Trigger Memory Systems, Education through Imagination: a TOS Homeschool Crew Review

The folks at Trigger Memory Systems sent crew members several fun products!

Parents and professionals use a LOT of visuals when working with individuals on the autism spectrum. Because language processing issues are often seen with autism, displaying information visually can be more successful than speaking that same information to individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. Entire systems and software are available for families and professionals (PECs, Boardmaker come to mind), some too expensive or bigger than what we need.

If I had a nickel for every time I've seen a post on an autism-related internet chat group asking for "how-to" visual charts for laundry and cleaning, I could pay for some autism therapy! ;)

And when I stumbled across the Trigger Memory products back in the spring, after subscribing The Homeschool Minute e-newsletter, I posted information about them in quite a few places where parents of children with autism hang out on the internet. I think it's interesting that Trigger Memory Systems' developed these for homeschoolers--I think parents and professionals who work with individuals w/ autism will like them, too!

WOW--I just love these flip charts! A set of all three is priced at $29.95. The bedroom and zone cleaning flip charts are sturdy, laminated flip charts that come with a write-and-wipe pen, so you can see what task to complete first, check it off the list, and move to the next item on the list. The text and pictures are simple and straightforward. For a younger child, or for a child with special needs, you can do the tasks together. For an older child, you can hand them the flip chart and let them "go to town" with it! ;) My eldest says, "Those flip charts actually make sense. Makes it seem like you have little to do, even with a huge room!"

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I am disappointed that the laundry flip chart is not laminated. I assumed it was after looking at the other two charts, and I left them with my daughter to look at while I began dinner. She colored in the laundry flip chart -- which, I learned too late, is not laminated like the other two. It IS sturdy, though, and matter of fact, with simple, straightforward pictures and text. At $7.95, the price reflects the fact that it is not laminated.

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Times Tales, priced at $29.99, is another one of those products I learned about by hanging around other homeschooling moms and eavesdropping on conversations. :) This product was recommended from one mom to another with great enthusiasm.

Times Tales are cute, clever stories, that are very short, but memorable, that contain within them, those pesky times tables that, for some of us, are difficult to memorize. There is a story example on this page.

We did a year of vision therapy with our daughter, and this mneumonic-based program reminds me of some of the techniques used there. (The Times Tales product is much less expensive than the then-$95/hour vision therapy.)

Unfortunately, we have not been able to try Times Tales the way it is meant to be used, because my children already know their times tables. My children enjoyed reading the stories and making the connections between each story and the multiplication fact it represents!

SPECIAL PRICING OFFER: Trigger Memory Systems has a buy-one-get-one-free offer at this time. If you order EITHER a TimesTales Deluxe OR a Zone Cleaning for Kids, and put FREEFLIP in the *comments* section, you'll get a Bedroom Cleaning for Kids, FREE. (In the comments section, not the coupon section.)

As always, TOS Homeschool Crew Member Reviews are available here.

Rime To Read, A TOS Homeschool Review

RimeToRead is a program for a very specific target audience: beginning readers. RimeToRead is color coded, and based on rimes, or word families. The creators are experts, both hold PhD's, and their areas of expertise include reading and special education.

I want to point out that my daughter might not be considered a "beginning" reader. She's 9 years old and we're working to remediate developmental delays in areas of language processing. She has a HUGE sight word vocabulary and can read early readers. Her comprehension is lagging, and we have looked for ideas to help us as we work to give her meaning when she reads.

One of the first things I noticed when she and I began to read RimeToRead together is the confidence she had when she saw the simple text. There was some anxiety on her part because she could not see the length of the book when we read it straight from the computer. She likes to know when the end is getting close. But the story was simple enough, the pictures also simple and appropriate with the text, and the words within her grasp, and she settled down and read, and enjoyed it. And she likes to join me when we return to it, too.

