Living with Autism

 BBC 2  Horizon 9.00 Tuesday April 1st 2014 

Duration: 1 hour

'When pioneering developmental psychologist Professor Uta Frith started her training back in the 1960s, she met a group of beautiful, bright-eyed young children who seemed completely detached from the rest of the world.
It turned out they had just been given the then-new diagnosis of autism. Uta passionately wanted to know more about these children, and they inspired her to dedicate the rest of her career to studying the autistic mind.
On the eve of National Autism Day, Horizon reveals how Uta's lifetime study of people with autism has transformed our understanding of this mysterious condition.
In this film Uta shows how people with autism perceive and interact with the world and how, for them, another kind of reality exists. She meets people with autism who have extraordinary talents, and explains why they often fail to understand jokes. She also explores whether many of us could be just a little bit autistic' BBC website 

Recycling

A work book/Powerpoint adapted from my original Power point  Why recycling?

A good resource adapted by Sophie Owen  www.autismhampshire.org.uk

Autism and Nature

'Autism and Nature have published three guides which aim to help families and teachers of children with autism to access nature and the countryside in Kent, East Sussex and West Sussex. The guides should also be useful to those living and working with adults on the autistic spectrum. The first chapter of each guide introduces some of the benefits of nature and the countryside for children with autism. This is followed by a guide to ‘natural’ places to visit in the countryside, which they believe many children with autism will enjoy. The guides end with a series of case stories, describing visits to the countryside by school children with autism and related conditions'        text quoted from website

The Reason Why I Jump - Book of the week

 Radio 4 is featuring this extraordinary book by a Japanese teenager with severe autism.
You can listen to it via the  BBC website  -The first  15 minute episode is  only available until 31st July(4 days). There are 5 episodes in total.

The BBC Word of Mouth Programme on Tuesday 15th January featured Michael Rosen meeting parents, researchers and carers to explore the ways we communicate with people with autism or profound learning disabilities.
This 28 minute programme is available to listen again  on the BBC website.

Times Goes Nowhere

Times Goes Nowhere by Jo Lane is showcased on BBC Film network
'Carer Janet's time with Tommy, a young man with low functioning autism, is drawing to a close as he transitions into adult services. Janet reminisces over their time together and sees the world through his eyes one more time before realising she needs to let go.' BBC OUCH!

Create! Art for Autism

Beechwood College are running an art competition with three categories covering 2d art, 3d art and digital media.
The competition is for young people age 11-25 with autism.
The closing date is 10th June 2011.

One in Ten

The Guardian has an interesting and informative

set of photographs

from Kayte Brimacombe's photography exhibition

One in Ten at the OXO gallery.

The photos feature young people with a dual diagnosis of Downs Syndrome and Autism.

Preparing Schedules

Picto selector is a Word based programme for preparing schedules and other materials for children and young people with autism. It is a free download developed by the parent of a child with autism.

It is available in a number of different languages by going to the start page

PECS for all

The program makes use of free symbols such as

Straight Street

Sclera.

Further detail on PECS for All

Autism Internet Modules

Autism Internet Modules are 'written by experts from across the U.S., all online modules are free, and are designed to promote understanding of, respect for, and equality of persons with ASD'.

Topics covered include: Recognising Autism, Autism at home, Autism at school,Autism in the workplace, Autism in the community.
Examples of modules:
Preparing Individuals for employment
Structured Teaching
Transitioning between activities.
.

So what does it mean to be autistic?

Planetmouret explains in this fun film that Autistic people can take things literally .










For all of those who have not quite had their fill of election sites planetmoreau has a blog with lots of election information.

