5 Tools for Finding Autism Inspiration Using Pinterest

It's that time of year again....the time for counting our blessings, giving thanks, spending quality time with family, doing some much needed cleaning, organizing the closets, writing lesson plans,....discovering Instagram, getting lost in Pinterest, and finally being able to catch up on all of our blog reading. Ironically it's also probably a time when we make resolutions to do things like spend more time moving and with our family than we do on Pinterest.

In any case, as many of you know, I LOVE Pinterest. I love it because it takes the place of having to actually save things on my computer and never being able to find them or (gasp!) print them out in order to put them in a notebook!

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The 15 Most Popular Posts of 2014

Wow! As usual I can't believe how fast this holiday is going and really can't believe we are almost at the end of the year! At the end of each year I like to go back through the blog posts and see which ones are the most popular (have the most pageviews) that year so I know what you all want to hear more about. It also makes a good tool for those of you who may have discovered the blog at some point this year to see what has been popular before you found us. So, I am counting down the most popular 14 blog posts of 2014. Check them out and you may find some new ideas you missed in the scurry of the school year. And as always, thanks for reading.

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Happy Holidays!

May your days be merry and bright! 

I am enjoying the holidays with family and will be back with some greatest hits lists next week.

We Made It to Winter Break (After Today)! New Year's Freebie!

We Made It to Day 8! Whoop Whoop! Winter Break! (With apologies to those of you who still have to go to work next week, you can leave me boastful comments on the other days you have off we don't). So, it's Friday (or almost Friday) and that means that you don't need many holiday activities anymore. So to help you be ready to come back at the beginning of the year, this one focuses on New Years. I really want our students to be able to participate in making new year's resolutions, but often times it's an abstract idea that they struggle with. Some of you may recognize this if you have followed me for a while as a fan freebie from last year. However, since it is no longer available, I wanted to share it with more people and I updated it for this year.

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Free Interactive Social Narrative for the Winter Break

Today's freebie is designed to help your kids while saving you time--and as a bonus, send a tool home that their parents can use with the students over break. We all know that many students with autism and similar special needs have difficulty with changes in routine. As such, they often become upset during long breaks.

This is a black-and-white mini-book that the students cut out, assemble, and color the pictures. It comes with a December 2014 and January 2015 calendar. One of the strategies in the book is for students to check their calendar and the books can be sent home so that the families can use it as well.

You can use the book to talk about the upcoming winter break. Have the students find the date that break starts and mark it on the calendars in the book and at the end. Have them find the date that they come back to school and mark that on the calendar in the book and at the end. Then you can send the whole book home for the family to use to review and to show their child the calendar as a reminder of when school starts again. You can even decide not to include specific pages that are not relevant for a student to customize the book.

Click the picture above or HERE to download the free social narrative book from my TPT store.  I would love for you to leave feedback about it as well!

And don't forget the GIVEAWAY that is running through Friday.  Make sure to enter and you can add extra entries each day until it closes.

Giveaway

Instagram Share--$20 Starbucks Gift Card

Need an extra boost to get back to the classroom next week....or just an extra boost to recover from the week?  How about a $20 Starbucks Gift Card emailed to you?  Would that help?

If so, enter the Instagram giveaway below.  I love Instagram and love it when folks share pictures of my products created and in use and tag me.  So, for this contest you can gain entries by following me on Instagram at @autismclassroomnews and more entries by sharing a picture of one of my products (it can be a freebie from the blog or a purchased product from my store).  It can be in use or it can just be sitting in your classroom.  You can enter this once daily to the end of the contest.

A couple of caveats / fine print.

First, no pictures of children other than hands--nothing identifiable (i.e., no faces) unless you have permission.  
Second, your sharing of the picture on Instagram provides me with permission to repost it using a repost app and tagging you (so you'll know it's been shared).  
Finally, Instagram is not responsible for or associated with this giveaway in any way and entry into the contest indicates you release them from any responsibility.  

Make sure to tag your image with #ACNWinterGiveaway so I'll be able to see it and put your Instagram name in the Rafflecopter so I'll know it's you if you win.