Over the course of the 20 books, the number of words on the pages increases, and the creators of RimeToRead use many word families in each story, and I had an "ah-ha" moment (something that went along with the spelling program we're reviewing and the internet curriculum that has a big language arts emphasis): my daughter isn't always discriminating certain sounds, particularly short vowels that are in the middle of words. The RimeTo Read stories have been wonderful assets for us as we sit down together and really read the text. She has to pay attention--oh, it's been such GOOD practice! ;)

When you make a purchase, on the "My Books" page of the web site, you receive a tip of the week from the educators who created the program. There's an option to print the books if you like. (We haven't printed any, yet, but we may print some if we plan to travel.) Here's another internet based program that has been *PERFECT* for us right now, another one that I am enthusiastic about, and one that I will happily recommend!

Customers can buy a vowel set of 4 books for $9.99, or, the entire 20 book set for $44.99. Customers may print books only once, however, computer based access is not time-limited.

Additional Crew member reviews are available to you here.

ALEKS, a TOS Homeschool Crew Review

I first heard about ALEKS (Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces) at a night out for moms who homeschool, when I was listening in on a conversation, as one parent asked about help teaching math. A veteran homeschooling mom recommended ALEKS. She said that when one of her children is struggling with math, she signs them up for a month of ALEKS, for just under $20, and she is able to pay month-to-month as needed. ALEKS allows the child to work at his or her own pace, the mom explained, and she liked the fact that during times when a child might be frustrated with a parent as teacher, that some time on a web based product takes the parent temporarily out of the "equation" and allows the child to practice independently.

What is ALEKS? I'll borrow from the ALEKS web site for a one-sentence description: "ALEKS is a web-based, artificially intelligent assessment and learning system." It's on "on-line math tutorial program".

The set up required that I download some software, and I had some problems using the program after I had done everything the site told me to do, and after I checked and rechecked it. I gave ALEKS a call and reached Pedro, who walked me through some troubleshooting and had us up and running rather quickly. Their customer service gets an A+ from me!

For homeschoolers, the programs range from 3rd grade math through 12th grade, and while I was pretty sure my 9 year old isn't ready for 3rd grade math, I sat her down at the computer for the assessment. My daughter is on the autism spectrum, and we are working on developmental delays in information processing that interfere with understanding academics. Because ALEKS requires that a child be able to read and comprehend instructions and word problems, my daughter is not ready to use ALEKS.

So, I signed up her siblings in order to get a "real life" look at the product, and interestingly, one child really enjoys ALEKS and the other one does not. ;) Go figure.

The child who enjoys ALEKS is ahead of peers in academics and is very self motivated, and saw filling in the "pie" of skills mastered and skills to be mastered as a challenge.

The child who wasn't as thrilled with ALEKS isn't as self motivated and doesn't tackle academic challenges in the same way, although this child was quite capable with it, and would sit down and practice when asked.

I continue to find new-to-me homeschooling products that I will purchase, and that I would enthusiastically recommend to others, and ALEKS is one of those. When my daughter w/ autism is ready for what ALEKS has to offer, we will utilize this program to help me supplement what we are doing at home. I'll sign up a sibling if we hit a stumbling block in math. It's cheaper than human tutoring and with ALEKS, the student gets unlimited access to the program during the subscription period.

In addition to $19.95 per month, ALEKS offers 6-month and 1-year packages, and they also offer family discounts for multiple children.

They believe in their product so strongly, that they generously offer one-month free trials for new users. Check it out! I think you'll be impressed! Get your one-month free trial here.

And, as always, additional review from my fellow Crew members are available to you here.

Time4Learning, a TOS Homeschool Crew Review

Time4Learning is an internet-based interactive curriculum for pre-schoolers through eighth graders, covering reading/language arts, math, science and social studies.

As the parent of a child on the autism spectrum who understands how computer time can be an obstacle to the social and relationship experience my child needs, I was unsure about an internet based curriculum. Would it be something that my daughter would use to stim and perseverate? (I don't want that!) Would she be able to do the work or would the program be too "wordy" and frustrate her?

The sign-up process was simple, and I answered some questions that told Time4Learning at what levels to begin for my child. I saw information that let me know I could change her levels at any time.

Interestingly, we'd just begun using a developmental spelling program at home when we received complimentary access to the Time4Learning site in order to use it and review it. All of my concerns were eased when I saw that the activities were working on *exactly* the same concepts as the developmental spelling program we are using. I love the idea of reinforcing concepts that we've worked on throughout the day via Time4Learning!

