ASD - TOD by Sanam Bagherian from Altogether AutismTakiwānga

 ASD by Sanam Bagherian 

from Altogether Autism Takiwānga

There is a website Altogether  Autism where we can find the correct information and also a helpline we can use to ask questions.

Medical term is ASD - Autism Spectrum Disorder but we say Autism as disorder is not a positive term. Autism is a life long condition, and while the impact of autism on a person's emotional and mental wellbeing and behavior can change, people do not grow out of autism and there is no cure. Autistic people will have some sort of difficulties in their ability to:

Understand and use verbal and non verbal communication

Understand social behaviour - Social communication and social interaction

Think and behave flexibly, possibly with sensory sensitivities.

Restricted and repetitive thinking and behaviour

Severity Rating - 

Level 1- require support

Level 2- Require substantial support
Level 3 - require very substantial support
Boys are diagnosed earlier as compared to girls( 13 years of age)
Good to work on their strengths rather than saying they can't do this , that ...
Its our responsibility to try to communicate and find what's wrong & what's going in their mind that is making them behave .

Autism Characteristics:

Difficulties with imaginative play (boys)
Lack of eye contact
Unusual rituals and routines
Sensory sensitivities
Repetitive motor movements
Difficulty with social cues
Poor social imitations (boys)
Unusual language
Difficulty understanding other.
Intense interests
Upset by routine changes
Rigid thinking

Executive Functioning 

 Executive function skills are the mental processes that enables us to organise, plan and remember instructions, understand complex or abstract concepts and deal with the change. Autistic kids find this very hard , may need support to mange tasks requiring executive functioning. So we need to break it down for them. one instruction at a time, visual reminder. They can do things when they are ready not when you need them to do. 

Autism and Anxiety

75% of children and 50% of adults with autism experience intense anxiety .Anxiety can lead to :

Lack of engagement in activities

Avoidance of new situations

Lack of friendships/relationships

Misunderstood and seen as "difficult"

Strategies for anxiety

Identify key stressors

Quiet/low stimulation spaces available

Keep your voice quiet and tone calm

Teach self calming strategies - can find something like box of toys that they can use to calm themselves.

Build on strengths

Limit choices - Do you want this or that, too many choices confuse them

Sensory box

Can use Incredible 5 point scale = online available

Meltdown or Tantrum

Tantrums are behaviour and have goals. Ignore as they want to centre of attention

Meltdown is a medical situation, similar to seizure. Person doesn't have control, they don't want to be centre of attention. It is never appropriate to punish someone for a meltdown.Need to take the audience away.

Meltdown/Shutdown

The meltdown?shutdown phase is where the person has become so overwhelmed they have lost control and cognitive function, The person is in fight, flight or freeze mode.

Meltdown: lashing out, screaming, yelling abuse, self harming, breaking furniture, increased 

stimming( also known as stereotypy or self stimulatory behaviour)

Shutdown: withdrawal from all contacts, blank stare, being stuck and unable to move forward

Recovery

The recovery phase will be different for each person. It is the stage where everyone starts to regroup and move forward from the meltdown/shutdown.

It could look like sleeping, eating, going for a walk, listening to the music, quiet time, screen time.

The 5 'R's help us to know how to respond to meltdown/shutdown

Relax

Reconnect

Reflect

Recharge

Re prepare 

A balanced reading programme - reviewing the approaches By Sheena Cameron & Louise Dempsey

A balanced reading programme - Wednesday 29th January 2020

Explicit teaching of reading at all levels

Purpose for reading - 

For Pleasure, Reading to support writing, Reading to learn

Development of reading stages

Getting ready for reading

Learning to read

Developing independence as a reader

Becoming a proficient coder

Comprehension Strategies - Even 3 years old use comprehension strategies even though we don't say 

"you are inferencing"

Oral language-  Listen to the kid what they say, really listening to children and encouraging them to elaborate more.

Challenging questions and statements.

Make time for critical thinking during shared reading.

Inferencing

Take proverbs and teach them, its good for them to understanding the meaning not literally 

Decoding - Cracking the code

Use phonics. Chunking, Analogy- 

Do rhyming from the base word

Use prefixes and suffixes and make as many words you can make in 1 mins.

The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model

SharedReading - Show how to read loud , also think aloud - strategies

Guided reading - Teacher can decode to take the pressure off

Independent Reading - Teacher can start the first page to get the kids get into it and then they can do it on own.

Why do you read to students?

