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My Next Steps: A Parent's Guide to Understanding Autism

A first-time diagnosis of autism in a child can be an overwhelming and stressful time for parents and families. My Next Steps: A Parent's Guide to Understanding Autism serves as a roadmap for parents dealing with this challenging period and seeks to provide answers to the many questions that arise during the journey from autism diagnosis to treatment. The DVD is produced by the University of Washington Autism Center and funded by Washington State legislature. Through interviews with experts and treatment providers, My Next Steps familiarizes parents with topics that are crucial in providing the best support for their child.

A first-time diagnosis of autism in a child can be an overwhelming and stressful time for parents and families. My Next Steps: A Parent's Guide to Understanding Autism serves as a roadmap for parents dealing with this challenging period and seeks to provide answers to the many questions that arise during the journey from autism diagnosis to treatment. The DVD is produced by the University of Washington Autism Center and funded by Washington State legislature. Through interviews with experts and treatment providers, My Next Steps familiarizes parents with topics that are crucial in providing the best support for their child.

All parents endure stress, but studies show that parents of children with developmental disabilities, like autism, experience depression and anxiety far more often. Struggling to obtain crucial support services, the financial strain of paying for various therapies, the relentless worry over everything from wandering to the future — all of it can be overwhelming.

During this time of year, high school juniors and seniors are hard at work preparing for college entrance exams, writing the perfect admissions essay, touring colleges, and eagerly awaiting decision letters from their institutions of choice. While this can be an exciting, yet stressful time for all students, students with learning differences have another level of factors that they need to take into consideration when choosing the right college. It is important for these students to not only consider the skills necessary to set themselves up for success, but to also be aware of the supports available to them at the colleges where they are considering attending.

When Miss Montana Alexis Wineman puts on her evening gown and walks onto the Miss America competition stage on Saturday, she'll do so not just as this year's youngest contestant (she's 18), but also as its first-ever contestant with autism. Diagnosed at 11, Wineman says she has "very mild symptoms," including melting down in stressful situations, occasional difficulty communicating and taking things literally. But she says these things are now a part of who she is and hopes her pageant appearance will help raise awareness for others coping with autism. [Source]

With about six million children requiring special education services, you may very well be the parent of a special needs child. Your journey may be difficult. How can you be sure you are getting the best care for your child? Are there programs to help your child that you don’t know about? What can you do to make yourself feel better during the extra stressful moments? Here are 8 tips that were offered by special needs parents.

Although there are a variety of school-based services available for children with learning, emotional, and social disabilities, one critical need often goes unfulfilled: providing guidance and strategies that instill self-advocacy.       Most students have only a superficial notion of the reasons they receive these special accommodations, and many children are completely uninformed. Resource teachers and specialists do not generally have the authority to label and enlighten students about their disabilities, the foundation for building self-advocacy. If children are to learn how to become better consumers of educational resources, especially as they grow older, someone must take the lead.      Parents of children with disabilities can fill this role by doing the following: Introduce children’s diagnoses to them in elementary school so that they can make sense out of their struggles Use a matter-of-fact tone of voice when explaining to children that they learn/behave/relate differently from other students and, therefore, need extra help to ensure that they can succeed just like their classmates Don’t leave out the disability label—such as writing disability, ADHD, or Aspergers Syndrome—since labels are a reality of their educational life Emphasize that the teachers and special staff at school who help them will be aware of this label and prepared to help in certain ways to make school a fairer place for them to learn and grow      It’s important to review with children the ways in which their school must provide special help and services. Emphasize that these accommodations are rules the school must follow. “You have the responsibility to do your best job, and teachers must follow the learning/behavior/friendship helping rules that make things fair for you,” is one way to put it. Explain how extra time on assessments, decreased homework, or social skills groups are examples of the helping rules that schools must follow. Discuss how there is a written promise called the individualized education plan (IEP), which includes all the helping rules and makes all of this clear.      Find child-friendly resources—such as books, websites, and videos—that explain in detail their specific disability and the ways other children have learned to cope and achieve despite these limitations. Use these materials as a springboard for deeper discussion about past times when their disability created significant stress or barriers to success. Reassure them that this was before their problem was known and that there is so much that can be done to build a plan for success now that it has been identified.      Point out that one of their most important responsibilities is to be able to discuss their disability with teachers and ask for extra help and accommodation when struggles are too great. Make sure that these discussions take place before middle school, when developmental factors make it harder to get such discussions started. Ensure that they know what practical steps are in their IEP at each grade so that they can respectfully remind teaching staff if necessary.      Having a disability is like having to wear glasses; students with glasses have accepted this fact as necessary to seeing clearly.

Managing behavior that is challenging can be very stressful for parents of children and adults with special needs. But it’s important to see it as a form of communication. Challenging behavior indicates there is a problem in learning and not in the person.

