Attention Autism with Gina Davies.
On Friday 24th April, I was fortunate to join an online Attention Autism training session for parents, with the autism guru Gina Davies. I don’t know about you, but Edward’s brain is like a pinball machine, he will only focus on things for a very short time and keeps flitting from one thing to another. So I jumped at the chance to learn more about this.
The Attention Autism programme targets the teaching of attention, communication and social interaction skills. There are four stages to Attention Autism – Stage 1 Focusing Attention, Stage 2 Sustaining attention, Stage 3 Shifting Attention and Stage 4 focusing, sustaining and shifting attention including a transition to independent working. It’s best to just start with stage one until you and the child is familiar with the routine.
For more information on this check out Gina Davies website and follow Gina Davies Autism Centre on facebook.
After this training I was bursting to give it a go with our little Edward. He has been doing these activities in his school so I (naively) thought that I would be a breeze…..
I thought that I should do stage one and stage two at the same time, but this didn’t quite work…
Below is my very first attempt at stage 1. As you can see Edward was super excited and couldn’t contain himself and I hadn’t planned for this.
Next time, I am going to try it in the dining room which should give it a more formal setting that Edward might respond to.
When he tries to come and get the bucket I’m going to say ‘Oh Edward, but it’s Mummy’s bucket.’ I am also only going to try stage one again. I need to establish the expectations from Edward before we can move on to stage 2.
The video below is my attempt at stage 2 which was basically a disaster.
As you can see, it was too much for Edward, he was desperate to knock the tower over himself and was distraught when I did it.
So, from this one attempt, I’ve learnt to only try stage one until I am confident with it and Edward is clear on the boundaries and to set it out to be done in a more formal setting rather than the sofa.
Please let me know if you have tried this or any questions you might have.
Home schooling is so tough and we are all learning we can’t recreate school at home. We have to find a way to help our kids learn from us in our own way. You face even more challenges than most with your son being on the spectrum, and you are clearly doing all you can. I just read a great book by Michael McCreary called Funny You Don’t Look Autistic. He is a comedian in this 20s and it’s all about his childhood and starting out in life with ASD. It gives good insight to others about what it is like. And it gives a lot of hope. My book group picked it for our first lockdown book, but I definitely recommend it. #StayClassyMama
Teaching from home is hard work, even without the challenge of Autism, but having access to a programme like this seems like a great resource. It also seems like it could be great fun too when Edwards ready. #StayClassyMama
Good resource to share #StayClassyMama
I’m sure it will get easier as you go along!
#StayClassyMama
Well done for trying something new and I hope it has benefits if you persevere. #stayclassymama
This looks great. I think like anything new it probably has a fairly steep learning curve to get it to work, but does look like it will be good when you have worked out the kinks. I have heard of Gina, she is great.
#stayclassymama