Get them interested , getting them engage 

Show them , expose them different genres - see which one interests them

How to read with expression

Expose them to new ideas

Weblinks to support reading to students - online resources

Go to on to The literacy Place - reading book - rook resources

Shared reading is important as what you model them then the guided reading becomes easy and children can apply that.

Shared reading does not have to be a big book for older kids, there is heaps of other books that children can see the text .

Poems are good for figurative language

Can use songs - check out the video clip before using

Section of a book 

Check Shared reading links -

Guided reading - lot of time for discussion

Kids News an Australian website for guided reading, shared reading

There are texts on TKI online which can be used.

Shared reading 

Day 1

Introducing the Vocabulary

Get the children isn a group and ask them to 

Decode new words - Discuss the meaning - Predict what the text might be 

Then ask them to add one more prediction  - use white board for shared activity.

Day 2

Zooming in

Using a puppet make mistakes while reading. Children check it looks right, sounds right and make sense.

Looking in detail at the words, sentences, decoding and self monitoring.prefixes, suffixes

Day 3

Zooming out

Comprehension strategies  - speech bubbles for thinking, what are they gonna say

Drama helps to improve comprehension for older kids. Once they know the activity , they can go and do it independently as a follow up activity.

Hot seating - A student takes on the role of one of the characters. The other student ask question. 

Prior Knowledge activity 

Guided Reading

It's not about finishing the text at higher level. Make time to talk about comprehension.

In general we have to read the book before teaching.

Planning and assessing the progress

Flexible approach to grouping - 4/5 groups are achievable.

Limit the number of learning goals.

Quality over quantity

Link shared, guided and independent 

Plan generic follow - up activity.

Round Robin is not recommended in guided reading as kids are not focused. Kids read silently , teacher can tap a child and he can read it loud so that you can hear them.

Use colour code post it - for eg pink for tricky words. Blue for providing evidence , clues etc...

Independent Activities

Activities need to be creative, deepen their understanding.

Limit worksheets

Plan generic activities that can be used a number of times in diff contexts.

Use shared reading and guided reading to introduce and practise reading activities.

Explicit modelling how to do a activity

Book club - student read individually and then work collaboratively.

Reciprocal reading.

Reader's Theatre - provides repeated reading practice, develops reading mileage, can teach to read with expression, need to read it together - Poem - The bike ride by Jill McDougall

Poems are good for Reader's theatre

SSR - Sustained silent reading

R&R - relax & read

DEAR- Drop everything and read

SQUIRT - sustained, quiet, uninterrupted independent reading time

Teacher can work with the target student during SSR time , having a mini lesson.

Take time to find something that a struggling student would like to read

Create a buzz around reading  - Provide time foe talk and sharing and recommending books to each other.

TOD - Neuroscience of Self Care by Kathryn Berkett

Neuroscience of Self Care 

Kathryn Berket

Putting yourself first - why we need to

We are working with higher level of anxiety in students. We need to learn to stay calm. Be kind to yourself.

Red/ Green brain & the sand brain concept
Green brain you an be rational
Red brain is reactive.
If you put 1 piece of sandpaper on your hand. the next sandpaper, then

If you have a sandpaper, you need to acknowledge that
Red brain friendly  staff rooms are very important.

If you feel red brain give yourself a break.It doesn't take much to sandpaper us.


The flight / flight response
Eg- Activating the stress Response
You loose your car keys - When your stressor increase, the increased chance going to die.
when we are in our red brain, we can 't switch off , the flight / flight response is activated.





Perfect Practise makes Perfect
Identify what calms you
Do that until you create a physiological calm state in your body.
Condition this moment.
Practice, Practice, Practice.


Deep Breathing
We need to teach ourselves, our kids to deep breathe when we are getting stressed. When you feel a sandpaper, reset yourself .

How to Keep the Survival Brain Calm

Some     See me......
Boys      show me! Belong

The Mind Lab - Digital Technologies in the NZ Curriculum

Digital Technologies in the NZ Curriculum

http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Teaching/Curriculum-areas/Digital-Technologies-in-the-curriculum

The Technology learning area has been revised to strengthen the positioning of digital technologies in the New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa. 

Creating a common Language across the school

Writing an Essay

How is writing currently taught in schools?

Reliance on English

Texas & Planning template

Journal writing

Common approaches across primary school

Hard to reach consensus.

HGHS did a survey - Had 10 mins to write a piece of writing

What the data revealed? 

The data analysed - the girls can write but not writing with accuracy & fluency. They could only write in simple full sentences. Every student had 16% f their sentences not full sentences. They were not using punctuation, variant beginning sentence.

What do you want your students to know and be able to do in writing?

Some basic rules and proof reading.