Enter in the Rafflecopter below.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Twitter Share--$20 Amazon Gift Card

And, do you need a little help buying gifts?  Or maybe just a little something for yourself...or {gasp} your classroom?  How about a $20 Amazon gift card?  Follow me on Twitter and tweet a message to enter...you can do this everyday.  Enter with the Rafflecopter for that card below.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Pinterest Share--$20 TeachersPayTeachers Gift Card

And finally maybe you want to stock up on materials to start off the new year right.  Enter to win a TPT $20 gift card that can be used in ANY store on the site--even mine. :)  Just follow me on Pinterest and then each day you can earn entries by pinning an image from my store.  Enter in the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Until next time,

Day 6 of the 8 Day Countdown--Freebie and a GIVEAWAY!

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Day 5 of the 8 Day Countdown to Winter Break--Winter Patterning Freebie

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Day 4 of the 8 Day Countdown to Winter Break: Foldable Freebie!

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Day 3 of Our 8-Day Countdown to Winter Break--Freebie alert!

Day 3's posting of the 8 day count down to winter break is a bit delayed, but I think it's worth it! For anyone not following along to now, we are counting down to December 19 for the winter break and I'm hoping to make the last week a bit less painful with some freebies. Our last freebie was geared toward some of our older kids. This one is focused a bit more on the primary folks. And it's just print and go with the visual build in.
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Day 2 of Our 8 Day Countdown

So I understand from those of you on Facebook, that NOT EVERYONE gets out on the 19th. Some of you are lucky enough to get out this Friday. WHAT? And some of you are unlucky enough to not get out until the 23rd. I can only hope that means you don't go back too close to New Years....or perhaps you have those elusive snow days we never enjoy in Florida. :) So I am planning an extra surprise for the 8th day that might help you make it through the days of the next week! You'll have to wait until next week to see it. So, let's reveal the freebie for today.
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8 Day Countdown to the Winter Holidays--I Feel The Need to Give Things Away

OK, I really mean to blog between 2 to 3 times a week but life conspires with me. But now, armed with antibiotics and a light I can see at the end of the tunnel, I am back with a little twist to keep you entertained (I hope) through the last days of school before the winter break. I'm not really up to substance right now, but I can be up to a little fun and games and freebies to help you get through the next two weeks.
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Workbasket Wednesday-December 2014 edition

Wow, time flies! I can't believe it's that time again--time for Workbasket Wednesday's link up. If you want to link up, see the directions and the linkup at the end of this post.

This one is going to be short and sweet as I'm exhausted. Between the sale (thanks for everyone's support who buys something from my store!), this cold, the blog hop, Thanksgiving, and traveling, I'm exhausted. December is a crazy month but I have so many ideas for freebies and other stuff running through my head. If I can stop needing to actually sleep, look for a few surprises in the next few weeks.

This month I thought I'd shake it up a bit and talk about system setups. If you go to the link at the top of the blog on Structured Work Systems, you will see guidelines for this, but I often get asked about how to store and keep all the tasks straight. I also get asked about how to know which tasks to use for which students. I wanted to share some pictures of a system that I think worked beautifully for a high school classroom in Cookeville, TN. I've used this system in a lot of classes and there are some things I love about it that I'll share as well.
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Interactive Materials for Teaching Food Groups and Basic Nutrition

I am so excited about this new product, I can't even tell you! I'm excited because it has lots of new types of materials, but also because I'm so glad it is finally finished. This has been sitting on my computer for more than a couple of months and every time I would try to finish it up (longer in different forms), I would find something more I wanted to add. But now, it's up in my store and I want to share a little about it so you can see everything it contains.

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We Are Thankful for Special Educators Blog Hop: A Tip and a Freebie for You

Welcome to my stop on the We Are Thankful for Special Educators blog hop. I am excited to share a tip and freebie with you for this Thanksgiving weekend. Since it's Black Friday and I know everyone has leftovers to eat, stores to visit, and games to watch, I will make this short.

