Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA

Do you have a family trip coming up? Want to take a vacation with your kids, but can’t imagine how you’ll make it through the airplane ride without a melt down? Here’s a sample timeline of how to prepare for your flight and then make it to your destination without too much of a headache.

Three Months Out

If you haven’t already, it’s time to start looking at flights. You may have a preferred airline, or you may be looking for the best price relative to your preferred dates and times for travel. Either way, here are the additional factors you need to think about when booking travel that includes your child with autism:

1. Luggage: What kind of luggage will you be able to check? Is it free or is there a fee? Will you be able to check equipment like a stroller at the gate?

2. Seat selection: Do the tickets you are purchasing include the ability to select your own seats, so that you can sit next to your child?

3. Schedule:  Instead of the flight take off and landing times, frame this as your door-to-door schedule. What parts of your child’s routine will be interrupted or skipped? Knowing this outline ahead of time will help you problem solve in advance.

4. Stops: Can you fly direct? If not, when and where are the stops? Do you have to transfer planes? If so, is there enough time during the transfer to go between gates while allowing more time for you and your child than if you were flying solo?

One Month Out

Now it’s time to plan ahead for what you will do on the plane, and what your child with autism will do. What are their favorite activities? If possible, select and set aside favorite toys and activities that will fit in a backpack, so that they’ll be fresh and special during the flight. Try to select at least one activity per hour of the flight and hour between flights, if you are not flying direct. If you need to order anything for your child for the flight, such as headphones, allergen free snacks, or special activity books, now is the time to do so.

One Week Out

Now it’s time to pack. If you can’t pack one week in advance, this is the time to make a list and locate everything that you plan to pack, and make sure it will fit into the luggage and carryon bags you are bringing. You’ll also want to run through the larger equipment you plan to bring, such as strollers and booster seats, and make sure you can get from point A to B with the full inventory.

Make sure you consider what you need to pack for yourself, as well as for your child. For example, you may easily remember to pack a water bottle for your child, but forget that item for yourself. 

This is also the time to make a plan for how you’ll get from your house to the airport, if you haven’t already. You also need to make a plan for transportation on the other side: is someone picking you up? Are you renting a car? Are you taking public transportation?

Two Days Out

This is a good time to start preparing your child with autism for the travel routine. Avoid getting bogged down in too many descriptive statements about the trip itself. Instead, draw or print a basic visual schedule using simple drawings or pictures to represent each stage of the trip. Show and tell your child the sequence of events, from leaving your house to arriving at your destination. If your child is anxious about leaving home, you may also need to go over the return trip with them.

The Day Before

By this time, you should have completed almost every step of preparation for your trip, so the day before can be focused on things such as reassuring your child about the trip plans using your visual schedule, adding any last minute items of clothing that needed to go in the wash before packing, and leaving instructions about home and animal care for a petsitter if applicable.

The most important thing that you can do the day before your trip is focus on ensuring you and your child get as much sleep as possible. Chances are, you will not sleep normally on the plane or once you’ve reached your destination due to a time zone jump, and neither will your child. Getting rest before your trip ensures you will be able to devote energy to helping your child have a successful flight.

The Day Of

On the day of your trip, leave yourself extra time to get from home to the airport. A good rule of thumb is to increase the time you would need for a solo trip by at least half. For example, if you would plan to leave for the airport two hours before your flight alone, leave three hours before your flight with your autistic child. By leaving extra time, you do not have to rush through security or to your gate. You can take your time and focus on showing your child how each step of the process works as well as shepherding them through each task.

At the Airport

At the airport, leave time for your child to explore, especially if they have not been to an airport before. They may want to look at the planes taking off and landing through the windows, or explore other gates as you pass them on your way to your own. If possible, allow them to “stop and smell the roses” by pausing and looking at things they’re interested in while you walk through the airport on your way to board.

Boarding

Most airlines will allow families with young children to board the plane early, typically before the first standard boarding group. However, it’s a good idea to check with the attendant at your gate before boarding begins so you can understand the process. For example, if your child appears older than around four years old, and there are no other children on the flight, the attendant might not think they need to call for family boarding. If you’re comfortable doing so, explain that you have a child with special needs and it would be beneficial for you as well as the other passengers to board early.