Year 9 - Framework

Entire piece of 350 - 400

Introduction - 3 sentences

2 paragraphs - linear, compare & contrast

Summary - 4 sentences

Every year level had sentence focus 

Year 9 

The simple sentence

The very short Sentence

The Red, White and Blue

The Adverb Start

General Writing all levels

Get students to edit their own work- they should

Fix grammar. Capitals!!

Correct spelling, including key subject terms.

If the sentence is over 2 lines typed

Suggestions-

Do things in bits rather than bombarding with too much of information, nothing over whelming.

TOD - HGHS - Dr Melinda Webber

Optimizing Maori Potential

Melinda is a former Fullbright / Nga Pae o te Maramatanga Scholar who has published widely on the nature of Maori identity. Melinda's research examines the ways race, ethnicity, culture and identity impact the lives of young people, particularly Maori students.

Every community has its own distinct identity, their own whakapapa. We must celebrate the whakapapa of maori students. We need to make them feel that their iwi is distinct. Maori students need to flourish.

Stereotype Threat - is often an unspoken fear, can influence academic performance. It effects physically, they sweat, have goosebumps.

Numerous research shows the smart children who want to do well and prove themselves are stereotypes. They start thinking either they stop being maori or stop being smart to feel and be normal. Maori students are always multi tasking which leads to stress and failure. They need access to programmes of learning that affirm and promote Maori theories & Maori knowledge. 

Maori identity/ success looks like -

How do Te Arawa define Maori student success?

In what ways do Whanau, teachers and the wider Te Arawa community foster conditions that enable success to manifest?

How is mana enacted by Te Arawa students? To what effect?

Ask your students who inspires them, their role model. Describe five words to describe them.

What are the qualities of success( 8 special No)

1. A positive sense of maori identity.

A belief in and knowledge of one's self;strength of character, strength of personality; a strong will; boldness and a tendency to take risks.

Resilient to negative stereotypes.

2. Patience, commitment and a sacrifice of time and effort; an ability to overcome difficulties; resolute confidence often balanced witha quiet, unruffled calm.

Application to school & work

Discipline

Self motivated

Attentive

Focused

3. Successful Maori students learn how to nurture strong relationships

The ability to sustain relationships that are premised on a balance of assertiveness and warmth 

( manaaki) because this provides sustenance for the inner person.

4. Successful Maori students are curious and innovative.

An enquiring mind which probes , draws conclusions and makes associations; an exploratory orientation that is exploited in social.

5. Successful Maori students look after their wellbeing

Attention to physical, spiritual and mental health needs.

6. Successful Maori students are committed to advancing their own knowledge. They are scholars who know where they want to go and persevere to achieve their goals.

An aptitude for things scholarly and a commitment to excellence and evident. A intrinsic desire to learn and an innate curiosity.

Maori students success is the whole community success and students failure is community's failure.

7.Successful Maori students possess humility.

A quality which is often a cultural point of difference because i is about service to others, generosity of spirit and putting others before the self.

8. Successful maori students understand core Maori values

An ability to model the most meaningful qualities in Maori culture, portrayed by way of aroha (love)

Manaaki (care) and wairua ( spirituality)

The Mana Model

Mana Tangatarua - The skills, knowledge and confidence to navigate success in two or more words.

Mana Tu - Efficacy, courage, humility, tenacity, and resilience.

Mana Motuhake - A positive maori identity and a sense of embedded achievement. 

Mana Ukaipo - Belonging and connection to place.

Mana Whanau - A belief that they occupy a central position of importance in their whanau

Seed Learning By Lisa

 Language

https://seedlearning.co.nz/

Seeds is not a programme, its bunch of tools.

Spelling should not be a seperate programme but need to have explicit decoding programme.

Literacy side set up in progression - check with rhymes, blending, splitting and finally phonemes.

Need to expose the kids to all sounds just not the one on  the alphabet card. There are 42 - 45 sounds.

We use  3 ways to do decoding -   with you,  preview, review

Put your finger on the picture that starts with the same sound as the word i say , put your finger on the pic that has the same sound at the end as the word i say.

what sound is the spelling ? rather than what sound does the letter o makes.
Teach the sound first then the alphabet.

In the beginning just introduce c not k as it confuses them. only use k when it is followed by the e

O sound  'a' after w pattern - Wash, watch, wand, wallet, wasp.
o sound 'o '  - lock, spot, pond, frog

Boss the sentence - change who, what, where , when in a sentence and have different sentences with the same word. Manipulate with the words.strip it, rearrange it ,  re order it, sharpen it. do it until they get it.