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Thank You for Our Community

Those of you who follow me on Facebook may have seen this quote on my page earlier this week with a note about how thankful I am for my mentor, Edward (Ted) Carr. When I posted that I intended it to be a daily quote through Thanksgiving with notes about things I am thankful for. However, I wasn't that successful with that, so I wanted to leave you for Thanksgiving with some thoughts about things I am thankful for, including this community. I also have a few announcements at the end of the post (which I will do my best to keep brief).
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7 Ways to Help Children with Autism Participate in Giving Thanks

In this busy time of year, it becomes particularly important to stop and take stock of what we have been given and to give thanks. In the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, sometimes it's difficult to help our students or children to be able to participate in a way that allows them to give thanks. We all have things to be thankful for and the opportunity to say thank you should never be passed up. So, I thought I would share some thoughts about how to help children with autism to participate in giving thanks this Thanksgiving. And I have a few announcements at the end of the post, so make sure not to miss it.
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Drowning in Internet Information: OCALICON 2014 Presentation

Wow, I am currently at the OCALI Conference in Columbus, OH and it's a good thing I own warm clothes! I don't know how you northerners do it!! It's freezing here! Today, Susan Kabot and I presented to a great group on strategies and resources for making sense of all the information that is out there about autism. Just trying to keep up is more than a full-time job with new "scientific" information coming out every minute and everyone claiming to be a scientifically based program. I had mentioned the talk on Facebook and said I would share the handout here after the presentation. If you attended the presentation and want to download the handout, just zip to the bottom of the page where I've placed the link. If you weren't able to attend, let me share just a couple of thoughts about the topic so that the handout will be understandable.
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How Should We Respond to Challenging Behavior?

Returning to the series on challenging behavior brings us to the third type of strategies to include in a behavioral support plan: Responsive strategies. No matter what we do when we plan behavioral support, there will be days when it fails and when the behavior occurs. No matter how many antecedent strategies and replacement strategies we use, what reaction the behavior gets in the environment is going to affect it and we need to be prepared for them. Not being prepared and as consistent as possible is sometimes what increased the behaviors in the first place, so it pays to take time to design the response. Here are some things we need to think about in responsive strategies.

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I Am Thankful for All You Do

Today I was reflecting on how thankful I am for so many things. Timely of course since Thanksgiving is heading our way faster than I can keep up. I am thankful for my family and friends. I am thankful that I have the opportunity to sometimes work beside my pool and the beautiful weather that comes in fall and winter in Florida. I am thankful for all of the opportunities I have had to work with some amazing people. And I am thankful for all that you, the readers, followers and buyers, do. I am of course thankful for your support and
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Counting Templates Freebie

FREEBIE!!

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3 Ways to Teach Replacements or Coping Strategies for Sensory-Based Challenging Behavior

As I talked about in my last post in the challenging behavior series, there are two primary ways that the different sensory experiences of students with autism might be related to the function of a challenging behavior. It might be to escape from a situation that is too loud, or too bright or too smelly or all of those things among others. It might also be to gain reinforcement from something internal or end an internal feeling that is uncomfortable. Today I want to talk about how we can teach an individual replacement behaviors to get their needs met without the challenging behavior. These are some of the most difficult replacement behaviors to teach and identify so let me share some examples.

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Workbasket Wednesday Link-Up-November 2014

It's hard to believe it is that time again...time for the Workbasket Wednesday Link-up. So, if you blog please share your work tasks, work boxes, work system tasks in a post and link up--the directions and button are below. If you don't blog and want to share, please feel free to share them on my Facebook page or message them to me and I'll share them. Either way, hopefully all of us will gain some great ideas to keep work baskets and systems fresh in our classrooms.

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Is it Sensory or Behavior? The WRONG Question--Here's Why

OK, I know I have already ruffled some feathers with the title of this post, but please hang with me and let me explain. I want to continue with the challenging behavior series by addressing the sensory or automatic function of challenging behavior. You can find more of this series here.

Recently on Pinterest I have been seeing lots of posts that pose the title of Is it Sensory or is it Behavior? I'm happy that people understand that all behaviors are not deliberately manipulative, which I think is what they are intending. They are making the differentiation between willful behavior (which assumes that challenging behavior is deliberate) and behavior that functions because an individual (often on the autism spectrum but not always) is overwhelmed by sensory input in their environment. However, there are some serious myths and misconceptions about this approach that I think go beyond semantics of how we talk about behavior that I want to explore in today's post.