Hour One

Now you are on the flight! Take time to get settled in your seats and situate your carryons so that activities are easily accessible. If your child is anxious, go ahead and bring out the first activity now. If they are not, this is a good time to show them all the different parts of the plane, and narrate what others are doing as they board. Make a game out of guessing how much time will pass between boarding and actually taking off. The longer you can occupy your child with these observations, the less time you will need to fill up with the activities you packed.

Hours Two Through Five, And On

In addition to bringing out a new activity every hour or so, you can also encourage your child to rest on the flight, depending on what time it is. Also, try to take your child to the bathroom before they indicate they need to go – about every hour or two, if possible. This is helpful in case the flight attendants require passengers to be seated later on. It also builds in more movement time for your child than they would normally get on a flight.

Landing

Prepare your child for not being able to get off the plane immediately upon landing. If necessary, let others behind you get off the plane first, so that you have more time to gather your things and shepherd your child down the hallway.

You made it! Make sure you get some rest and time to recuperate from your adventure. After all, you’ll need to replenish your energy for the return flight!

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA Courtney is a behavior analyst, educator, and writer in the Pacific Northwest. She has over fifteen years of experience in the field of autism services, and over ten years of master’s level experience in classroom teaching and ABA therapy. Her areas of expertise include infant and toddler development, parent coaching, ABA clinical leadership and training, P-12 special education, and case consultation for children and young adults with autism and other special needs. Courtney lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.

Today’s article will focus on a super fun activity you can do at home. This activity can help your child with autism build early reading comprehension skills. It is also a great way to practice following directions. Your child will be able to practice their fine motor skills, too. The activity we are talking about is: sequencing!

This kind of sequencing doesn’t mean putting things in order from biggest to smallest, or least to most. Those are great skills you can practice too, usually very easily with nesting dolls, number puzzles, or other small toys at home. This kind of sequencing activity takes a little more preparation, but it is worth it! This kind of sequencing activity focuses on putting things in order based on when they happen in a story.

What you will need:

1. One of your child’s favorite books. I recommend a short and simple book that still has a narrative outline to it. That means the story should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. The sections of the story should have clear events that signify each of these parts.  For example, the story will have a problem, efforts to solve it, and a solution and resolution. Some good examples:

-The Llama Llama series

-Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington

-Otis and the Tornado by Loren Long.

For longer sequences that have many similar events that build on each other, you can use books like:

-The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

-The Napping House by Audrey Wood

-The Mitten by Jan Brett.

2. A printer, or beginner drawing skills. You will want to select an image that represents each major part of the story. For example, in Llama Llama Red Pajama, you could choose the following pictures:

-A llama to represent Baby Llama going to bed

-A picture of a mother to represent Mama Llama going downstairs

-A picture of a child crying to represent Baby Llama becoming upset

-A picture of a mother hugging her child to represent Mama Llama returning upstairs and comforting Baby Llama

The pictures that you print or draw should be small enough to fit in a row on one sheet of paper.

3. A piece of sturdy paper or construction paper, cut to fit the sequence pictures all in a row.

4. Glue and child or adaptive scissors that your child can use either independently or with support.

What to do:

Read the selected book with your child first. Make comments about what happens first, in the middle, and last. Ask your child questions if they are able to answer them verbally, like “What happened first? What happened next? How did they fix the problem?”

Introduce the art activity. It is ideal if you can show how to put a sequence together first. You can do this with 3 simple pictures that outline a familiar narrative, like opening the fridge, seeing that the milk is gone, and going to the store to get more milk (thus solving the problem).

Provide your child with the materials for the sequence based on the book that you read. Place the pictures out of order. Your child can practice rearranging the pictures to show that they understand the story. Provide your child with as much help and prompting as they need to be successful. If necessary, show them how to rearrange the pictures correctly, retelling those points in the story as you do so. Help them cut apart or cut around the pictures if necessary. Then, help them glue the pictures down in the right order. Optionally, they can color the pictures as well, once glued.

Now, you know how to teach early literacy skills through hands-on sequencing activities at home! Repeat as desired for other favorite books, or even familiar household routines.

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA Courtney is a behavior analyst, educator, and writer in the Pacific Northwest. She has over fifteen years of experience in the field of autism services, and over ten years of master’s level experience in classroom teaching and ABA therapy. Her areas of expertise include infant and toddler development, parent coaching, ABA clinical leadership and training, P-12 special education, and case consultation for children and young adults with autism and other special needs. Courtney lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.

