Autism

Meeting the Challenges of Autism
Meeting the Challenges of Autism $415.00

Meeting the Challenges of Autism

Our course, Meeting the Challenges of Autism, will provide many ah-ha moments for educators.

Our Autism Training For Teachers in Colorado and beyond can help educators learn how to promote social differences as strengths. Those with ASD have difficulties with gathering important social information, interpreting that information, making judgments about it, and then implementing responses for the situation. As a result, they make persistent social inaccuracies. Educators often see these miscues in action in the classroom.

This Autism Training class for teachers will help educators:

  • Understand this breakdown
  • Structure resources to help them cope
  • Build a plan to help accommodate these breakdowns in social cues, mind reading, and empathizing.

After attending our Autism Training Class teachers will realize that individuals with autism have uncommon ways of processing information and exceptional styles of expression. Educators will discover pertinent resources, practices, and understanding that can help diminish communication barriers over time. The compelling reminder that social differences can be strengths will help educators master how to channel the challenges into useful attributes for the classroom and life. Being able to turn the tables and restate the challenges into strengths can help change the mindset of a frustrated teacher and bring a bright new perspective!

Current Autism Statistics

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

  • About 1 in 59 children has been identified with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) according to estimates from CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. [Read article]
  • ASD is reported to occur in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. [Read summary] [Read article]
  • ASD is about 4 times more common among boys than among girls. [Read article]
  • Studies in Asia, Europe, and North America have identified individuals with ASD with an average prevalence of between 1% and 2%. [Data table]
  • About 1 in 6 children in the United States had a developmental disability in 2006-2008, ranging from mild disabilities such as speech and language impairments to serious developmental disabilities, such as intellectual disabilities, cerebral palsy, and autism. [Read summary]

What is Autism?

Autism spectrum disorders are a wide range of conditions. These conditions can be described as: challenged in social skills, restricted and repetitive behaviors, and impaired speech and communication. These characteristics usually begin in early childhood and continue through an individual’s lifetime. An individual with autism may display each of these conditions uniquely.

There are specific social and communication attributes that characterize autism. These include:

  • Poor eye contact
  • Difficulty beginning and continuing a conversation
  • Language that seems echoed
  • Lack of empathy
  • Challenges with receptive language, or no verbal communication at all

There is a large range in communication skills in students with autism. Some students possess a great amount of verbal language but lack the ability to respond and continue a conversation appropriately. This greatly limits the performance of their verbal language. On the other hand, some students are completely non-verbal and have severe challenges with letting communication partners know what they want, and how they feel due to their lack of verbal communication and difficulty initiating to begin with.

Restrictive and repetitive behaviors play a part in what Autism may look like.

Some of these behaviors include:

  • Intense interest in a topic or toy
  • Rigidity with variation in routine
  • Atypical body movements
  • Sensory challenges

These behaviors can also range across various individuals with autism.

What causes Autism?

There is not one cause for autism. Autism is believed to be developed from both genetic and environmental factors. Autism has been observed to run in families. Changes in certain genes can raise the risk for autism. These gene changes can be passed from one or both parents to a growing embryo, or they can occur as the embryo grows. These are not definite causes, but they boost the risk for autism. Some environmental risk factors include advanced maternal age, spacing of pregnancies in less than one year, and premature birth. Environmental factors are also only risk factors and cannot guarantee a child will have autism.