Rare is the parent who has never wondered what their child will grow up to be. Rare I am not although I did postpone my wondering until my children were well into puberty. I might have postponed the wondering about Bryce longer – he was progressing nicely and I had faith in the process – but for a middle school teacher who volunteered the opinion that she could “see our friend Bryce doing well in a cubicle doing clearly delineated tasks exactly as he is told.” There’s nothing wrong with cubicle jobs, and they are just right for some people (see below). But Bryce was already interested in filmmaking, an outside-the-cubicle profession if ever there was one. The cubicle prophecy was only one of many factors that led us to Thomas Edison High School, the only high school in our state devoted exclusively on students with learning differences.

One of the cornerstones of Thomas Edison High School is their Transitions program, which kicks into high gear during the senior year. Transitions focuses on each student developing a plan for life after high school. All options are explored through field trips (colleges and employers), guest speakers, class instruction and hands-on experiences (all seniors enroll in community college and take an elective class and a “college survival” class). For some students, Transitions will take them down the SAT/college application path. Others will pursue community college and yet others will seek employment. (Edison’s graduate-to-college rate is 90%, far higher than the state or national average. In the hands of the right teachers and staff, learning differences are not “disabilities.”)

For Bryce, now entering his senior year, the Transitions process has begun. One of the first steps was his completion of the O*NET™ Interest Profiler.

What will your child grow up to be? The O*NET™ Interest Profiler is not a crystal ball, but rather an eerily accurate indicator of interest areas, and how those interests fall into six categories that suggest real-life jobs to which those interest can be gainfully applied. The profile consists of 180 activities to which you respond with “like” or “dislike” (not “can” or “can’t”). Your score will reflect your most cogent occupational interests. The six areas of interest are Realistic (practical, hands-on work, often outdoors), Investigative (thinking through problems, searching out facts), Artistic (jobs involving self-expression, forms, designs, patterns, often without a clear set of rules), Social (helping others with learning and personal development), Enterprising (project-oriented, especially business), and Conventional (jobs that follow set procedures, rules and standards, working with concrete data rather than concepts).

Now, many of us are sick to death of phony quizzes that attempt to sort a general population into half a dozen herds of general thinking. The Transition teachers at Edison knew some parents would be skeptical, so they encouraged us to complete the profile ourselves and see how accurately it gauged our own work interests.

Wow….

Read the full article here.

“I guess if they got rid of anything I would prefer that over music and art because kids still get to run during recess and lunch… I wouldn’t want art or music being cut because those expand the brain so much.”

“PE is not expendable but with the right people you can get creative with alternative things to help keep our kids healthy.”

“Physical movement helps concentration, and is an investment in our children’s health.”

“Current research talks about how the brain needs exercise and for children it reduces attention and behavioural issues. Instead of cutting subject areas what about cutting back on the outcomes or combining subject areas and their outcomes such as science and math together?”

“It seems to me that it is easier for parents to keep their children active and physically engaged than, for instance, to teach them music or art if those aren’t their interests.”

Join the discussion now.

Excerpt:

Contracts and deals can be effective behavior management tools, in the home and in the classroom environment. You already use them informally: “Pick
up your room and you can go to the movies.” “Finish your math and you can have computer time.” More formal deal structures include point systems or token earning systems. When used effectively, deals and contracts can reduce
behavioural problems, keep att ention focused, and help teach one of life’s critical lessons: work = reward. However, pitfalls and traps abound in sett ing up contracts and deals, especially with children who lack important social skills that contribute to a shared understanding of the contract’s
parameters. Adhere to these simple but important guidelines for sett ing up contracts and deals…

Read the full text here.

Read more excerpts from 1001 Great Ideas for Teaching and Raising Children with Autism or Asperger’s here.

And some are just plain wrong: “Autistic today, genius tomorrow.”

Stereotypes are seldom useful and most often harmful. This bumper sticker, unquestionably well-intended, is also unquestionably dangerous. In perpetuating a lofty stereotype that most individuals with autism will never achieve, it sets up for failure the very people it seeks to support…

Read the full text of When Good Bumper Stickers Go Bad on my Facebook page.

To be sure, the global conversation about autism has gotten louder. My website took an all-time high number of hits — from 91 countries. That’s terrific.

What isn’t terrific to me is that, amid all this wonderful awareness, I continue to see the same old tired stereotypes sneaking into news stories that seem to be trying to be positive – but not quite making it. It may very well be unintentional, but it nevertheless holds our kids back, which I why I will continue to bring it to light, until it stops…

Read the full article here.

For those not familiar with the original Ten Things, read them here.

View the film by clicking here.

Excerpt:

Social and Emotional Intelligence: for children with autism, teaching non-IQ skills must be a priority

It’s all but a certainty that before a child receives services related to his autism through the public school system, he will be subjected to a barrage of evaluations that will include a test of his IQ (intelligence quotient).

More accurately put, this is a test of cognitive and verbal intelligence that will not be standardized to the type of language deficits common to autism. Therefore, many parents will find the results to be a wildly inaccurate reflection of the actual abilities their child demonstrates in “real life.”

It’s likely that much less emphasis will be placed on his social and emotional intelligence. And social and emotional intelligence is very possibly a bigger determinant in your child’s long term success in life than cognitive intelligence.

Read more…