Do you get nervous when you and your child with autism are invited to a playdate? Do you want to do things like go to the zoo, visit the aquarium, or even pick up groceries from your local supermarket, but feel like you can’t prevent your autistic child from doing something unpredictable during an outing like these? Do you worry about what will happen when your child grows older and bigger, and they don’t have experience following simple instructions in the community?

Teaching safety skills to autistic children is hard to do. But the good news is that the more your child practices, the more accustomed they will become to following safety instructions from an adult. In this article, we will discuss a basic step-by-step process for teaching this skill to your child with autism.

Start With A Baseline

The first step to teaching safety skills to your child with autism is to not teach anything at all. This is because you first need to know what they can do before you can know what to teach them. To find out what safety skills your child already has, you need to test their skills in a low risk environment, such as an enclosed flat park, a fenced yard, or an empty gymnasium.

Start with simple directions like “stop,” “wait,” “come back,” and “hands to self.” That last one can be hard to test out if there is nothing or no one around that your child wants to touch or explore, so you may have to test it out in different settings and on different occasions.

Try not to provide negative feedback if your child doesn’t follow the directions. Remember, this is just to test out what they know. However, if they get it right, certainly shower them with praise and attention.

Practice In A Safe Setting

Once you know which directions your child can follow consistently and which they can’t, you’re ready to start teaching and practicing. You can practice in the same environment you used to test out their skills, but you also may want to branch out a little. While you’re still in practice mode, make a list of safe settings that are fun, too. Better yet, suggest these locations the next time another parent initiates a playdate.

Safe settings are typically enclosed or separate from urban areas if they are outdoors, and child-friendly if they are indoors. For example, many local zoos are a great option, as their walking paths are wide and bounded by fences and trees, and there is no traffic. Zoos are ideal during the off season or off hours of the day so that you don’t have to deal with crowds. Some other common examples that you may find in your community include indoor play spaces where the sensory input is not too high, such as indoor bounce play areas or play cafes for younger children, your local shopping mall (again, during off hours is best), rec centers with designated activity or play areas, children’s gyms during scheduled open gyms, children’s museums, and local farms. You may know this last one as the pumpkin patch, but check their websites as some farms offer entrance and programming during the spring and summer, too.

Gradually Increase Expectations

Remember, teaching safety skills to your autistic child is a marathon, not a sprint. You’ll want to increase your expectations very gradually, all the while providing as many practice opportunities as you can for basic instructions when you’re in your trusted, safe environments. When you’re ready to try a new environment, make your trip short, and keep your expectations low. That way you can ensure a successful short trip – and maybe the next time, you can add ten more minutes onto the outing. Increase expectations gradually ensures you and your child continue to build positive experiences in the community that are safe and fun.

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA Courtney is a behavior analyst, educator, and writer in the Pacific Northwest. She has over fifteen years of experience in the field of autism services, and over ten years of master’s level experience in classroom teaching and ABA therapy. Her areas of expertise include infant and toddler development, parent coaching, ABA clinical leadership and training, P-12 special education, and case consultation for children and young adults with autism and other special needs. Courtney lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.

This week, we’ve got a roundup of the best products you can get from your local dollar store. As we all know, dollar store purchases can be hit or miss. You might spend 99 cents on something that occupies your child for hours, makes dinner preparation take ten minutes less every night, or solves party planning woes. But you could also end up with a load full of broken plastic knick knacks that are headed straight from your shopping cart to the trash.

I’ve been there, both as a teacher and a parent! So in this post I’m going to share some of my favorite dollar store purchases with you – all based on my own experience. Next time you’re looking for a cheap and easy way to brighten your child’s day, use this list as a handy guide. It will show you what’s a good idea to get from the dollar store and what you might want to spend a little more on elsewhere.

Containers – yes!

Are you always pulling your hair out looking for clear containers to store little knick knacks or small pieces of toys in? Small containers can also be useful for toys on the go that aren’t normally easily packable, like LEGO. Look for containers throughout your local dollar store, including in sections like the toy aisle and the toiletry section. Sometimes you might find the perfect container that already contains something. – You can empty out the pre-filled contents and use it for the item of your choice.