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3 Ways to Make Positive Reinforcement Systems Work in the Classroom

Returning to my series on managing challenging behavior, I wanted to take a moment to talk about positive reinforcement of appropriate behavior and why creating systems for giving it might be helpful and is important. Positive reinforcement is both an antecedent strategy /preventive strategy as well as a teaching tool for replacement skills. We try to keep it from being a response to negative behavior since reinforcement would increase that undesired behavior. If we use positive reinforcement systems consistently for appropriate behaviors, we reduce the likelihood that challenging behaviors will be exhibited and we use reinforcement systems to teach new skills to replace challenging behavior like raising their hand to gain attention (positive reinforcement) and asking for a break (negative reinforcement--we took something away and the asking for a break increased). For general classroom management we want to reinforce appropriate behavior across the classroom about 5 times for every redirection or correction that we make (Flora, 2000). We also have a good research literature that tells us that classrooms typically do not reach that ratio and that increasing praise can improve students' behavior (Flora, 2000).

Teachers don’t have just one job. Have you ever met a teacher who felt he/she just had to do well in one thing? I haven’t. Just thinking of everything that a teacher needs to do throughout the day is exhausting. But I don’t need to tell YOU that (unless you aren’t a teacher). However, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t mean to be said. Trying to keep track of everything that is happening in a successful classroom and keep all the students engaged is a monumental task. When I am running a classroom, I find it easiest when I automate as many of the tasks as I possibly can. The more I can do that, the less time I have to spend remembering, and the more engaged I can be with the students—which is always my ultimate goal (you know, prevents challenging behavior, increases skills effectively….for those reasons).

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8 Ways to Communicate with Families: Beyond the Home Note

Wow, my self-created fall break was so amazing it's hard to get back into the swing of things. But I'm BACK!

In my last post I talked about home notes as a way to communicate between school and home. I promised at the end to talk about some different ways we can communicate with families (and families can communicate with schools) so I want to focus on that today along with some of the pros/cons about the different ways to get information between the two settings. I have talked about why this is important for individuals in special education, but there is also research that indicates that for all students, having parents involved in their schooling improves their performance. I would expect it to be no different for individuals in special education and the need is even greater for different types of communication. So, here we go.

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Special Education Home-School Communication for All Ages

Many of you have seen these (or won a copy) on my Facebook page, but I have received a number of requests for information about the home note that was on yesterday's post. I've talked about why home-school communication is so important for our students and some Dos and Don'ts in doing it. This is an area I have been working in for many years trying to find the balance between providing specific and meaningful information to families while still assuring that the teacher can 1) teach the class and 2) stay sane. There are SOO many things to do in a classroom, especially one that serves students with special needs, that adding this component of communicating with families is often the straw that broke the camel's back. So, I want to share a tool that I hope will make it easier, quicker and more effective to help build relationships with families while also helping teachers stay sane.

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Dos and Don'ts of Communicating with Families

In my last post I talked about why communication between schools and families is so important for students with autism and other special needs. Today I want to talk a little about some do's and don'ts I've learned over the years in working with families. This is definitely not a comprehensive list so please share in the comments other thoughts and input on the topic.
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5 Reasons Why Building Effective Home-School Communication is Important

I promise to continue with the challenging behavior series in the future, but there are always so many things I want to write about! Sometimes I feel like my brain will explode from ideas...and I get bored talking about the same thing all the time, so I ask you to be patient with me and indulge me.

