Category Archives: News

How A Transition Coordinator Can Prepare Your Child For Life After School

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How a Transition Coordinator Can Prepare Your Child for Life After School
Source: (Friendship Circle)

The transition from high school to whatever comes next can be stressful for students with special needs and their parents. Guiding them through this passage is a school transition coordinator or specialist. If you haven’t made contact with this individual at your teen’s school yet, don’t wait.

I had my first meeting with our high-school transition coordinator, Barbara Milewski, when my daughter was still in middle school. I wanted to find out what I should be worrying about and planning for. Not only did she reduce my anxiety, she also pointed me toward a county agency that gave my daughter a job that summer. As school meetings go, that one was unusually productive.

Since many parents don’t know such a resource exists, I asked Mrs. Milewski — who has decades of experience helping young people through this transition as a district guidance counselor, school social worker, case manager for special-education students, and transition coordinator — to share a little bit about what transition coordinators do and why you should seek yours out. Click here to read the rest of the story.

What Does Sensory Processing Look Like In Adults?

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Sensory Processing Disorder in Adults
Source: (ADDitude)

Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) manifests in many small, sometimes maddening ways. Itchy tags may be unbearable. Loud music intolerable. Perfume simply sickening. Whatever the specific symptoms, SPD makes it difficult to interact with your daily environment. This impacts how you relate to others, study and learn, participate in sports and group activities, and follow your dreams. It is a unique and challenging neurological condition associated with inefficient processing of sensory information, and it deserves serious support.

SPD disrupts how the brain — the top of the central nervous system — takes in, organizes, and uses the messages received through our body’s receptors. We take in sensory information through our eyes, ears, muscles, joints, skin and inner ears, and we use those sensations – we integrate them, modulate them, analyze them and interpret them — for immediate and appropriate everyday functioning. Click here to read the rest of the story.

The Challenges of Being a Hyperactive Grown-Up

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adhd

Source: (Hong Kong Free Press)

Under the dim yellowish light, a woman is preparing the bar to welcome its customers later today. She checks there are sufficient bottles of wine, then walks over to another side of the bar to check the roster. From time to time, she takes out her phone and speaks into it, making voice notes. Grace Ma Lai -wah, who owns Club 71 in Central, was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) just over a decade ago. It means the 63-year-old tends to forget things and relies on her smartphone for reminders. Click here to read the rest of the story.

8 Reasons Why You Should Hire Someone With Asperger’s Syndrome

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penelope trunk
Source: (Life Hack)

When you hear the word Asperger’s, what kind of person do you think of?

Asperger’s Syndrome (ASP) is a type of mild autism that affects an average of 1 in 88 children in the US. In popular media, there are certain stereotypes attributed to people with Asperger’s (just think of Sheldon Cooper from TV’s Big Bang Theory). Often, due to their unusual gifts and behavior, highly creative and gifted people are labeled with Asperger’s, especially if they are socially awkward.

Furthermore, there’s been a trend recently where “experts” diagnose famous people with Asperger’s posthumously. The list of “diagnosed” includes Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, George Washington, and many others. Obviously, such post-mortem diagnoses are nonsense. Diagnosing Asperger’s is a difficult process and such diagnosis can only be established by psychiatrists or psychologists. They typically use specialized psychoeducational assessments to diagnose Asperger’s syndrome. To read the rest of the story, Click Here

3 Ways Technology Can Help Students With Autism

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Image result for technology
(Article Source: Ed Tech)

It is a statistic that most Americans would probably be stunned to find is so prevalent: One of out every 68 kids in the United States is on the autism spectrum, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While it’s true that most children these days are considered “digital natives,” children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) also find themselves most comfortable with a device in their hands.

In an article for the Indiana Resource Center for Autism, author Kristie Brown Lofland notes that children with ASD are visual learners, which means technology can be a valuable tool in the learning process.

“Technology just makes visual images more accessible to the individual with ASD. Computer graphics capture and maintain their attention,” Lofland writes. Click here to read the rest of the story.

The invisible girls on the Autism Spectrum — Everyday Autism

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I recently helped a friend with her niece, who had just been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. My friend strongly felt that this diagnosis was wrong, and after reading more about my symptoms and experiences with ASD believed that her niece “Anne” (name changed) was actually Autistic. The symptoms were all there – social issues, […]

via The invisible girls on the Autism Spectrum — Everyday Autism