!
Written by the women whose name is synonymous worldwide with child development
theory, The Absorbent Mind takes its title from the phrase that the inspired
Italian doctor coined to characterize the child's most crucial developmental
stage: the first six years.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Parallels Between Discrete Trials and Montessori Lessons
Thanks to Montessori 4 Autism for permission to re-print this article.
Montessori’s approach and methods blend remarkably well with applied behavioral analysis (ABA), which is currently the only scientifically established method for treating children on the autistic spectrum.
It is remarkable that Maria Montessori was using task analysis as early as the nineteenth century.
She borrowed and applied the idea of a “three-period lesson” from Edouard Seguin – an educator who founded a successful school for “deficients” in Paris in the mid-1800s.
The format of these lessons is very similar to a Discrete Trial (DT) in:
(a) sequence,
(b) its focus on teaching only one concept or quality at a time,
(c) using very simple language,
(d) breaking learning down into small manageable steps, and
(e) reducing distraction.
Lessons are introduced with minimal speech (foregoing the lengthy explanations common in traditional schools) and emphasis on demonstration by the teacher. In structural terms, a lesson consists of 1) naming by the teacher (information), 2) recognition by the student (practice), and 3) naming by the student (test).
In a Montessori classroom, appropriate tasks are carefully chosen and are introduced in sequential order to each child individually, with presentation tailored to the child’s strengths and weaknesses.
The presentation of the tasks, Montessori Lesson, begins with identifying prerequisites necessary for successful accomplishment. Then each task is broken down into the various sub-skills, and the children practice one component at a time until they show mastery. The tasks are introduced by the teacher, with concise explanation and an emphasis on demonstration using attractive materials .
Read more about Montessori and Autism, including parallels between the Montessori curriculum and the ABLLS here: http://montessori4autism.org/iii-ingenuity-of-montessori/montessori-benefits-for-asd-students/behavioral-foundation/
For more information about Autism and Montessori, visit the Montessori 4 Autism page at: http://montessori4autism.org/
Montessori’s approach and methods blend remarkably well with applied behavioral analysis (ABA), which is currently the only scientifically established method for treating children on the autistic spectrum.
It is remarkable that Maria Montessori was using task analysis as early as the nineteenth century.
She borrowed and applied the idea of a “three-period lesson” from Edouard Seguin – an educator who founded a successful school for “deficients” in Paris in the mid-1800s.
The format of these lessons is very similar to a Discrete Trial (DT) in:
(a) sequence,
(b) its focus on teaching only one concept or quality at a time,
(c) using very simple language,
(d) breaking learning down into small manageable steps, and
(e) reducing distraction.
Lessons are introduced with minimal speech (foregoing the lengthy explanations common in traditional schools) and emphasis on demonstration by the teacher. In structural terms, a lesson consists of 1) naming by the teacher (information), 2) recognition by the student (practice), and 3) naming by the student (test).
In a Montessori classroom, appropriate tasks are carefully chosen and are introduced in sequential order to each child individually, with presentation tailored to the child’s strengths and weaknesses.
The presentation of the tasks, Montessori Lesson, begins with identifying prerequisites necessary for successful accomplishment. Then each task is broken down into the various sub-skills, and the children practice one component at a time until they show mastery. The tasks are introduced by the teacher, with concise explanation and an emphasis on demonstration using attractive materials .
Read more about Montessori and Autism, including parallels between the Montessori curriculum and the ABLLS here: http://montessori4autism.org/iii-ingenuity-of-montessori/montessori-benefits-for-asd-students/behavioral-foundation/
For more information about Autism and Montessori, visit the Montessori 4 Autism page at: http://montessori4autism.org/
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Treatment Meshes Montessori and ABA
Article Reprinted with Permission from Montessori Central
By Mark Anderson
When the American Academy of Pediatrics reported this fall that one in 91 children in the U.S. now have some level of autism spectrum disorder, it highlighted the growing challenge educators face in trying to accommodate the special needs of those children.
