Ruth Stieff:  Homeschool Conference Speaker and Workshop Leader Details

• Special: Autism

How Do I Teach My Special Needs Child?
This seminar will focus on the way children learn.  A special emphasis will be placed on the visual learner.  Strategies will focus on methods that work for these children including the TEEACH structured teaching method, Applied Behavioral Analysis, Verbal Behavior and Floor Time.  These approaches will be demonstrated and curriculum examples will be presented.  Lists of websites and downloadable curriculum will be available.  Visual supports will be used to show how to make curriculum more visual.

Financial Resources and Affordable Inventions:  Where Do I Find Them?
This seminar will focus on locating financial resources to help pay for therapy, specialized equipment, in-home workers and personnel needed to assist families with various needs that their children may have.  Time will be spent on how to put together home-based therapy programs at a more affordable rate than most programs cost.

Developing Structures for Special Needs Children
This seminar will focus on structure and predictability and how the physical and emotional environment of a home can enable a child to learn, develop, and thrive.  Some of the areas covered will be home organization, the use of schedules and visual supports to lower anxiety and increase predictability.  Time will be spent on the ways people in the child’s life can become more predictable in expectations, ways of reacting and ways of presenting material.

What Parents Need to Know about Autism
This seminar deals with the difficult behavior that is seen in autism and related disorders. An explanation of the “why’s” of difficult behavior will be given.  Strategies will be presented to help parents know how to handle it. Communication and social skills deficits will be dealt with as a way of handling difficult behavior. Visual supports for behavior will be presented. There will be examples and real life stories shared. Participants should bring examples and situations so that interventions can be developed during the seminar.