New blog - ideas and strategies

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Hi! My name is Pam Angel. I am a speech and language therapist and I work with kids with ASD. I have recently created a blog. In my blog I am posting strategies that I have found useful in my therapy sessions.

I would love for you to take a look at the blog and give me your feedback. I hope you will find the information helpful. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks!



http://dontmesswithmrin-between.blogspot.com/

Having a blog you want to share with members of the community is one thing; shouting about it is another. Could you tone down your title? Since you've been posting elsewhere in this community, you can share information about your blog, but please be careful of actively promoting or advertising it. Wrong Planet specifically prohibits that in its terms of service.

On another topic, many people here are wary of those who use a tone of knowing anything better than they do, and the whole life coaching / interested in helping people with AS thing can be suspicious (not to say that is you, but so you won't be surprised if you get some negative remarks). While members here have areas of weakness, they also have talents and strengths. My two friends who are life coaches are both fun and interesting people, but they have an energy level I never will, and I get suspicious of the idea that they could tell me anything I don't already know, and already know won't work for me, as a unique individual.

But speech and language - all our favorite specialists have been speech and language specialists.

i was reading about this and had to say this, i really do.
you wrote this:

You get up fresh the next morning and tell yourself that you are only going to tell your child what you want him to do. You are NOT going to tell him what you don't want him to do. So what if he's already doing something he's not supposed to do? Then what? It still works. Instead of telling him not to do what he's currently doing tell him what he CAN do instead. Here are some examples:

NEGATIVE POSITIVE
1.Don't sit on the table. 1. You can sit on this chair.
2.Don't write on the wall. 2. You can write on paper.
3.Don't run. 3. Please walk to the car.

4. No screaming! 4. Please tell me what
you need.


now. If someone had told me as a kid that i could sit on a chair, i would have thought "duh......."and stayed on the table.
just my 2 cents. my son is the same and i suspect others will agree with me on this: you need to be as clear as possible with an AS kid, no sugar coating. nice, but straight. as in: "it's not allowed to sit on the table. this is where we put the plates, not our butts, please sit on the chair."
the message you want to convey needs to be the message your words mean.

Every child is different. And what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another. When I am working with younger children I have found that using fewer words is better. They can process the message more quickly. But when working with older students with Aspergers I do have to be much more specific.

So I agree with you. You do have to say exactly what you mean to get your message across.

Thanks for your input.

In the school system where I work it is "best practices" to use positive language and positive reinforcement. I have found that when kids have several people telling them "no" throughout the day it leads to frustration in the child. When the child gets frustrated his behaviors may escalate. This is not to say that we never use the word "no". Of course we do. But when we eliminate negatives when possible, the students and the staff seem to be happier throughout the day.

Thanks for your thoughts and have a great weekend.

Pam, your changes and additional explanation are perfect

Interesting point ediself made ... while I always had better success being positive with my AS son, I also had to be very wordy with him. He wouldn't have budged from the table unless I had added something like, "I WANT you to sit in the chair." or "I am asking you to sit in the chair." Thinking specifically about those younger days, at least; now it is most effective to find a joke he can relate to (funny we're talking about sitting on tables, because after his latest growth spurt, sitting on the table has become a habit of his, given that it is now the "perfect" height for scooting onto; any joke or comment will be enough to make him realize the error he has just made and change his spot). The difference between "then" and "now" being that he knows people don't sit on tables, and he understands the reasons why. When he does it, he simply isn't thinking.

Some AS kids have auditory processing problems, however, so anything beyond 4 words won't work.

I think the answer is that child has to first be aware there IS a rule, like not sitting on the table, so that almost anything you say is less an instruction than a reminder, a way to make him realize the error he has made.

I absolutely agree with you. Thanks for your insight.

Pamo, do you do speech therapy for kids and life coaching for adults? Or life coaching for kids only? I've usually seen life coaching as more of an adult thing, but is it becoming more than that?

Just wanted to say I think your blog is quite nice. BTW - I read positive discapline when my 1st son was a baby, and have always corrected with the positive.

I was told that little kids don't know how to replace the no with what you want, that is a two step thought process and they don't always have the right information to make it to the 2nd step. It is much more effecient and clearer to just say what you want. rather than what you don't want. For those who are older and want more detail we can always state the rule then say how we want it resolved.

I would say:

For a kid on the table - Sit on the chair, or I need you to sit on the chair, or we sit on chairs

For a kid running when they shouldn't be - "walking feet" or Walk please

Chew with your mouth closed

Once I got used to it it was very easy and they say it is much easier on the self esteem than to always be told NO.

BTW - this workes just fine with both my NT and AS sons.

Yes exactly! Thanks so much for reading the blog.