Click here to view the flyer!What:This conference features Marilyn Bruguier Zimmerman - Director of Nation Native Childrens' Trauma Center. Marilyn is the directr of NNTC which is affiliated with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) and is housed at the University of Montana. She provides training across the country on trauma and the impact to children and communities.It also features Jamie Walton - The Founder and President of the Wayne Foundation to Prevent Child Prostitution. Jamie initiated the foundation as part of her "breaking the silence" as a former victim of child prostitution. Human trafficking, domestic trafficking, and child prostitution are crimes that can befall any child, anywhere, and at anytime. Jamie provides inspirational and take action now presentations across  the country. When:March 16-17, 2012Where:MSU-College of TechnologyGreat Falls, MTContact:Phone: 877-927-6642Email: info@mhaofmt.org

Alcoholism. Respiratory disease. Cancer. Obesity.  We're told that these can be the results of genetics, stress and poor nutrition. But in recent years, an extraordinary, retrospective study reveals that childhood abuse may lie at the core of some diseases that show up in middle-aged adults. IDEAS producer Mary O'Connell talks to Dr. Vincent Felitti about the physiological results of psychological trauma.

At first glance, Quiet Time - a stress reduction strategy used in several San Francisco middle and high schools, as well as in scattered schools around the Bay Area - looks like something out of the om-chanting 1960s. Twice daily, a gong sounds in the classroom and rowdy adolescents, who normally can't sit still for 10 seconds, shut their eyes and try to clear their minds. I've spent lots of time in urban schools and have never seen anything like it.

Parents are bombarded with stories about autism research. Headlines and somber-voiced announcers declare that new research has found that autism is linked to a smorgasbord of things: mom's age, dad's age, grandfather's age, living near freeways, living near farms, prenatal stress, premature birth, fertility treatments, obese mothers, flu during pregnancy, having babies too closely together, and so on. How do we make sense of this?

A 2012 study confirmed what many parents know well: Wandering by children with autism is common, dangerous and puts tremendous stress on families.   Amid a frightening number of wandering cases of children with autism this summer – many of them fatal – Autism Speaks wants to remind families of the resources available and the advice to follow to keep your children safe.

What exactly is happiness? The answer isn’t a simple cut and dry definition. I think of it as a state of mind. One that exists along a spectrum from feeling blue, to elated with neutral somewhere in the middle.  Most people move along the happiness spectrum from day to day, hour to hour or even moment to moment depending on the situation and circumstances. Special needs Mom’s tend to have overly full plates and the combination of exhaustion, challenging situations, and constant stress can leave our mood falling more toward the neutral or unhappy end of the spectrum.  However, that doesn’t mean we are stuck there.  There are several things we can do for ourselves to help us shift the balance and move closer to the happier side.

Register Online or call 509-335-2321 to register. When: Monday June 28, 2010 11:30 am - 12:30pm Mountain Audience: Head Start Teachers and Staff What: This workshop gives professionals and parents strategies for creating environments that help children who are at risk due to behavior problems.   This workshop will assess the environments and gives specific examples of how to manage the environment to prevent behavior problems and teach appropriate behaviors.   This workshop stresses meeting the needs of the child and presents strategies that are nonpunitive. This workshop discusses behavior management strategies that will be effective for young children who need additional assistance in maintaining or learning appropriate social skills and behaviors at home and at school.  These are children who are disruptive in daycare or preschool settings and/or difficult at home. This workshop will also address the needs of children who display violent behaviors toward adults and other children.

Click here to download the flyer (PDF) Kids: You will learn how to avoid getting into trouble, make and keep friends, excel in school and feel good about yourself. Parents: You will learn the basics of ADHD, strategies for coping with your child’s behaviors/emotional/social difficulties and ways to cope with stress in the family. Best of All—You get to do it Together! What: 8 groups, lasting one hour each Wednesdays from 4 - 5 p.m. (for ages 5 - 9) Wednesdays from 6 - 7 p.m. (for ages 10 - 14) When: Group begins August 11th and will end on September 29th Location: Head Quarters for Heart Change building, 225 N. 23rd. Street, Billings, MT

As the parent of a school-age child with learning disabilities (LD), you know that basic patterns of thought such as controlling impulses, flexibility, planning, and organizing must steadily develop and improve as a child advances in school. If they don’t, children fail in small ways and larger ones. Each assignment not completed — or completed but not turned in — each lost notebook and late, hurried project, takes a toll on a child’s self-esteem (and a parent’s patience). Performance anxiety becomes more and more exhausting. The stress of feeling overwhelmed leads some children to misbehave, others to withdraw. Some children decide it’s less scary not to try than it is to try and fail.These brain-based habits of thought are crucial to all learning. They are called executive skills.

Joanna Dumas is a graduate student at MSU and is asking for your participation in a survey titled “The Utilization and Satisfaction Rates of Community Services Available to Children with Disabilities as Reported by Parents in Bozeman, Montana.”  This is part of her thesis project.  The purpose of this survey is to gain a better understanding of the knowledge of community services available to children with disabilities and the satisfaction with those services and stress related to those experiences.  The final project may result in a resource guide for parents or a report to service providers to suggest ways in which their services may become more widely utilized. 

The survey can be found at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q95JXQ3 .  If you prefer a hard copy of the survey, please contact Joanna Dumas dumas@montana.edu or 994-4832.  The survey is open until Friday, December 10.

Dr. Naseef gives a heart-warming overview of the traumatic stress parents of children with autism go through, and the positive potential rewards the experience can bring.

While many happily anticipate the coming holiday season, families of people on the autism spectrum also understand the special challenges that may occur when schedules are disrupted and routines broken. Our hope is that by following these few helpful tips, families may lessen the stress of the holiday season and make it a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved. The following tips were developed with input from the Autism Society, the Indiana Resource Center for Autism, Easter Seals Crossroads, the Sonya Ansari Center for Autism at Logan and the Indiana Autism Leadership Network..