One of my concerns was that my daughter would be overwhelmed and frustrated by the material on T4L. She needs longer to process events and activities than my other children, and if she feels frustrated she sometimes gives up. Jennifer Eaton from Time4Learning explained that T4L "provides a feature that allows students to navigate the grade level above for enrichment, as well as the level below for review, depending on the grade level. If at any point the work in a given level seems too challenging or not challenging enough, we can easily make adjustments to a more comfortable level for your child."

The web site is quite comprehensive. I like the "lesson plan" links on the Time4Learning web site. When my daughter was a public-schooled student, I familiarized myself with the grade level content standards set by my state's DOE, and being able to see for myself what each T4L lesson teaches is important to me. There are links to articles about using T4L with students with special learning needs:

Special Needs Learning
Autism and Education
Your Right-Brained Visual Learner
Dyslexia - My Homeschooling Story
Is your child gifted?

The site contains a blog and a parent forum, and the T4L staff created a place for Christian discussions when the suggestion was made by the TOS Homeschool Crew. There are free newsletters, and they provide internet and telephone support.

Time4Learning's web site gave me the definition for "accidental homeschooler", and I learned that I am one! ;)

A quick way to peek at everything on the web site is to look at the site map.

Time4Learning is priced at $19.95 a month for one child, and $14.95 a month for each additional child on a month-to-month payment basis, and discounts for subscribers who sign up for several months at one time. T4L offers a 14-day money-back guarantee. Children need to be able to operate a mouse.

I can vouch for the pre-school and early elementary sections--we LIKE them! After my daughter's first sesson with the science program, she could tell me the difference between plant and animal and why. If you're looking for an internet based interactive curriculum for your young student, consider Time4Learning! (If you want to read the experiences of families with older children, please check out the crew blog, where many more reviews are available to you.)

Why I decided to homeschool

A year ago this week, I was struggling with a several-year-long decision to homeschool a child who happens to be diagnosed with autism. We'd been using Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) with our child since she began kindergarten, and I had learned quite a bit about how communication plays out in development, with non-verbal, pre-speech foundations in place first. I was "thisclose" to finally making that homeschooling decision when I accompanied my child's public school autism program to a nearby museum. Watching the staff members gripping the wrists of students who are "flight risks" and dragging them around the museum more than bothered me. But it was an experience on the bus ride to the museum that was THE catalyst for my decision to give homeschooling a try, so that we, at home, could focus on a neurodevelopmental approach to teaching a child on the autism spectrum, where we could concentrate on social learning as a priority, with cognitive learning as a second step, as it happens in development.

WHY I DECIDED TO HOMESCHOOL
by Penny Ray

We were on a school bus, traveling to an area museum, the last day of school before the holiday break. I accompanied my child and her ASD program on a field trip. I noticed when one of the teachers removed a couple of baby wipes from a package and tried to hand them to the student sitting directly across the aisle of the school bus from her. He was looking out the window and didn't notice. She put them in his hand. I imagine he felt the cold wetness in his hand, because he looked toward her, accepted the wipes, as the teacher tried to motion for him to wipe his chin. I saw what was in her mind when I noticed he had dirt (maybe it was food) around his mouth. The teacher's actions were full of meaning, but the boy did not share her attention or focus, did not share what might be in her mind, did not understand that if she is giving him a wipe and modeling chin-wiping, that he must have something on his chin. The teacher managed to get the boy to copy her actions and I saw what I interpreted as a wave of recognition across the boy's face. He wiped his chin, exactly once, with a baby wipe, dropped the hand that held the baby wipe, and resumed looking out the window. The teacher was still motioning for him to wipe, but his task, the gross motor imitation, was complete, his attention to her, gone. The dirt was still there. The student, while proficient in a very literal gross motor imitation, could not reference for meaning. In this case, he couldn't reference her non-verbal meaning that he must have something on his face, he could not focus his attention on what her attention was focused on and reference her for feedback that he had wiped enough to get all of it off. He didn't know that there was something (his dirty chin) in her mind that was not yet in his mind, and that it that related to him.