Today's burning topic in my head is about creating effective home communication systems. Clearly this is something that is important for all classrooms and all teachers. However, it's something that really hits home for families and teachers of students with special needs of all kinds. Let me start this topic by addressing 5 of the reasons (there are more) WHY it's so important.
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Throwback Thursday for Fire Safety Week

I am linking up with The Teacher's Desk 6 for her PURR-fect Previous Posts: Throwback Thursday linky. October has so many things going on from Bullying Prevention Month to Fire Safety Week (not to mention fall, pumpkins and Halloween). I've been thinking about fire safety week which reminded me of this post from April 2013 that many of you may not have seen. (By the way, did you know the best way to find posts on my blog is to use my Pinterest blog board? You can use the search box to the right too, but I actually find all the posts I'm looking for on my board. I think it's a visual thing!). Anyway, as you will see from this post I have some very strong feelings about fire drills and students with autism or other disabilities. They are hard for many of our students, but they are no less important for teaching. And at the end of the post are some resources and another throwback post with a link to a freebie for teaching about fire drills.
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Bullying and Students on the Autism Spectrum

I have the amazing opportunity to work with a selection of amazing professionals who provide training and support to autism programs across the U.S. and Canada called the Network of Autism Training and Technical Assistance Programs (NATTAP). This offers a unique opportunity to collaborate on a number of projects including the one below in which we developed a brief on bullying and students on the autism spectrum. They had much more to do with this than I did, but I wanted to share it with all of you. It is a bit long comprehensive you can download the pdf version to share as needed and skip to the end for references/research and resources to use for awareness with your students.

Most of us have had unfortunate experiences with bullying in our work with individuals on the spectrum. While we must prevent bullying through education and supervision at all times, we also can take advantage of the designation of October as National Bullying Prevention Month to really hit this topic hard across our schools and communities.

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Currently and a Freebie!

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Workbasket Wednesday--October 2014 Edition

It's that time of month again. I can't believe it's already the first Wednesday of October!! And it's still 90 degrees in South Florida! I've lived here most of my life--you would think I would learn. Can't wait to get a little time out and about to places that have real fall! So, in my longing for fall, I thought I would make fall the theme for this month's work boxes.

If you want to link up, you don't have to follow the theme...it just helps me organize which pictures to pull out of the archives! So, I started with fall and pumpkins....and I kind of slid into Halloween. So, read on for fall workboxes and for directions, the graphic and the link up, skip to the end to link up!
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Defining a Break in Functional Communication Training

In my last post, I talked about how to teach a communication response to replace escape-related challenging behavior and had a protocol for teaching a break response as one of the options. I wanted to take some time today to talk about what a break might actually look like. As I noted in that post, the type of break and what happens during a break can vary as much as all our different students. A break can take place in the same place as the activity the student is asking to escape. Typically this would make sense if the student is escaping from work.
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Functional Communication Training: Teaching Asking for a Break

In talking about replacement behaviors, probably one of the replacement strategies that most challenge teachers is how to replace behaviors that serve to escape from situations. It goes against our grain to teach a student to "get out of" the work we are trying to teach him. It goes against everything we are told by our supervisors and parents. I think this is becoming particularly true in our "high standards" age. I realize when I tell teachers that we should let a student "choose" not to complete something that this seems to be counter to her purpose in her job. I get it. I really do. I promise. And yet....

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Teaching Appropriate Attention-Seeking to Replace Challenging Behaviors (Freebie!)

When we talk about replacement behaviors and functional communication training (FCT), the three most common applications are teaching attention seeking, teaching escape behaviors, and teaching requesting items and actions (for the tangible function). Today I want to talk about how to teach an individual to use an appropriate communicative way to gain attention from others. You can teach students to gain attention in a variety of ways from telling jokes, initiating interactions in play, and initiating conversations among others. These work well for students who have some communication skills but aren't using them effectively. I want to focus today more on the student who does not have effective communicative ways to gain attention. They might be nonverbal and have limited communication skills or they might be verbal but not use their language effectively or communicatively (like the kid who recites the newscast but can't ask for a banana). These are the students who need the basics of communication specifically focused on gaining the attention that their challenging behavior currently serves. Obviously this is something you would use for students whose FBAs indicated attention as a primary function of challenging behavior. I am going to give you the highlights and then I have included a free download of a protocol with more details about how to set it up.

