Social-Emotional Development in Children with Language Delays and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Virtual Training – March 3, 2022 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

                            November 5, 2021  9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Young children with language delays are at risk for persistent developmental and behavioral difficulties. This presentation will focus on the assessment of social-emotional development in children with language delays and autism spectrum disorder as well as the emerging evidence supporting effectiveness of interventions.

You can register for the training here. 

Social Thinking Recorded Trainings available through March 18, 2021

The OPI Montana Autism Education Project has a limited number of scholarships for Montana public school educators to view on-demand trainings from Social Thinking. These trainings will be available until March 18, 2022. 

No OPI renewal units are available for watching these recorded trainings. ASHA CEUs are available through Social Thinking. 

Only three trainings (total) are available per person. You can find training descriptions here. 

Please follow the links below to register for up to three trainings.

Social Topics: Social Thinking / Social Emotional Learning

Other Topics: Behavior / Teenagers / Executive Thinking

REGISTRATION HAS CLOSED.

 WAVES 2020-21 Session Archives Available

Hopefully you’ve taken advantage of the free professional development opportunities that the Wyoming Department of Education provided this past semester. We know how hard you’ve been working to meet the needs of Wyoming students. If you missed a session or two, we’ve got you covered. Educators can access all the WAVES recordings and materials  below, or visit the Wyoming Instructional Network [lnks.gd]. 

WAVES 20-21 Session Archives [lnks.gd]

IDEA Legal Issues in COVID School Closures: FAPE, Compensatory Services, Other Issues - Jose Martin

There are special factors for IEP teams to consider during the pandemic. This session provides excellent guidance to assist you:

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]
• Presentation video [lnks.gd]

What About Us? PLC at Work Process for Grades Pre-K – 2 - Brian Butler and his co-authors 

Discover how to achieve the full potential of preK-2 classrooms through proven best practices aligned to the PLC at Work® process. Learn how to work in collaborative teams to determine essential standards, design assessments, monitor student progress, and more.

• Agenda [lnks.gd]
• Handout: What About Us? Reproducibles. [lnks.gd]
• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]

Conducting Comprehensive Evaluations - Bart Lyman

Explore the foundations and identify the specific components of a comprehensive evaluation.

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]
• Presentation video [lnks.gd]

Modern Issues in Least Restrictive Environment: Does the Mandate Really Apply Equally in All Context? - Jose Martin 

LRE is a foundation of IDEA. This will walk you through all the components to consider.

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]
• Presentation video [lnks.gd]

Goal Writing (K-12 focus) - Dr. Tessie Bailey

An overview of strategies for setting high quality Academic and Behavioral IEP Goals.

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]
• Presentation video [lnks.gd]
• Handout: Strategies for Setting Data-Driven Academic IEP Goals [lnks.gd]
• Handout: Strategies for Setting High-Quality Behavioral IEP Goals [lnks.gd]

Comprehensive Evaluations & Observations for Early Childhood Pre-K – 2 - Annastashia Teepe

Take an in-depth look into conducting comprehensive evaluations and observations for children ages 3 - 8 as part of the referral process for special education. 

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]
• Presentation video [lnks.gd]
• Handout: Time on Task Template [lnks.gd]

Addressing Postsecondary Transition: Student with Complex Needs - Ellen Condon

Find ways to encourage families, young adults, and support staff to stretch their thinking in the possibilities of postsecondary transition.

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]
• Presentation video [lnks.gd]
• Handout: Unpaid Work Experiences, Volunteering, and Internships [lnks.gd]

MTSS 101 (K-12 focus) - Bart Lyman

Develop a basic understanding of MTSS components, learn the benefits of utilizing the framework, and begin to evaluate current practices through an MTSS lens.

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]
• Presentation video [lnks.gd]

Social Emotional Panel Discussion (Early Childhood focus) Panelists - Nikki Baldwin, Kathy Buchanan, Laura Fowler, Nicole George, and Tiffany Hunt

Panelists discuss some practical strategies/suggestions for educators to provide social emotional learning and support for our children and families while ensuring a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), while providing tips on how teachers can feel supported in their own social/emotional well-being among the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Presentation video [lnks.gd]

Trauma-Informed Care (K-12 focus) - Clark Fairbanks and Wendy Gaunter

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]
• Presentation video (K-12 focus) [lnks.gd]
• Presentation video (Early Childhood focus) [lnks.gd] 

Trauma-Informed Care (Early Childhood focus) - Clark Fairbanks and Wendy Gaunter

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]
• Presentation video [lnks.gd]

Woodcock Johnson/Review of General Administration Procedures -  Dan Mayer

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]
• Presentation video [lnks.gd]

Visual Impairment Eligibility Determination - Leslie Van Orman 

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]
• Presentation video [lnks.gd]
• Handout: Letter to Kotler [lnks.gd]
• Handout: OSEP Memo 17-05 [lnks.gd]

Overcoming Poor Quality Tier 1 through Effective Implementation of High Leverage Practices/Evidence Based Practices - Dr. Tessie Bailey

Develop a quality Tier I through the selection and implementation of High Leverage Practices/Evidence Based Practices.