Montessori educators share the challenge, encountering more children in their classrooms each year with special needs. And despite conventional wisdom that says the autonomy children are given in Montessori classrooms doesn’t deliver the direction and reinforcement that children on the spectrum need, Montessori is the basis for one of autism’s most successful new treatments, developed by Toronto educator and therapist Michelle Lane.
Lane’s model utilizes all the elements of the Montessori curriculum—the materials, the learning periods, the practical skills and routines—that prompt a child’s pursuit of experience and understanding. But to offset the powerful, disruptive tendencies that interrupt an autistic child’s pursuit of learning, she developed a strategy of careful observation and intervention.
Her laboratory was the Toronto Montessori School for Autism, which she founded in 2003 (the school changed its name to Lane Montessori School for Autism in 2007). Ten staff now work one-on-one at the school with children who have severe symptoms of autism.
The severity of the children’s conditions require that teachers/therapists actively direct and reinforce behaviors, Lane says. “But in our program, children are in the prepared Montessori environment. They’re learning from that, and it’s giving them the independence and confidence we want in our kids. We’re creating a transitional piece,” giving children tools that enable them to follow the Montessori curriculum and eventually enter conventional classrooms, she says.
Enriching the therapy
Lane started working with autistic children in 1993 shortly after college, where she’d earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She fell in love with the children she met and with the challenge of helping them realize more of their potential. She trained and was licensed as therapist, using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), the current standard for research-based autism therapy.
And she built a successful practice working with children with autism, searching all the while for ways to keep improving the therapies she’d learned.
One shortcoming that she saw in conventional ABA treatment was that it was built on a therapeutic model, aiming more at treating a condition than nurturing learners during the sensitive periods that Montessori recognized.
“Not many behavioral therapists are teachers,” Lane says. “They’re not trained in child development. I wanted to be sure I understood that side of the child’s experience, too.”
The first suggestion that Montessori could provide a way to enrich the ABA model came from Lane’s mother, who taught for many years in traditional classrooms. As Lane explored her mother’s suggestion she began to think that Montessori could widen the learning horizons for the children she treated, and she enrolled in the teacher training program at Sheridan College, a MACTE-accredited program near Toronto.
“It literally transformed me,” Lane says.
Montessori outlined developmental opportunities and ways of learning that aligned closely with the needs of ASD children. And as Lane learned about Montessori’s early successful work with children with special needs and her commitment to understanding the specific condition of each child, she became more convinced that Montessori and ABA together could offer big benefits to those children.
That was a different conclusion than many therapists and educators had reached in the past. Children with autism generally struggle with antisocial behavior and with verbal communication, and they have a strong tendency to fall into familiar, repetitive routines. Behavioral therapists try to offset those tendencies and introduce new lessons by intervening and applying steady, external reinforcements. To many educators, though, that prescriptive, therapist-driven model seemed incompatible with Montessori.
Side-by-side with Skinner
But Lane saw core similarities in the two approaches. “One of (ABA founder) B.F.Skinner’s insights is the need to break down tasks into simple, concrete steps.” The articulation of simple steps is especially important for ASD children, “but that task analysis is something that every Montessori knows and practices, too,” Lane says.
The behavioral therapists also have a long menu of learning materials that introduce and drill intellectual concepts. Many are simple and repetitive devices, like identifying flash cards.
Montessori’s materials deliver the same lessons, but they’re hands-on and concrete, which matches the learning style of many children with autism. They’re much richer in content and more suggestive. And their physical appeal works on children with autism, too, providing an internal motivation to explore the new materials.
“The Montessori materials and lessons are so beautiful and effective,” Lane says. “Why recreate the wheel?”
Lane’s innovation was to link the powerful, intrinsic appeal of those materials and curriculum with therapies that could make them accessible to children with ASD.
“Montessori materials are a wonderful instrument of education, but kids who are low-functioning ASD don’t want to try anything new,” says Katie Nehring, an AMI-trained teacher who’s studied Lane’s method and helped her plan several presentations in the U.S. “They want to rock or hide under the table. ABA helps them out of that. It’s a tool that helps manage those behaviors.”
The therapies are similar to Montessori in another way—they’re shaped by very careful observation of each child. In this case the observation gives a baseline record of the child’s reaction to materials and then measures their response to each prompt and lesson, helping teachers plan a step-by-step program to draw the child in to each lesson.
