Creative Response Activities For Children On The Spectrum

Creative Response Activities for Children on the Spectrum is a clear, comprehensive and intuitive guide that offers a wide selection of hands-on interventions to be used in any therapeutic or educational setting with children who are ‘on the spectrum’. From drawing and writing poetry to skiing and skateboarding, this book describes these and many other creative activities geared towards children with autistic features, attention deficits, hyperactivity, paediatric bipolar disorder and other related conditions. This new resource provides an innovative blend of theory and illustrative case examples designed to help therapists and educators assess children’s needs, formulate therapeutic and aesthetic interventions, and analyze creative outcomes.

Art as a Language for Autism addresses the clinical challenges that are common in working with autistic spectrum disorder by exploring how artistic expression can provide a communicative language for younger clients who are set in their thought processes and preferences. Exploring how both art and play-based approaches can be effective tools for engaging therapeutic work, this book introduces strategies to help young clients find expressive "languages" that can fully support communication, expression, and empathic understanding, as well as build skills for relaxation, calming, and coping. Building from a foundation of a client’s individual strengths and interests, this playful and integrative approach is informed by an awareness of the individual sensory profiles and the developmental needs of children and adolescents with autism. Through a greater awareness of these materials and processes for therapy, the reader will be able to create a space for their young clients to share what they know and care about. This exciting new book is essential reading for clinicians working with children and adolescents on the autism spectrum.

Introducing the Special Interest Communication Theory (SICT) Facilitative Framework, this guide will help you to support autistic clients and meet their needs through special interests and pop culture. Turning away from a culture that has often sought to suppress autistic special interests, Stallings asks that therapists meet autistic children and adults on their own terms. Creating an autism positive environment and engaging with special interests - from video games to K-Pop - builds rapport and helps identify therapeutic goals. Jessica Woolhiser Stallings combines this practical guide to her evidence-based framework with an overview of the history and applications of therapies and arts therapies used with autism. From a perspective that respects autistic self-advocacy and the role of art therapy in supporting individual emotional health, this guide offers tools to address anxiety, social interaction, communication, identity and more.

Although this is a clinical text, it is also more a conversation than a book. It is a means of sharing the work of artists, most of whom have varying degrees of special needs. It emphasizes that handicapping conditions do not constitute a barrier for creating therapeutically meaningful art. The precepts of Edith Kramer focus on subtly suggesting media, content, or techniques, all without interfering with the artist’s preferences. This intervention came to be known as the ‘Third Hand’ where the artist in therapy is free to accept, reject or ignore the therapist’s suggestions. The case vignettes describe how aesthetic richness is also illustrative of the uniqueness of clients’ clinical stories, with the artists’ emotional or behavioral challenges overcoming and even benefiting by their conditions. The work of early pioneers who influenced Kramer’s illustrate how her own analytical methods later shaped her approach. The format in this book also questions the author as being the ultimate authority, by posing questions to the reader, says a kind of dialogue that emphasizes there are no absolutes in art, behavioral science or therapy. While espousing Kramer’s and his own ideas, Henley also includes those of other art therapists who contribute their own expertise, in the hope that the analyses will be enriched from multiple perspectives. Dr. Henley describes how her therapeutic interventions were debated during their many years of collegial interaction. By describing Kramer’s early influences and personal art history, he describes how Kramer’s interventions helped innumerable clients and trained hundreds of student therapists. These facets will hopefully enable creative arts therapists to implement her patented artist-centered interventions. The processes and artistic outcomes will lead the way, guiding the reader toward the uses of the Third Hand and hopefully bring alive the uniqueness of these special artists’ stories.

This book bridges art therapy practice and research by presenting sensory-based relational art therapy approach (S-BRATA), a clinically tested framework for working with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that explicitly addresses sensory dysfunction and its impact on impaired attachment. The author shows how art therapy can facilitate attachment while addressing sensory problems that might underlie impaired attachment shifting the focus from the behavioral to the emotional development of the child with autism. The book additionally challenges traditional aspects of art therapy practice, particularly the focus on the relational aspect of the intervention and not the art product. Not restrictive or prescriptive and with the potential to be adapted to other interventions, S-BRATA provides an explicit framework for doing art therapy with children on the spectrum that opens the scope of art therapy practice and encourages flexibility and adaptation. Clinicians, students, and parents alike will benefit from the text’s clear outline for relational development with individuals on the spectrum and its emphasis on the importance of the psycho-emotional health of a child with ASD.

This handbook discusses early childhood special education (ECSE), with particular focus on evidence-based practices. Coverage spans core intervention areas in ECSE, such as literacy, motor skills, and social development as well as diverse contexts for services, including speech-language pathology, physical therapy, and pediatrics. Contributors offer strategies for planning, implementing, modifying, and adapting interventions to help young learners extend their benefits into the higher grades. Concluding chapters emphasize the importance of research in driving evidence-based practices (EBP). Topics featured in the Handbook include: Family-centered practices in early childhood intervention. The application of Response to Intervention (RtI) in young children with identified disabilities. Motor skills acquisition for young children with disabilities. Implementing evidence-based practices in ECSE classrooms. · Cultural, ethnic, and linguistic implications for ECSE. The Handbook of Early Childhood Special Education is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, clinicians, and practitioners across such disciplines as child and school psychology, early childhood education, clinical social work, speech and physical therapy, developmental psychology, behavior therapy, and public health.

This book represents one of the most up-to-date collections of articles on clinical practice and research in the field of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The scholars who contributed to this book are experts in their field, carrying out cutting edge research in prestigious institutes worldwide (e.g., Harvard Medical School, University of California, MIND Institute, King’s College, Karolinska Institute, and many others). The book addressed many topics, including (1) The COVID-19 pandemic; (2) Epidemiology and prevalence; (3) Screening and early behavioral markers; (4) Diagnostic and phenotypic profile; (5) Treatment and intervention; (6) Etiopathogenesis (biomarkers, biology, and genetic, epigenetic, and risk factors); (7) Comorbidity; (8) Adulthood; and (9) Broader Autism Phenotype (BAP). This book testifies to the complexity of performing research in the field of ASD. The published contributions underline areas of progress and ongoing challenges in which more certain data is expected in the coming years. It would be desirable that experts, clinicians, researchers, and trainees could have the opportunity to read this updated text describing the challenging heterogeneity of Autism Spectrum Disorder.