PETERBOROUGH, N.H., March 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Unlike 20 years ago, students with high-functioning autism and Asperger's Syndrome are now taught right alongside their neurotypical peers. Reaching and teaching these students requires better understanding of how their brains are wired, helping them turn challenges into opportunities, and learning to enjoy the perspective they bring to the classroom.
Staff Development for Educators (SDE)'s online course on Teaching Students with Autism: Strategies for Success carefully helps educators develop the skills to help these students with sensory sensitivities, meltdowns, issues with homework completion, language reciprocity issues, and more.
The course explores the thorough, research-based strategies and solutions to aid in educator understanding of the neurobiology behind these disorders, and the way it shapes students' behavior, learning, and thinking. Educators will return to their classroom with creative, easy, low-budget strategies to help these students succeed in the classroom and beyond.
The course is led by veteran educator Ellen Arnold, who has spent most of her professional career helping learners unlock their potential as a teacher and special educator. Arnold has been a reading specialist at the primary level, a social studies and reading teacher at the middle school level, and a special educator at the high school level. She holds a bachelor's degree in secondary education and a master's degree in special education — credentials that prepared her to see each student for his or her greatest strengths. Arnold has taught hundreds of students and teachers the secrets to creating highly effective classrooms.
Designed for new and veteran teachers alike, lessons in the course center on understanding the characteristics these students often display in the classroom and how those characteristics shape the students' ability to perform in academic settings, as well as strategies for building social success, better processing of information and adapting lesson plans to preferred learning and thinking styles, and more.
Arnold guides educators through tools that may be helpful to enhance learning of students with high-functioning autism and Asperger's Syndrome, such as graphic organizers and other visual tools, and focuses attention as well on emotional encounters and how to turn them into more positive learning experiences and dealing with student bullying.
Teaching Students with Autism: Strategies for Success is beneficial for new and veteran educators alike, as well as parents.
Staff Development for Educators is America's leading provider of professional development for PreK through Grade 12 educators. SDE believes that educators have the most important job in the world. That's Through Onsite PD, PD Events, Web-based PD, and PD Resources, the company empowers teachers and administrators across the country with ongoing professional development that is not only research-based, innovative, and rigorous, but also practical, motivating, and fun. All SDE training is presented by the nation's top authors and educational experts, with the goal of creating extraordinary classrooms that prepare students for the evolving demands of the 21stcentury.
Teaching Students with Autism: Strategies for Success is offered each month and runs for six weeks. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. Educators will have access to all lessons until the course ends. Upcoming sessions begin on March 19th, April 16th, and May 21st. To find out more information about this course or other online courses offered by SDE, visit www.sde.com/onlinelearning.