At the Lane School, the faculty work one-on-one with low-functioning ASD children. They’re trained as teachers and therapists and they train with Lane in her method and to understand the autism spectrum.
But since the school opened, Lane has been sharing her method with a wider and steadily growing audience. She’s given trainings and presentations throughout the U.S. and Canada. She’s published books and a series of manuals, detailing the introduction of the Montessori lessons, combined with detailed advice on prompts and data gathering.
She also helped a group of families and educators set up Roads to Recovery, a school for children with ASD in Dayton, OH, that implements Lane’s methods.
Changes coming
That training and advice will continue, but Lane’s schedule and her role at the school are changing this year, dictated by the needs of children—her own, this time.
Lane and her husband just had their third child, and Michelle decided she needed to be at home more. “I don’t want to be an absentee mom.”
So this year she began teaching middle-school age children at a Montessori school near Toronto. She remains president of the Lane School and will continue as an advisor. She also will continue to train more teachers and parents, but she’ll only travel during the summer and school holidays.
In the Lane Montessori School for Children with Autism another major change is underway. The school will begin its day-long program next year at a new location, the Brampton Georgetown Montessori School, in Georgetown, just outside metropolitan Toronto.
That achieves a goal that Lane and the school’s board share, to begin integrating ASD children into regular Montessori classrooms, says board vice-president Nadia Milton.
“We’re very excited about it. Michelle always talked about co-locating with a conventional Montessori program,” where ASD children could participate regularly with typical children, with guidance and support from their teachers.
“Children with autism will be with the regular children during circle time, lunch and certain other periods during the day,” Milton says—erasing a few more barriers to full participation in the world for people with ASD.
INFO: The Lane Montessori School for Autism offers presentations, trainings and consultation from Michelle Lane.
http://www.tmsfa.com/
Source: http://jola-montessori.com/article/treatment-meshes-montessori-and-aba/
By Mark Anderson
When the American Academy of Pediatrics reported this fall that one in 91 children in the U.S. now have some level of autism spectrum disorder, it highlighted the growing challenge educators face in trying to accommodate the special needs of those children.
Montessori educators share the challenge, encountering more children in their classrooms each year with special needs. And despite conventional wisdom that says the autonomy children are given in Montessori classrooms doesn’t deliver the direction and reinforcement that children on the spectrum need, Montessori is the basis for one of autism’s most successful new treatments, developed by Toronto educator and therapist Michelle Lane.
Lane’s model utilizes all the elements of the Montessori curriculum—the materials, the learning periods, the practical skills and routines—that prompt a child’s pursuit of experience and understanding. But to offset the powerful, disruptive tendencies that interrupt an autistic child’s pursuit of learning, she developed a strategy of careful observation and intervention.
Her laboratory was the Toronto Montessori School for Autism, which she founded in 2003 (the school changed its name to Lane Montessori School for Autism in 2007). Ten staff now work one-on-one at the school with children who have severe symptoms of autism.
The severity of the children’s conditions require that teachers/therapists actively direct and reinforce behaviors, Lane says. “But in our program, children are in the prepared Montessori environment. They’re learning from that, and it’s giving them the independence and confidence we want in our kids. We’re creating a transitional piece,” giving children tools that enable them to follow the Montessori curriculum and eventually enter conventional classrooms, she says.
Enriching the therapy
Lane started working with autistic children in 1993 shortly after college, where she’d earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She fell in love with the children she met and with the challenge of helping them realize more of their potential. She trained and was licensed as therapist, using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), the current standard for research-based autism therapy.
And she built a successful practice working with children with autism, searching all the while for ways to keep improving the therapies she’d learned.
One shortcoming that she saw in conventional ABA treatment was that it was built on a therapeutic model, aiming more at treating a condition than nurturing learners during the sensitive periods that Montessori recognized.
“Not many behavioral therapists are teachers,” Lane says. “They’re not trained in child development. I wanted to be sure I understood that side of the child’s experience, too.”
