Presentation Night: Second Time Around!

Another great night of presentations!  I found some of the research about autism very interesting.  Each year since I've moved home to Nova Scotia, I have had at least one child with autism in my class if not more.  There are definite challenges to having children with autism in the classroom, but each year I'm learning more and more about the spectrum disorder and ways to help these children.  The use of timers and preferred activities after computer time were mentioned in the presentations and used regularly in my classroom.  I also found it intriguing when it was said that students with autism feel more in control when dealing with the virtual reality because there is less background to wade through.  Visual clues usually work so much better than auditory clues which is evident when these students use apps.  I loved the app discussed, "The Social Express" because of the printable social situations which helps students with autism figure out how to manage social situations that they come across in every day life.  The fact that it is also available for the MAC and PC is a bonus!  Conversation Builder and Faces IMake were another two apps that deal with similar outcomes of helping those deal with social situations.  Here are some short videos that show two of these apps.