Joint Event Parents and Professionals, Autism and the Post Primary School Key Topics (3 in 1 Day Kildare Education Centre

Autism, Relationships and Sexuality Education and Life Skills 

This session will examine the impact of adolescence on young people with autism. Participants will be shown how to incorporate behavioural interventions with visual strategies to help teenagers with autism cope with some of the typical issues of adolescence. The training will provide practical strategies that educational professionals may use to support teenagers with autism. It will also focus on the delivery of sexuality and relationships education for students with autism Life skills

This training will examine the broad definition of life skills, within the contexts of home, school, leisure and personal care, and how the core difficulties, associated with autism, directly affect the development of such skills. It will demonstrate how life skills can be improved and facilitated within the home and school environments. This will include increasing independence in family and classroom activities, the daily routines of the family home, the classroom, within leisure and personal care activities, e.g. menstruation, shaving

Autism, Behaviour and Sensory Issues 
Promotion of Positive Behaviour
This session will examine how the core features of autism can influence the behaviour of young people. Responding effectively to inappropriate or misunderstood behaviour remains a concern for parents and professionals living and working with young people with autism. Early intervention and planning are important to ensure that young people have an array of proactive strategies to defuse rather than escalate a demanding situation. 

Sensory Processing
Sensory Processing generally refers to the ability of a young person to register sensory information, make sense of that information, and to respond to it. This is a complex and fluid process involving all the sensory systems, auditory, gustatory, visual, olfactory, tactile, proprioceptive, and vestibular. When sensory processing is working well, a young person’s responses to sensory information are positive and support interaction. However, sensory processing difficulties are quite prevalent in the profiles of young people with autism and can affect every aspect of life and development. This session examines the sensory processing differences frequently associated with autism and will demonstrate how such difficulties impact on learning, leisure activities and choices, social interactions and behaviour at home and in school.

Autism and Anxiety Management
Post Primary aged students with autism experience anxiety in many situations, with some experiencing significant anxiety difficulties. For many, school is a major source of stress. While many reasons are shared with the full student body, there are some key factors relating to autism that mean stress and anxiety are more likely. Everyone shows their anxiety in individual ways, so the most reliable observations that a student is anxious are going to be made by the people who know the student best. This highlights the need for a collaborative approach between the family and the school.
This session is an introduction to strategies that can be used to alleviate the experience of anxiety in students with autism. This will include an introduction to cognitively based strategies and how to develop student centred strategies to deal with anxiety.

Expected Outcomes
Participants will:
• Understand how the difficulties experienced by those with autism,  including sensory difficulties, can contribute to the development of anxiety.
• Understand how anxiety can escalate and may result in an outburst.
• Develop some simple strategies to prevent the escalation of anxiety.
• Understand the basics of cognitively based management approaches.

Course Overview
• Anxiety triggers and build up.
• “On the spot” anxiety management strategies.
• Developing a “stress kit”.
• Cognitively based approaches and the emotional toolkit