The first suggestion that Montessori could provide a way to enrich the ABA model came from Lane’s mother, who taught for many years in traditional classrooms. As Lane explored her mother’s suggestion she began to think that Montessori could widen the learning horizons for the children she treated, and she enrolled in the teacher training program at Sheridan College, a MACTE-accredited program near Toronto.
“It literally transformed me,” Lane says.
Montessori outlined developmental opportunities and ways of learning that aligned closely with the needs of ASD children. And as Lane learned about Montessori’s early successful work with children with special needs and her commitment to understanding the specific condition of each child, she became more convinced that Montessori and ABA together could offer big benefits to those children.
That was a different conclusion than many therapists and educators had reached in the past. Children with autism generally struggle with antisocial behavior and with verbal communication, and they have a strong tendency to fall into familiar, repetitive routines. Behavioral therapists try to offset those tendencies and introduce new lessons by intervening and applying steady, external reinforcements. To many educators, though, that prescriptive, therapist-driven model seemed incompatible with Montessori.
Side-by-side with Skinner
But Lane saw core similarities in the two approaches. “One of (ABA founder) B.F.Skinner’s insights is the need to break down tasks into simple, concrete steps.” The articulation of simple steps is especially important for ASD children, “but that task analysis is something that every Montessori knows and practices, too,” Lane says.
The behavioral therapists also have a long menu of learning materials that introduce and drill intellectual concepts. Many are simple and repetitive devices, like identifying flash cards.
Montessori’s materials deliver the same lessons, but they’re hands-on and concrete, which matches the learning style of many children with autism. They’re much richer in content and more suggestive. And their physical appeal works on children with autism, too, providing an internal motivation to explore the new materials.
“The Montessori materials and lessons are so beautiful and effective,” Lane says. “Why recreate the wheel?”
Lane’s innovation was to link the powerful, intrinsic appeal of those materials and curriculum with therapies that could make them accessible to children with ASD.
“Montessori materials are a wonderful instrument of education, but kids who are low-functioning ASD don’t want to try anything new,” says Katie Nehring, an AMI-trained teacher who’s studied Lane’s method and helped her plan several presentations in the U.S. “They want to rock or hide under the table. ABA helps them out of that. It’s a tool that helps manage those behaviors.”
The therapies are similar to Montessori in another way—they’re shaped by very careful observation of each child. In this case the observation gives a baseline record of the child’s reaction to materials and then measures their response to each prompt and lesson, helping teachers plan a step-by-step program to draw the child in to each lesson.
At the Lane School, the faculty work one-on-one with low-functioning ASD children. They’re trained as teachers and therapists and they train with Lane in her method and to understand the autism spectrum.
But since the school opened, Lane has been sharing her method with a wider and steadily growing audience. She’s given trainings and presentations throughout the U.S. and Canada. She’s published books and a series of manuals, detailing the introduction of the Montessori lessons, combined with detailed advice on prompts and data gathering.
She also helped a group of families and educators set up Roads to Recovery, a school for children with ASD in Dayton, OH, that implements Lane’s methods.
Changes coming
That training and advice will continue, but Lane’s schedule and her role at the school are changing this year, dictated by the needs of children—her own, this time.
Lane and her husband just had their third child, and Michelle decided she needed to be at home more. “I don’t want to be an absentee mom.”
So this year she began teaching middle-school age children at a Montessori school near Toronto. She remains president of the Lane School and will continue as an advisor. She also will continue to train more teachers and parents, but she’ll only travel during the summer and school holidays.
In the Lane Montessori School for Children with Autism another major change is underway. The school will begin its day-long program next year at a new location, the Brampton Georgetown Montessori School, in Georgetown, just outside metropolitan Toronto.
That achieves a goal that Lane and the school’s board share, to begin integrating ASD children into regular Montessori classrooms, says board vice-president Nadia Milton.
“We’re very excited about it. Michelle always talked about co-locating with a conventional Montessori program,” where ASD children could participate regularly with typical children, with guidance and support from their teachers.
“Children with autism will be with the regular children during circle time, lunch and certain other periods during the day,” Milton says—erasing a few more barriers to full participation in the world for people with ASD.