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Functional Communication Training: Why It's More Than Just "Use Your Words"

Last time I talked about some beginning considerations in replacement skills. Today I want to talk about one of the most common type of replacement skills: communication skills. Functional Communication Training (FCT) is teaching specific communication skills that serve the same function as the challenging behavior. It's probably one of the most common forms of replacement skills that we use. We reference it all the time whenever we tell a student, "Use your words." However, replacing challenging behavior with communication isn't as simple as that. If it was as simple as that, we could just redirect and move on and the problem would no longer exist. And repeating "Use your words" multiple times isn't going to do it either. So what is FCT and how do we use it? Let's talk about that today.

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Functional Elementary Classroom Elements

I am so excited about this blog post....partly because it's mostly pictures. And let's face it, on a Thursday and Friday, who has time to read! I was lucky enough to do some consulting this week and to visit a school where a teacher told me she had bought stuff from my TPT store. So I went by her room to take a look and was excited to not only get to see some of my products in action, but to see this great classroom set up of functional centers she has set up in her room. I asked her if I could take some pictures and share them with you because I really love her ideas! So thank you Mrs. Gaines of East Ridge Elementary School for letting me share!! So now, less words, more pictures!
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What Are Replacement Behaviors and What Do We Need To Know to Be Effective?

Thanks to I Teach
What's Your Superpowers for Clipart

So, how are you surviving the beginning of the year? Class set up? Schedule set (does it ever really get finalized??). At this point in the series, we are ready to move on to the second part of the behavior support plan--the teaching parts. If you haven't seen the post on the format of a behavior support plan, check here. There is a freebie, so go ahead and check it out and I'll wait.

OK, ready to continue? This section of the support plan is divided up into 2 components: teaching replacement skills and teaching ancillary skills (or skills the student needs but that aren't necessarily related to the function of the behavior). Before we get started on specific skills in each area, let me clear up a few frequently asked questions about them.

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Workbasket Wednesday-September 2014 Edition: Quick and Easy Tasks

Welcome to Workbasket Wednesday! This is a time for us to all indulge our love for work tasks that work in independent structured work systems and capitalize on the visual strengths of many of our students to address their need to learn to work independently, maintain learned skills and generalize their skills across different materials. If you want to link up, see the end of the post for directions and the link up. If you don't have a blog, you can link up as well by leaving photos in the comments or messaging them to me on Facebook and I'll share them.

Since we just started September, many of you have just started back to school while others have been back in the classroom long enough to get to know your students. So, I thought today, I would focus on tasks that are fast and easy to set up so you can expand your work tasks quickly.

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5 Ways to Prep Students to Prevent Challenging Behavior: Antecedent Strategies

To read more of the series on challenging behavior click HERE.

So, in this post I want to finish up talking about antecedent strategies by talking about ways to prepare a student prior to a situation that may be related to challenging behavior so that the student can get through the activity productively and without difficulty. Sometimes preparing someone before they have to manage a difficult situation can help them manage their behavior. Think of it as when you remind your significant other that we decided to try not to argue with the in-laws during the dinner tonight. We all do it, it's just a matter of making the preparation clear and meaningful for our students--and planning the time to be able to do it. Here are some ways that we can prepare students to help their behavior be more successful.
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6 Ways to Change Task Presentation to Prevent Challenging Behavior: Antecedent Strategies

To check out the rest of this series on 5 Steps to Meaningful Behavioral Support, click HERE.

If this series proves nothing else, it is that addressing and preventing challenging behavior is a complex, complicated, long job...and it is. But there are some things you can do that will prevent challenging behaviors just in the way you present tasks to students. These will work well if you have a student whose FBA showed that the behavior served to escape from demands from staff or parents. Essentially these are strategies that will lessen the student's negative response to task demands by making them easier, more interesting, and/or more palatable in some way so they are more likely to comply. And let's face it, increased compliance, and decreased challenging behavior is a win-win for you and the student. So, let's look at some strategies.

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3 Ways to Adjust the Physical Space to Prevent Challenging Behavior

If you are looking for the special education blog hop and the freebies and giveaway, click HERE.

Today I am continuing with the antecedent strategies for preventing challenging behavior in step 4 of 5 Steps to Meaningful Behavioral Support. To see the rest of the series click HERE.

