Preparing Researchers, Educators, and Parents (PREP): Tools for Autism & Behavior. 

FREE interactive modules for Educators working with children with autism. 

Course sequence intended for educators, speech pathologists, behavior specialists, other direct service providers and family members seeking to improve outcomes of individuals with autism and developmental disabilities, as well as those with challenging behavior. 

Massive open online professional individualized learning. Free PD course for all educators

Online, self-paced

Incorporates culture and innovative strategies into the classroom to better serve English Learners

By now, you may have heard about these buzzwords in education: social and emotional learning (SEL). Many schools embed SEL into their curriculum, or use a specific SEL curriculum, because of its proven benefits. SEL is the process through which children understand and manage emotions, achieve goals, understand and show empathy, develop positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. As parents, we have the unique opportunity to set the stage for SEL in our homes. We want our kids to be resilient, empathetic, and to choose kindness when presented with a difficult decision. Although you might feel pressured to focus more on math and literacy learning than your child’s emotional health, introducing simple at-home SEL practices will help your child thrive at home and at school. And guess what? This foundation will support math and literacy learning for years to come.

Check out these five SEL practices to help your child develop a strong foundation in understanding their emotions and the emotions of others:

It might be hard to think about your young child ever getting in trouble and having to talk to the police. The truth is however, that people with special needs often end up in situations they do not know how to handle. If your child has trouble talking to people or explaining their special needs to others, problems can happen when faced with the police or other adults they don’t know. We found some great articles for teaching your child behaviors that can help them if they come in contact with police. Please click on the following link for more information. 

Book Creator for iPad is a well developed app that allows the user to create their own original eBooks. The layout and design are very clean, organized and user friendly.

We use the app primarily for creating social stories and retelling events with our students of all ages with a variety of special needs. With some assistance, our students are able to add text and bring in pictures from the photo album or from the web. It is then very easy to move and resize the pictures on each page. Formatting options are also very easy to use, for changing layouts, text size, fonts, etc. Video, music, and speech can also be recorded within each book to make it a complete multimedia experience. Students are able to practice skills related to literacy and add personal touches that reflect their creativity.

When the on-screen keyboard opens, students can also dictate what the text on the page should be, allowing all students the opportunity to be an author, regardless of your accessibility needs (Ipad 3s).

Another exciting feature of this app is the ease with which you can use/share the books you create. Book Creator offers several options including sending the books via email, Dropbox, and iTunes. You can even print the books and/or publish them as an iBook! It is great to see the students go to the iBookshelf and see books that they actually created. What a great sense of product and ownership.