Revised: Classes on Autism Spectrum Disorders

A series of five sessions for parents, teachers, human service providers and invididuals with ASDs will be offered beginning in the THIRD week of October.

The Sessions will include:

1. Overview of the spectrum, diagnostics, what it means for the child and family and what it does NOT mean.

2. Intensive session on forming a team, which will be of the utmost importance for a child with autism for all of the formative and educational years. Each session, including this one, will take specific questions from the group, and ensure that they are addressed throughout the sessions on a group or individual manner.

3. Treatment Planning: From assessments to service development and finally implementation and follow up for benefit. This is a cycle that is repeated many times, and being skilled in both knowledge and real skills in this arena can create the great divide between invidivual success or mounting challenge throughout life.

4. Autism Specific Interventions: From early childhood through the school years, these are "non behavioral plan" interventions used by parents, therapists and specialist teachers in so very many ways. There is a practicum to this, as safety for self and child must be demonstrated prior to ending this session.

5. Behavior: From Theory to Practice: An overview of behavioral theory, how it applies to both education and more general human growth, and how to use this theory to learn about a child with autism, shape behavior to minimize behavioral challenges and support building on success.

A minimum of 15 participants is required to run these sessions, and a maximum of twenty two as more people would cause an overload of information being discussed.

Please make direct contact with this consultant to register. The consultant began in the early nineties working with the Yale Medical School and the Yale Child Studies Clinic, pursued to first "high functioning and Asperger Disorder related" community services as supported by the Connecticut Association for Children with Autism and the National Learning Disabilities Association (LDA). Now, an author, teacher, therapist and consultant, he lives and works on the island of St. Croix, working actively on the publication of three new works intended to be a comprehensive resource and support aid for parents, siblings and other less autism-specific professionals in education and human services.

Please send a private message to this post, or contact Dan G. directly at 340-642-1290.

Thank you for your support of this much needed educational option in our territory.

PS: This is also appopriate for parents, families and others who are involved with any child diagnosed with ADHD, as this in fact is an extension of the Autism Spectrum of Disorders, and the etiology and treatment are nearly identical.

Thank you again!