Sometimes, preventing challenging behavior can be as simple as changing around the furniture. And sometimes it helps to have the furniture you need. Since many of us are setting up classrooms for the school year, today I want to talk about how the physical arrangement of the environment can affect challenging behaviors.
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We Love Special Education Teachers!!! Blog Hop & Giveaway!!

I am super excited about this week! So much is going on! First we have this awesome giveaway and tomorrow is a TPT one-day boost sale!! Whoo hoo! I am particularly excited about this post because this is a blog hop designed and brought to you exclusively for special education. So often we have to adapt or choose the things that will work for our classrooms, but not this time. This time the freebies and the giveaways are JUST FOR Special Educators. That's not to say that others can't use them-because we special educators know that everything we do can be effective for all students, not just special education. So, let's show them how it's done! Check out the awesome giveaways below (I have one in each age group because you know how important I think it is for all ages to have cool learning stuff! Then check out the freebies at the end of the post and hop over to the next blog for more freebies--rinse and repeat 24 times!

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5 Types and Functions of Visual Supports--Antecedent Interventions for Behavioral Support

In continuing the series 5 Steps to Meaningful Behavioral Support, we are on Step 4 of creating the behavior plan and choosing interventions. Remembering that our interventions must match our hypotheses, one of the first sets of strategies we use are often referred to as antecedent interventions because they address the antecedents to the challenging behavior based on your FBA. As you will remember (or click here to be reminded), one of the huge advantages of using a function-based approach to behavior support is that you can address behaviors before they happen to avoid them all together through prevention. So, today I'm going to talk about some of the more common antecedent strategies we might use.
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Addressing Setting Events in Meaningful Behavioral Support

Do you remember that I was doing a series on behavioral support? Yea, well I feel like you must think I forgot about the most important part--INTERVENTION! What good does it do to complete a killer FBA if we don't have rockin' interventions that actually reduce challenging behavior?? So, no, I have not forgotten...just got a bit distracted. But now we shall continue. If you want to catch the rest of the series, you can do that HERE.
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August Workbasket Wednesday Linkup

It's hard to believe, but it's that time again.....time for the monthly Workbasket Wednesday Linkup! That time when I go back into my vault and try to find pictures of workbaskets I've collected over the years to share. And then I throw it out there for the month for other bloggers (and nonbloggers) to link up with pictures of their newest or favorite classic work baskets. And then we all get to see them and share ideas--and you know me--I'm all about sharing! So, here we go--see the link directions at the end of this post.
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Schedule Bundles, What's In Your Cart? and a Sale....Oh My!

Wow! I can't believe it's already time for back to school, but next week I will be helping teachers set up their classrooms and be there on the first day of school for one of the districts I work with. Whether you are back in school, on your way back to school or still enjoying your summer, you know you are thinking about ways to organize your classroom. To help with that, I've created some new products that might be helpful. And what's better? It's all on sale with the big TPT Back to School Sale on August 4 and 5 (Monday and Tuesday). So I've linked up with Speech Room News for her great What's In Your Cart Linky to share more details about my Chevron Autism Classroom Visual Bundles that you might like and to share what I have in my cart (which usually gives you a sneak peek of what is coming your way in my store).

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7 Ways to Facilitate Successful Team Meetings for Writing BSPs (FREEBIE!)

Thanks to Melonhedz, Lovin' Lit, and
I Teach What's Your Superpower for images

Whew! What a crazy time of year--gotta love (or not) the beginning of school. I know for some of you it's still a ways off, but for all my friends in the South it's coming sooner rather than later. And I'm trying to get some new products up and ready for the new year (and the big TPT sale--more later) and helping my consulting client districts get their classrooms set up. And, oh yeah, all my graduate students have been very busy over the summer--which keeps me busy. In all of that, I know you probably think I forgot about the behavior series, but I promise I didn't! So this is the next in the series. Last time I talked about the reasons why behavior support plans should be created by a team. Today I want to talk about how to help that team meeting go smoothly and be productive--and not be a giant time suck that we all know meetings can become. Hey, I sit in meetings for a living (it seems that way sometimes) when I would much rather be in a classroom helping a teacher. I know how they can meander and not get you where you want to go. So, here are some tips to prevent that and get to a successful behavior plan.
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