By Kate Duffy
My English 101 students stared warily at me last semester when I assigned them a rather lengthy research project about the economy and employment. A number of the students were in their 40s and first-time college students, and, frankly, they were overwhelmed, scared even.
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| March 27, 2010 | ||
| 6:00 pm |
MARCH 27. Bring an appetizer and join your friends for a fun-filled evening to benefit Autism Society of the Heartland. Lots of prizes will be awarded. $100/table of eight. 6 p.m., at St. Pius, 5500 Woodson, Mission. For more information, contact ASH president Marc Stimac, at markstimac@sbcglobal.net or call 913-390-4794.
| March 25, 2010 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 9:00 pm |
MARCH 25. Learn and share information with other parents about living with autism. Monthly meetings at Legacy Christian Church, 10150 Antioch Road, Overland Park, KS 66212. Childcare available with reservations. For questions regarding childcare, please contact childcare@asaheartland.org. To RSVP, click here.
| March 20, 2010 | ||
| 10:00 am | to | 12:00 pm |
MARCH 20. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” will be playing for audiences in a “sensory friendly” format at select AMC theaters. What does sensory friendly mean? Movie auditoriums will have their lights brought up and the sound turned down, families will be able to bring in their own gluten-free, casein-free snacks, and no previews or advertisements will be shown before the movie. Additionally, audience members are welcome to get up and dance, walk, shout or sing.
For information about participating locations and showtimes, click here.
| March 18, 2010 | ||
| 11:30 am | to | 1:00 pm |
MARCH 18. Sponsored by the Autism Alliance of Greater KC, these informal luncheons are presided over by Phyllis Young, parent educator at the Center for Child Health and Development at KU Medical Center; and Mary Anne Hammond, community education coordinator for autism and related disorders at Children’s Mercy Hospital. Geared toward parents whose children have been newly diagnosed or who are new to the area. Offices of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, 4520 Main St., 11th floor, Kansas City, MO. Pizza and drinks provided, but must RSVP to Amy Van Vleck-Morrow at Amy@autismalliancekc.org or at 816-517-4237 at least two days in advance. Future luncheons planned on May 20, July 15, September 16, November 18.
By Toni Lapp
If you’re the parent of a student with an autism-spectrum disorder, you have most likely participated in an individual education program (IEP) meeting for your child.
For many families, the annual meeting is a stressful event in which educators converse using unfamiliar acronyms and bewildering jargon, and parents rubber-stamp their signatures to a document that they don’t understand and didn’t have a hand in developing.
It needn’t be that way.
As the legal education decision maker for the student, parents often do not realize the power that they wield.
As a result, parents may fail to fully exercise their influence at these meetings, says Jeanne Holverstott, an Overland Park autism specialist. Sometimes parents just don’t know what they can ask for.
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By Jeanne Holverstott, M.S.
I often wonder if children on the autism spectrum look forward to the holidays as much as neurotypical children do. Sure, they look forward to gifts (video games, Bakugan, oh my!) and time away from school, but it is hard to appreciate the joys of the holidays when anxiety is a perpetual undercurrent from within and from without.
So here are tips for surviving, and thriving, during the holiday season:
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| March 8, 2010 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 9:00 pm |
MARCH 8. Fourth Graders from Ridgeview Elementary School in Liberty will take the stage at the Liberty Performing Arts Theatre to perform “No Such Thing As Normal!” a musical about autism. Admission is free! 7 p.m. 1600 S. Withers Rd, Liberty. The musical is intertwined with information about the Autism Spectrum while the students tell the story of a not-so-typical school field trip to a history museum.
This project is produced by VSA arts of Missouri and funded in part by CVS Caremark, The Jellybean Conspiracy, Autism Alliance of Greater Kansas City and the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency. For more information, contact: Kit Bardwell, VSA arts of Missouri, (816) 868-1789, vsamissouri@gmail.com.
| March 7, 2010 | ||
| 4:30 pm | to | 6:00 pm |
MARCH 7. All-levels yoga class is free, with donations gratefully accepted to benefit the Mission Project, a program that enables young adults with developmental or cognitive disabilities to lead richer and more self-directed lives with minimal support. (To read a story about the project, click here.) Class will be held from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Yoga Gallery, 7941 Santa Fe in Overland Park. Call 913-432-5568 for more information.
By Toni Lapp
A visit with Santa is a yearly ritual that many children look forward to this time of year. But for children with special needs and their parents — between the crowds, the long lines, the noises and all the lights — the event can be anything but enjoyable.
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Advertise on SpectrumConnection.net and reach bistate families affected by autism.
By Jeanne Holverstott, M.S.
Q. I read that when Temple Grandin was a young girl, her mother hired a nanny to play turn-taking games with her to improve social skills. What sort of games do you recommend? Are there any that you don’t recommend?
A. After every holiday meal, my family would gather around the dining room table with a game purposefully selected by my mother for this occasion. I remember Taboo, Scattergories, Trivial Pursuit, Outburst. No matter the age of the player, the expectations were the same: follow the rules, win with humility, lose with grace, do your best, and never, ever complain. Games make up the fabric of a childhood and, perhaps, a lifetime, and appropriate game play opens doors to respect, friendship, and fun.
» READ MOREBy Kate Duffy
A while back, Toni, the SpectrumConnection editor, asked me to write about how far parents should go to help their teens on the spectrum land a job. Since then, several of our Hot Topics parents have shared their kids’ job search stories with me, and I realized there was no easy answer to her question. For the most part, though, their stories revolved around the kids’ inability to accurately read situations, to remember instructions and to multitask to make a deadline. Looking at that list, it sounds like business as usual on the job for most of us — which is why it is so very important that our kids start learning about the world of work as soon as they can.
That’s why the short answer to Toni’s question is this: do what you need to do.
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