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd]
• Handout: Tier 1 High-Leverage and Evidence-Based Practices [lnks.gd]

Kindergarten Transition & Executive Functioning Skills - Deana Smith, Nikki Baldwin, and Amy Reyes

During this session, you will find ways to improve Kindergarten transition, help your students develop or improve their social/emotional and executive functioning skills, and learn strategies and ideas from teachers within the state  to help your student’s transition be more successful as they enter kindergarten. 

• Presentation slides [lnks.gd] (Deana Smith)
• Presentation slides [lnks.gd] (Nikki Baldwin)
• Presentation slides [lnks.gd] (Albany County)
• Presentation slides [lnks.gd] (Amy Reyes)
• Handout: Understanding and Supporting Transitions in Early Childhood Education [lnks.gd]
• Presentation slides: Brit Hoyt, Kate Kool, and Alex Goe [lnks.gd] (Teton County)
• Presentation Video: Kindergarten Transition & Executive Functioning Skills [lnks.gd] 

Avoiding Pitfalls in the IEP Process: Don’t fall prey to some commonly overlooked components of the IEP process - Stephanie Weaver

• Presentation video IN THE IEP PROCESS [lnks.gd] 
• Presentation slides ECE Goal Writing Strategies [lnks.gd] 
• Handout Overview of Goal Setting Strategies [lnks.gd] 

Goal Writing Strategies for Early Childhood: An overview of strategies for setting high quality Pre-Academic and Functional  IEP Goals - Dr. Tessie Bailey

• Presentation video Early Childhood Goal Writing Strategies (Pre-Academic/Functional) [lnks.gd] 
• Presentation slides ECE Goal Writing Strategies [lnks.gd] 
• Handout Overview of Goal Setting Strategies [lnks.gd] 

Upcoming Social Thinking Trainings (virtual) - Spring 2021 REGISTRATION CLOSED

The OPI Montana Autism Education Project will be offering the trainings below for Montana public school educators. The trainings are 3.5 hours long and attendees will have access to the recording of the training for 30 days after the training date. 

March 4 -  Me in the Social World—It All Starts with Social Self-Awareness

March 5 - Using Social Competencies to Navigate in the Social World

April 16 -  The Social World: Practical Vocabulary and Concepts for Teaching How It Works

April 17 - Strategies and Concepts for How to Navigate to Regulate in the Social World

May 3 - Assessing Social Competencies with Practical Assessment Tools and Tasks

May 4 - Exploring Socially Based Executive Functions & Tips for Assessing Different Developmental Ages

Four OPI renewal units will be provided for each training. 

We have reached the maximum number of attendees for these trainings and have closed the registration. We hope to offer more trainings this summer. If you wish to subscribe to the Montana Autism Education Project mailing list to be notified if more trainings become available you can do so here. 

Virtual Social Thinking Trainings Available

ALL SCHOLARSHIPS HAVE BEEN GIVEN OUT. THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST. 

We have a limited number of scholarships for Montana public school educators to attend online Social Thinking Trainings. (A description of the Social Thinking trainings can be found here.)

These trainings will be available on the following dates, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Thursday, November 5: Teaching Thoughts, Theories and The Group Plan

Friday, November 6: Teaching Thinking with Eyes, Body in the Group and Whole Body Listening

Thursday, November 12: Assessing Peer-Based Collaboration and Play to Provide Specific Treatment Pathways

Friday, November 13: Advancing Social Learning with Five Concepts to Promote Executive Functions

Tuesday, December 1, 2020: Individualizing Social Emotional Learning and Treatment Decision Making

Wednesday, December 2, 2020: Teaching Different Developmental Ages - Who Needs What When?

Things you must know before you request a scholarship: 

OPI renewal units will be provided after verification from Social Thinking that you have completed the training.  

We have established a separate registration process from the Social Thinking online process. If you register for a training and pay Social Thinking, we cannot reimburse you. 

If you have any questions, please email Doug Doty at ddoty@mt.gov. 

 We will provide notice within a few days whether you have been accepted to attend a training. 

Social Capital and Autism in Young Adulthood: Applying Social Network Methods to Measure the Social Capital of Autistic Young Adults

What was the purpose of this study?

Many autistic young adults are disconnected from people, communities, and organizations that could provide them with valuable social resources to support their transition to adulthood. This study tests the feasibility of using social network methods to measure the resources that autistic young adults gain from their social connections. Future studies using our social network measure might provide valuable information about possible interventions that could help autistic youth acquire the social resources needed for successful adult outcomes.

Read more here. 

Archived Webinar - The Ins and Outs of Dating

Learn strategies for individuals on the autism spectrum interested in the ins and outs of dating.

You can view the webinar recording here at the Autism Research Institute. 

How can I teach telephone skills at home?

Good ideas here at thet Association for Science in Autism Treatment. 

Autism Social Skills Profile

Download it here. See more of Scott Beliini's work here. 

Teaching Life Skills and Community Safety Signs

See more here at Teachers Pay Teachers. 