Ted Talks:Temple Grandin

The world needs all kinds of minds

Asperger's Syndrome on Teachers TV

Now available on Schools world
The Troubled Mind series on Teachers TV features a three minute cartoon film narrated by a young person with Asperger's Syndrome. He describes the emotional distress he felt as his Asperger's syndrome caused him to struggle socially at school.Watch on line. The film is now on on Schools world

Catch Autistic Me on the iPlayer

You can watch The Autistic Me on the BBC iPlayer until the 13th October 2009. This documentary follows three people with autism at pivotal moments on the rocky road to being accepted as an adult. They are all fighting for independence and responsibility, but being frustrated by the shackles imposed on them by their disability, their families and the preconceived ideas of mainstream society. Source : BBC iPlayer

Information on setting up an Autistic classroom

Here are some links from the web which may be useful if you are setting up a new classroom for students with autism. I have tried to find links which maybe relevant to 16+.

Cindy's Autistic Support

has lots of links including

Structure in Classroom

About our classroom

Pictures of our classroom

Autism classroom.com has picture of classrooms including a classroom for teenagers


Podcasts on setting up an effective classroom has two podcasts on an effective autism classroom (introduction and schedules)

Structured Teaching: Strategies for Supporting Students with Autism?
Is a paper by Susan Stokes

covering :
What is structured teaching?

Physical structure

Visual schedules

Work systems and schedules



Autism4teachers has many pages incuding Classsroom structure which has lots of photos of classrooms.

Asperger's Syndrome in the news

The Guardian magazine recently had an article on the struggles of a sixth form student with Asperger's syndrome to gain a place at school.

The curious incident of the straight-A student

can be read at The Guardian website

Better,faster..and no office politics:the company with autistic specialists

is an article about employing people with Autism from The Independent .
You can also read about it on the blog Webcredible

BBC Ouch! Blog has an a good article with lots of links about the plight of Gary Mckinon who is facing extradition to the U.S.

Hacker Gary McKinnon's asperger review

Autism awareness

Sim-dis from Techdis.ac.uk is a web site which simulates various aspects of disability including autism, vision impairment and dyslexia .
The section on Autism covers:

• Monitors
• Overload
• Pixels
• Recognition
• Representations
• SoundsThis picture which can be viewed on the website is animated and illustrates the small background sounds that can become a focus for someone with autism such as a tapping pen,computer, printer and clock.

Intensive Interaction

Reaching Ricky from Teachers TV is a 15 minute film exploring the use of Intensive Interaction with 11 year old Ricky a severely autistic boy.The film looks at moving Ricky from his inner world of self stimulation where functional communication is the norm to a shared stimulation and emotional engagement with others.

Understanding Asperger Syndrome

Watch this useful 15 minute video about Asperger syndrome from Teachers TV .

My Crazy Life - Changing Reuben

Reuben is 14 years of age and has an IQ of 154. He describes himself as a square peg in a round hole. This Teachers TV programme follows Reuben's every day life and the challenges he faces along the way.
I gained a good insight into some of the key aspects of Reuben's Aspergers Syndrome from watching the film:

Information has to be broken down into small logical steps to help understanding.
Literal interpretation leads to confusion.
Tend to get obsessed ,doesn’t move on “gets stuck in a groove” .
Phobias– crowds, noise.
Interrupts other because he is focused on self not others .
Not able to deal with other people but a desire to have friends
Different interests from others
A desire to fit in but a realization that he is different
Grey areas – doesn’t like it when issues aren’t clear
Not understanding body language

This film has a wonderful section that explains how the extremely clever Reuben struggles with shopping at a supermarket. It shows him getting “stuck” on the issue of the ice cubes.
Why do they sell ice cubes like that why don’t we just make our own?
Well it might be because someone is having a party or something or going away or going out or something like that they can take it in a cool box
Why can’t they just freeze it?
The freezer might be full of meat and things
Where are they going to put the ice cubes when they get home?
In the cool box… shall we get the bread?
Why don’t they just make room in their freezer?
Not many people would have that many ice trays or may be they are having a party shall we go over here for the bread?
Well couldn’t they just make them up a bit at a time and put them in the coolbox?
Well may be its just a bit labour intensive ...

Every year I have someone with Aspergers Syndrome in my entry level groups. I have sometimes struggled with dealing with the behavior and this film has been very useful.

Many thanks to Reuben and his family for sharing his story.

Check out The Autistic Society website for further information on Aspergers Syndrome.