What happened between the student and his teacher? The meaning between them broke down. The meaning did not work well. And one of the two people involved had no clue that a breakdown occurred.

Interestingly our own Michigan Department of Education would interpret that as an inability to communicate. Allow me to spotlight a couple of quotes:

The essence of the English language arts is communication—exchanging and exploring information and insights. We are meaning-makers who strive to make sense of our world. We use the English language arts in every area of our lives, not just the classroom. They help us deal with other people in the world around us. Listening, speaking, viewing, reading, and writing are naturally integrated in our attempts to communicate. We continually improve our understanding by using our past experiences, the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and what we are hearing, reading, or viewing. Only when we understand or when we are understood are we communicating—only then are we using the English language arts.

Standard 7. Skills and Processes

All students will demonstrate, analyze, and reflect upon the skills and processes used to communicate through listening, speaking, viewing, reading, and writing. Effective communication depends upon our ability to recognize, when attempts to construct and convey meaning, work well and when they have broken down. We must monitor, reflect, and adjust our communication processes for clarity, correctness, purpose, and audience. We need to learn multiple strategies for constructing and conveying meaning in written, spoken, and visual texts. Our literacy development depends upon on-going, personal, self-regulated assessment.

In recent years, several educators who work with students with autism have admitted to me that we are not giving graduates the skills they need to be successful after high school. They've admitted that the missing piece, the piece that school is doing poorly, is the "people" piece and that we (parents and educators) need to work the relationship piece into the school day in a practical way. Social skills groups are not the answer, I hear over and over.

According to RDI(r)'s Dr Gutstein, 70% of our communication is NON-VERBAL.

When professionals refer to people on the autism spectrum, we often say that their developmental delay in perspective taking (which is non-verbal) is a lack of "theory of mind". Psychologists often use a test that is referred to as the "Sally – Anne" test to determine if children have developed "theory of mind". In a nutshell, children are introduced to a "play", using two dolls, Sally and Anne, where Sally puts a marble in a basket while Anne is watching. Anne goes for a walk and Sally moves the marble to a new location. When Anne returns, the children are asked where Anne thinks the marble is. Children on the autism spectrum most often identify the new location of the marble, indicating to evaluators that they are unable to perspective-take from Anne's point of view.

In order to remediate deficits in the relationship piece or "theory of mind" (also known as dynamic information processing), we must approach the deficits in developmental order, and in order to do that, parents and educators must KNOW and UNDERSTAND that developmental "ladder".

Let's think about the boy with the dirty chin. The dirty chin is an object, or referent, that is not in the boy's mind. The dirty chin is in the teacher's mind. The dirty chin is in only one of the two minds.

Hold that thought. I'll bring you back to it in a few moments.

An early step in the developmental "ladder" of "meaning making" between people is focusing solely on one another, where the shared attention is on what we are making together (think: peek-a-boo).

As a student becomes experienced in sharing attention between you and me, adults begin to increase the complexity by including in an object that is present. I'll use the example of a picture book. We can both focus our attention on that object, the book, and shift attention back to one another again, observing one another's reactions to that very visible object. The acknowledgement and enjoyment of one another's reactions is more important than the content of the book at this point.

An even more complex type of attention sharing begins to grow from that "rung" on the developmental "ladder", and that is one where the object (or referent) is that is not present, not visible, but is one we both share. Let's use as an example the memory we shared of reading that silly picture book together. Days, even weeks later, we can laugh together at the memory of the fun we had, because we both hold that shared memory in our minds.

Let's take another step up that developmental "ladder", and get to the dirty chin. An object that is in only one of the two minds, (a dirty chin) is a more complex step of attention sharing, and requires a more experienced communicator to recognize when meaning is working well and when meaning is breaking down. In autism, we tend to skip the developmental foundations of meaning making as it is defined by the Michigan Department of Education and go straight to compensations, like teaching gross motor imitation without meaning and context and by teaching and reinforcing absolute rules. I believe that these compensations that work around deficits instead-of-remediation-of-deficits are what educators are referring to when they tell me "off the record" that we are missing components in educating students with asd.