INFO: The Lane Montessori School for Autism offers presentations, trainings and consultation from Michelle Lane.
http://www.tmsfa.com/
Source: http://jola-montessori.com/article/treatment-meshes-montessori-and-aba/
Autism Survey for Texas Teachers
On behalf of Angela Cowan from the University of North Texas:
My name is Angela Cowan. I am a doctoral candidate at the University of North Texas. My research study involves identifying factors influencing the implementation of evidence-based for students with ASD by special educators in Texas public schools.
Data from this study may be used for three primary purposes: (1) to determine whether or not special educators are implementing evidence-based practices with their students with autism; (2) assist public school administrators in identifying areas of need for professional development of special education teachers who currently serve students with autism; and (3) assist training coordinators in developing pre-service and in-service training programs for current and future special education teachers in Texas.
Data from this study may be used for three primary purposes: (1) to determine whether or not special educators are implementing evidence-based practices with their students with autism; (2) assist public school administrators in identifying areas of need for professional development of special education teachers who currently serve students with autism; and (3) assist training coordinators in developing pre-service and in-service training programs for current and future special education teachers in Texas.
This study has been approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of North Texas. I have attached Informed Consent for your review. Participation is completely voluntary and anonymous. However, as an incentive to encourage participation, teachers may enter to win a $25 Visa gift card. Participants may also request a copy of the final survey results upon completion of the study.
The questionnaire highlights 10 strategies identified for improving outcomes of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. To access the survey, participants may click on the URL: https://unt.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0oVSmcWNBVuQKyw, or copy and paste the link into their browser.
If you are willing to support this research study, please forward this email to your special education teachers. Please contact me directly, or Dr. Miriam Boesch at Miriam.Boesch@unt.edu, if you have any questions about the research study. Thank you in advance for your consideration.
Best Regards,
Angela
Monday, September 9, 2013
Montessori vs. "Traditional" Approach to Education
A helpful overview of why some parents choose Montessori and how it is different from other educational approaches.
http://www.casaverams.com/page.php?id=whychoose
http://www.casaverams.com/page.php?id=whychoose
For More Information....
Thursday, September 5, 2013
What is Montessori Education?
What is Montessori Education?
Montessori education is designed to help children with their task of inner construction as they grow from childhood to maturity. It succeeds because it draws its principles from the natural development of the child. The inherent flexibility allows the method to adapt to the needs of the individual, regardless of the level of ability, learning style or social maturity.
The Montessori Approach
"I have studied the child. I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it and that is what is called the Montessori method."
The Prepared Environment
Montessori classrooms provide a prepared environment where children are free to respond to their natural tendency to work. The prepared environment offers the essential elements for optimal development. The key components comprise the children, teacher and physical surroundings including the specifically designed Montessori educational material.
The Montessori Teacher-(Guide)
[Montessori] teachers are selected for their professional talents and their constant and loving concern for the children in their charge. The trained guide is an artful organizer of experiences for the child to discover, process and practice. Constant and ongoing observation by the guide is the foundation of the Montessori program.
Thank you to Childpeace Montessori School of Portland, Oregon for their kind permission to re-print this article.
Montessori education is designed to help children with their task of inner construction as they grow from childhood to maturity. It succeeds because it draws its principles from the natural development of the child. The inherent flexibility allows the method to adapt to the needs of the individual, regardless of the level of ability, learning style or social maturity.
The Montessori Approach
"I have studied the child. I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it and that is what is called the Montessori method."
The Prepared Environment
Montessori classrooms provide a prepared environment where children are free to respond to their natural tendency to work. The prepared environment offers the essential elements for optimal development. The key components comprise the children, teacher and physical surroundings including the specifically designed Montessori educational material.
The Montessori Teacher-(Guide)
[Montessori] teachers are selected for their professional talents and their constant and loving concern for the children in their charge. The trained guide is an artful organizer of experiences for the child to discover, process and practice. Constant and ongoing observation by the guide is the foundation of the Montessori program.
Thank you to Childpeace Montessori School of Portland, Oregon for their kind permission to re-print this article.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
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