Showing posts from February, 2021

The growth mindset.

  It is very common once our kids get an autism diagnosis we are always told about the limitations and the kinds of things our children will not be able to do. It is like the doctors already know what our child’s future will look like when an initial diagnosis is made. We must always take this with a grain of salt. Our children are capable of making progress. There will always be limitations but still, progress can be made. It is essential as parents we need to have a growth mindset as we need to believe despite the limitations progress can be made. I have experienced this personally, as twelve years ago when my son was diagnosed with autism we were given a long list of things he won't be able to do. It was very devastating for us as parents to hear this. At the same time, I decided as a mother I was going to do everything possible to help our son. The kids do make progress, our son did too but on their own timeline. For this to happen as parents we need to be positive and believe

How parents can help their kids on spectrum use AAC.

  It is a well-known fact most children on the spectrum struggle to communicate. Most of them are non-verbal. We must provide our kids with a way to communicate. It can be low-tech systems like PECS or high-tech AAC devices. I am not a speech therapist myself but have been on my son's AAC journey for the past 8 years. I have learned different strategies from his SLP which I want to share with you all. The child needs to have access to their device. We need to ensure our kids always have access to their devices. They need to be charged every day and always be available to our children. They need to be taken everywhere so our kids always have a way to communicate. We need to model using the device . We cannot just give the child a device and expect them to use it. We must model using the device for our kids. Our kids need to see us using their devices to talk to them so they can learn using it too. We don't need to model every word. We must point to the word on their device to sp