The developmental foundations of what the Michigan Department of Education describes as "skills and processes", teaching students about PEOPLE, need to be understood by parents and educators, so that we can give our children and students experience and practice with "how people are" (others and self) in the correct developmental order. Foundations of attention sharing, perspective taking, gaze shifting, referencing for meaning all need to be targeted so that both parent and educator can see milestones like a child being able to check with the adult for the cue that he's gotten all the filth from his face.

We parents are often encouraged to look far ahead at what we want for our children with ASD, and then to work backwards to figure out what today's goals should be. Okay, let's look forward: The same functions of non-verbal communication are foundations to the skills needed to hang out at the mall with friends or to drive a car on our dynamic roads and highways. Two of the purposes of special education law include independent living and employment. Driving a car is important in independence (especially in a city like Detroit known for needing improvement in public transportation) and practice and experience in collaboration and socializing at the mall are foundations for collaborating on the job after high school.

Recognizing the importance of relationships, writing goals on the IEP that involve non-verbal communication is a step in the right direction, but both concepts fall short if educators can't evaluate a child for where he/she IS, and when they don't know where they want to go, and they don't know how to get there from here. If you're going to write a goal into an IEP, show me the developmental reasoning behind it, show me that you can target it for my child, show me evidence that it is emerging, and then move up the "ladder" to the next objective, and do it all again. I am still perplexed as to why an educator would acknowledge and even promote the development of IEP goals focused on non-verbal communication, and then work on aspects of non-verbal communication outside of developmental sequence?

There are academic and educational consequences to consider, as well, when our educational system ignores the relationship piece.

Here's one example of many: A student must be able to first recognize when meaning breaks down between people before he/she can recognize a break down as they read text. Part of guided reading involves making sure the student can self correct when a student mispronounces a word. That means the student recognizes when reading text that meaning is works well or that meaning breaks down.

One area the we (general ed staff and myself) failed to recognize the importance of this factor for my child was in the choice of leveled readers. Guided Reading books are categorized by level, not only by difficulty of text, but by difficulty of shared attention. No matter how simple the text, some fiction uses concepts on higher "rungs" of the developmental "ladder" than the student with autism is capable of comprehending. We make mistakes when we offer fiction to students with asd that falls within their capacity to decode text, but it falls outside their "theory of mind", experience and comprehension. The student experiences "meaning breaking down" from the get-go, never has a chance to have "meaning work well" if he/she is given a book that is outside of his or her "zone of proximal development".

Decoding text is a small part of what makes a reader. As a compensation for my daughter's inability to comprehend text in fiction, the school concentrated on the static facts of non-fiction, which did nothing to boost her understanding of people. Instead, it gave her more facts to regurgitate in inappropriate ways.

The idea isn't to get schools to change their entire programs. The idea is to get educators to change how they use themselves within what already exists. The shift is in focus and attitude, not in the daily schedule or activities. It's about where the child IS, developmentally, and how to use the opportunity of his dirty chin to give him an opportunity to experience a "just right" moment "between people", an opportunity that leads to his making discoveries about himself and about others.

Understanding the developmental progression in relationships (dynamic information processing) via "guided participation" is extremely important, and I have not yet met a school employee who has expertise in this area in terms of autism remediation. Schools need to do more than acknowledge the missing relationship piece, more than throw some non-verbal communication goals on an IEP. They must become active participants in the process. Once we know where to begin on the developmental "ladder", both parents and teachers must learn to successfully target, spotlight, and amplify each objective in developmental sequence, while de-emphasizing everything else in that moment for that student. Educators need to become flexible so that they are able to adapt frameworks (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly) as the students' objectives progress up the "rungs" of the developmental "ladder".

If educators do not understand development of how relationships grow, and are working without the direction of a professional who does understand development at this level, they are "working without a net". And, even with hearts of gold and the best of intentions, when educators are unable to recognize that they are working on the wrong "rung" on the developmental "ladder", they are not unlike the child who cannot recognize by the teacher's actions that he has something on his chin.