Archved Webinar - Using Proactive Strategies for Social Emotional Learning

In this webinar you’ll learn: 

• Best practices for applying timely, proactive strategies to promote self-regulation and social emotional learning

• The relationship between emotional control and students’ ability to learn

• How to choose the right strategies to address common unwanted behaviors 

View the recording here. 

Easy Ways to Teach Perspective Taking to an ASD Child

Embedding instruction into children’s literature

Reading to children is one of the best ways to help children experience different worlds, imagine different experiences, and see the world from different perspectives. This, in turn, helps us become more empathetic by helping us understand others feelings and perspectives. While reading picture books to children, we can use the following prompts to teach children about facial expressions portrayed by the characters:

“I notice (describe nonverbal cues in detail). This makes me think the character is (name feeling).
I’m going to make my face/body look like that (model nonverbal cues).”

“It seems like (character) is (name feeling). I know this because (describe nonverbal cues in detail).”

Read more here at Autism Parenting magazine.

Archived Webinar - Research Insights: Understanding Social Development in ASD

Watch the archived webinar here. 

Archived Webinars from the Autism Research Institute

Access the webinars here. 

Study offers clues about eye avoidance in ASD

This artilce also appeared in the 2017, volume 3 issue of ARI's Autism Research Review International newsletter.

New research indicates that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) avoid eye contact not because they lack interest in interacting socially, but because making eye contact causes them to experience unpleasant arousal in the brain’s subcortical system.

Hadjikhani says, “The findings demonstrate that, contrary to what has been thought, the apparent lack of interpersonal interest among people with autism is not due to a lack of concern. Rather, our results show that this behavior is a way to decrease an unpleasant excessive arousal stemming from overactivation in a particular part of the brain.”

Based on the study’s findings, Hadjikhani says that forcing individuals with autism to focus on other people’s eyes may be misguided. Instead, she says, “An approach involving slow habituation to eye contact may help them overcome this overreaction and be able to handle eye contact in the long run, thereby avoiding the cascading effects that this eye-avoidance has on the development of the social brain.”

Read more here. 

Social behaviour and social cognition in high-functioning adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD): two sides of the same coin?

Abstract

Of the triad of symptoms found in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), that is, social impairments, communication difficulties and repetitive interests and behaviour, the social impairments are the most stable and common throughout the lifespan. They typically manifest themselves in abnormalities as reciprocal interactions and difficulties in the expression and recognition of emotions. Although peer interactions become especially important during adolescence, little is known about the mentalizing abilities of high-functioning adolescents with ASD. Here, we compared the mentalizing skills and emotion recognition abilities of 21 high-functioning adolescents with ASD and 21 matched controls. All adolescents had estimated above-average verbal intelligence levels. Spontaneous social abilities and task-related social abilities were measured using questionnaires, tasks and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Results confirm social impairment in daily life situations in adolescents with ASD, but were not found on experimental tasks of social cognition. The use of more explicit cognitive or verbally mediating reasoning techniques and a lesser tendency of high-functioning adolescents with ASD to search for and use social information in natural environments are further discussed.

Read more here. 

Social Skills Resources

WEB RESOURCES

• Resources by Scott Bellini that include the Autism Social Skills Profile – 2 – http://acrlinks.com/BELLINI-2
• Tutorial on using wristbands for self-management and initiations:https://acrlinks.com/wristbands
• OCALI SOCCSS forms and templates-http://acrlinks.com/OCALI-SOCCSS
• Incredible 5-Point Scale Resources –https://www.5pointscale.com/
  
  
  Find MANY MORE resources here from Reeve Autism Consulting

Archived Webinar - Evidence-based Approach to Teaching Social Skills to Teens with ASD

1. Watch the recorded webinar here. 

Archived Webinars - Social Thinking

The Social Competency Model: Teaching Social Competencies More Than Social Skills

How to Use Core Social Thinking Materials

How to Use Social Thinking Materials to Teach Ages 4–7

How to Use Social Thinking Materials to Teach Ages 8-11

How to Use Social Thinking Materials to Teach Ages 11–22

View the webinars here.

Navigating the Zones - A New Zones Tool by Leah Kuyper

Navigating The Zones is an interactive teaching tool designed to extend Leah Kuyper’s original teachings as described in the book The Zones of Regulation®. It engages participants in a problem-solving process at the heart of emotional self-regulation—while learning and collaborating along the way.
It walks participants through the “Zones Pathway”—a visual, sequential, and concrete road map that helps structure participants’ thinking and processing about the problem-solving sequence that is at the center of emotional self-regulation. This three-step process involves thinking about a Situation (where are we, who are we with?), thinking about and interpreting the Feeling we experience in response to the situation, and thinking about a Tool or strategy we can use to help us navigate the situation in an expected way.

Group collaboration and problem solving is a significant part of the journey in Navigating The Zones. Participants work together, under the guidance of the Adult Facilitator, to support each other and reach a shared goal. They can offer each other help, ask questions, suggests tools and strategies, and more—so that as a team, everyone is successful and the learning is rich!

See more information here.