Available Workshops
by Susan Golubock

SELF-ADVOCACY IS FOR EVERYONE:
Protecting and Promoting One's Needs

INTENDED AUDIENCE:
Autistic individuals, direct support workers, parents of adolescents or adults.

• Self-Advocacy Needs a Partner: Modeling, Mimicking and Motivation

Objectives:

• Explore the sensory processing conflicts between partners that can inflame or interfere with the motivation to advocate.


• Learn how to use your partner's processing strengths to get your message across.


• Increase understanding of how important modeling and mimicking are in the development of self-advocacy skills.

• Teaching/Learning Self-Advocacy: Tools and Strategies
  Objectives:
  
  • Explore tools/strategies for teaching/learning not just rights but also responsibilities.
  
  
  • Explore tools/strategies for developing the self-awareness and self-monitoring needed to self-advocate.
  
  
  • Learn how to use organizational aids and routines to teach/learn self-advocacy.
  
  
  • Explore tools/strategies that tap into one's strengths and enhance the effectiveness of self-advocacy.

SELF-DETERMINATION:
The Roles of Advocates, Allies and Support People

INTENDED AUDIENCE:
Autistic individuals, advocates, rehabilitation professionals, educators, clinicians, caseworkers, and administrators.

• Understanding One's Sensory Processing Strengths and Limitations

Objectives:

• Discover and compare your sensory profile with the individual with whom you are working.


• Learn how processing differences can result in behaviors that are often misinterpreted, on both sides.

• Creating Opportunities for Self-Advocacy By Understanding the Sensory Processing Issues Preventing It

Objectives:

• Learn to recognize different processing, perception and response abilities that interfere with the development of self-advocacy.


• Learn how shared sensory experiences can build the trust, control and choice-making abilities needed to promote the natural development of self-advocacy.

• Self-Advocacy Needs a Partner: Modeling, Mimicking and Motivation
  Objectives:
  
  • Explore the sensory processing conflicts between partners that can inflame or interfere with the motivation to advocate.
  
  
  • Learn how to use your partner's processing strengths to get your message across.
  
  
  • Increase understanding of how important modeling and mimicking are in the development of self-advocacy skills.

• Using Assistive Devices to Improve Organization and Make Tasks Easier in the Work Environment

Objectives:

• Identify devices that match one's learning strengths and the task one is attempting to do.


• Learn strategies for getting, and staying, organized that match one's learning strengths.


[NOTE: "Understanding one's sensory processing strengths and limitations" is strongly recommended as a companion session to this one.]

LIVING IN A NEUROTYPICAL WORLD:
Increasing Understanding and Decreasing Stress

INTENDED AUDIENCE:
Autistic individuals and/or those who live and work with them.

• Understanding one's sensory processing strengths and limitations

Objectives:

• Discover your own sensory profile


• Learn how processing differences can result in behaviors that are often misinterpreted

• Sharing of sensory experiences in relationships

Objectives:

• Learn the purpose of sensory play in normal development, and explore why autistic leisure pursuits differ


• Learn strategies for discovering sensory interests in other people and expanding your own

• Dealing with Sensory Issues In Everyday Activities and Interactions

Objectives:

• Learn strategies for decreasing sensory stress during one's day


• Learn how to use a sensory diet to improve or restore one's functional state.

• Using assistive devices to improve organization and make tasks easier

Objectives:

• Identify devices that match one's learning strengths and the task one is attempting to do


• Learn strategies for getting, and staying, organized that match one's learning strengths.


[NOTE: "Understanding one's sensory processing strengths and limitations" is strongly recommended as a companion session to this one.]

CHILD CARE THE AUTLY WAY:
Practical Skills for Working with Autistic Children

INTENDED AUDIENCE:
Parents, grandparents, respite care and habilitation workers, day care workers, babysitters, group home workers, education and support staff, administrators, staff trainers, recreational program leaders.

• Autistic Behaviors from a Sensory-Motor Perspective

Objectives:

• Understanding the sensory and motor processing of autistic children


• How processing differences can result in behaviors that are often misinterpreted

• Facilitating Natural Play and Peer Interactions

Objectives:

• The purpose of sensory play in normal development, and why autistic play differs


• Strategies for motivating purposeful interactive play with autistic children

• Sensory Issues In Self-Care

Objectives:

• Strategies for avoiding sensory distress during self-care activities


• Using self-care activities to promote improved sensory processing

• Adapting Group Activities to Facilitate Inclusion

Objectives:

• Identifying important characteristics of the child and the activity


• Adapting activities to successfully include an autistic child