Let's Be Scientists: The Schoolhouse Planner December e-Module

I've just gotten a peek at the December module of The Schoolhouse Planner and I am excited about it! It's a 54 page module that is a unit study called, "Let's Be Scientists" and it is priced at $7.95 in The Old Schoolhouse store on-line. (Click HERE to view a sample of this item.)

Weather, astronomy, recycling, gooey experiments and gross stuff, recipes--it's all there!

The module includes a section on the human body with lots of hyperlinks to fun, kid friendly information. I've not ever seen before tonight the experiment the module introduces that allows you to see your pulse, and it is one of several in the module that I'm running through my head in terms of how I will use this one to work on a relationship objective one-on-one with my child w/ autism, and some that we can do as a family. There are so many possibilities here! ;)

There's a quiz, a word search, a chart to fill in, some coloring pages (including one that contains a "no nose picking" message--I'll probably print that first) and pages of copywork (all of the copywork in this module comes from the book of Genesis). There are three pages of resource links at the end of the module, followed by answer keys to the quizzes, word search and chart.

We're a family who must consider ingredients and materials lists carefully because of food allergies, and I'm pleased to see that we are going to be able to use several of the experiments with no modifications! (Gotta love that!) The recipes all contain wheat or milk products or both, though, and appear to be difficult for me to modify for us (we'll just skip the recipes at our house).

If you're looking for a unit study that is science related, this one's got a little bit of everything, and I like (a lot) what I am seeing!

Write Shop / Story Builders

Earlier this year, I signed up for an e-newsletter from Write Shop and a few days ago, they sent all their e-newsletter subscribers a free mini-story builder. I received this one , with a link to a discount for friends, if you are interested. You might want to sign up for their newsletter.
Here's Write Shop's description of a Story Builder from their own blog:

"StoryBuilders are printable card decks that arm your kids with the basic elements of a story—character, character trait, setting, and plot. For children of all ages, these fun writing prompts provide students with all the elements they need to create realistic stories or funny, far-fetched tales."

The Story Builder that I downloaded from that newsletter contains some ideas for ways to use the cards in different ways/games and ideas for just one student or for several at once. For a child with language processing concerns or one who needs some support to move away from memorized scripts toward new stories, new creations, these Story Builders appear to be a great tool!

Hope this helps someone,

Penny

FYI: This is not part of the TOS Homeschool Crew review YET. I learned after I wrote the post that the Crew will review two full-size Story Builders from Write Shop. Please stay tuned!

Reflections on an American version of a Lucia celebration

Basement, warming up before first breakfast

(first breakfast began at 7:20 ish am)

Mother/Daughter photo

basement
Pre-first-breakfast chorus warm up
I shot this video as the first of four breakfasts opened early yesterday morning. I stopped recording just before "Lucia" and her court began reciting different scriptures that refer to the Light. (I was afraid it would be too long to use here if I continued recording.)

This view is from my position behind the handbell tables:

Behind the scenes of a Swedish Christmas celebration

The sanctuary and the fellowship hall both were put back together when we arrived at church this morning, after having been COMPLETELY rearranged for the big Lucia day yesterday. I heard today that they began returning pews to the sanctuary around 4 pm yesterday, which means they tore down all those tables in an hour and a half. WOW.

A few pictures from Saturday:

Fellowship hall

Coffee, tea, water set up before first breakfast

Stirring the fruit soup (a Swedish tradition)

Table decorations waiting in the hall.

When the first breakfast is finished, these will go to the table for the second breakfast.

Doors that lead to the gym (gift shop)

gift shop

Here's a complete table setting, just before the first breakfast.

The bell tables:

The place in the fellowship hall set up to hold the dirty dishes:

Trays of cookies waiting for the first breakfast

Trays of glasses which will hold fruit soup, waiting for the first breakfast

Bringing LIGHT to a dark world

Our church's annual St Lucia celebration is tomorrow. The decorations to accompany the breakfast table settings are adorable, and meaningful, too. In the photo below, the decorations are lined up and waiting for the tables to be set so they have a place to rest, tomorrow. Lucia wore a crown of light on her head so that her hands were free to carry food to folks in the dark, to glorify her heavenly Father. In more ways than one, she brought LIGHT to a dark world. Matthew 5: 16