Art Supplies – it depends

Art supplies vary in quality at the dollar store. Often, crayons purchased at the dollar store aren’t satisfying to draw with. You might be better off purchasing that item online or for a few dollars more at Target. But coloring books, glitter paper, construction paper, and other art supplies can be a great buy at the dollar store – especially if you go through them quickly.

Balloons – yes!

Did you know that many dollar stores will fill mylar helium balloons for you, for only a dollar? This is much cheaper than the cost elsewhere – so much so that you don’t have to wait for birthdays to get your child a special balloon anymore. If they love balloons that float when they carry them, you can now affordably add this item to your reinforcer repertoire.

Puzzles – no

Unfortunately, puzzles purchased at the dollar store look very cute, but they are hard to handle. This is especially true for:

– Young children

-Children with autism who struggle with table activities

-Children who struggle with fine motor issues to complete

The pieces are not thick enough to be easily picked up, maneuvered, and placed in their spots. For puzzles, stick with a tried and true brand like Melissa and Doug.

Kitchen supplies – yes!

Do you have a child who loves pretending to cook, or being near you when you are cooking? You can find a large selection of kitchen supplies at the dollar store. Some of them are useful enough that you might find yourself adopting them for your own use. Try finding a pot, a ladle, and an egg timer at your dollar store and see what kinds of pretend play games you and your child can come up with.

Reward Box Items – yes!

Anything from beads to action figures to silly putty can be found at your local dollar store. You’ll also find a wide selection of stickers, play dough, and seasonal or holiday themed items. The dollar store is the perfect place to fill and refill your reward box. This is helpful especially if your child is earning several rewards per day, as part of a first-then system or star chart.

Happy shopping!

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA Courtney is a behavior analyst, educator, and writer in the Pacific Northwest. She has over fifteen years of experience in the field of autism services, and over ten years of master’s level experience in classroom teaching and ABA therapy. Her areas of expertise include infant and toddler development, parent coaching, ABA clinical leadership and training, P-12 special education, and case consultation for children and young adults with autism and other special needs. Courtney lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.

Behavior specific praise, or “BSP” as many autism professionals refer to it, is an extremely useful strategy to make part of your daily conversations and routines. But behavior specific praise doesn’t necessarily come naturally, or happen if you’re not thinking about it. That’s because general praise is usually the first thing that comes to the tip of your tongue when you want to acknowledge that your child did something well, or acted kindly, or met your expectation, or followed an instruction. General praise is the use of phrases like “good job,” “nice work,” or “way to go.”

General praise is a good start. After all, it’s certainly better and more effective to be delivering praise in the first place rather than not at all. You could start monitoring your own use of general praise throughout the day, and chances are you’ll automatically start to do it more, just by thinking about it.

After you’ve got the hang of integrating general praise into your natural conversations and routines at home, it’s a great idea to start converting some of those general praise phrases over to “behavior specific praise.” The concept of behavior specific praise is actually very simple. Here’s what it means:

What You Say Has Power

Research has shown that for children with autism, what happens right after a behavior impacts the likelihood of that behavior happening again at some point in the future. This is called reinforcement. Reinforcement can take many forms. Often for children with autism it involves a small preferred item or a small symbol for a token system that can later be traded in for a preferred item. We know that by combining something with a reinforcer, we can gradually condition that something to become a reinforcer on its own. By using praise statements like “Good job putting the cap back on the pen” at the same time a preferred item is given, we can expect that eventually praise statements will function as a reinforcer themselves.

We also know that attention is a powerful reinforcer on its own for many children with autism. By structuring “attention” to include behavior specific praise statements like “You are working so hard to stay calm right now” we create a reinforcement framework that can be replicated by other adults in the child’s life in addition to parents, such as teachers.

Being Specific in a Situation That’s Not “All Right” or “All Wrong”

Behavior specific praise is also useful when you want to shape your child’s behavior. For example, your child might be learning to eat with a spoon independently, but making a mess at the same time or throwing food on the floor. You could use behavior specific praise to isolate the behavior that you want to encourage by saying “You are doing a great job holding the spoon and scooping food with it to take a bite!”

By looking for the specific behavior that you can praise, and then talking about it, you will increase the opportunities you have to coach your child on what you want them to do.

Modeling and Setting an Example

Behavior specific praise is also a great way to increase the amount and variety of language you are modeling for your young child who is learning to communicate. Think of it as a way to accomplish two goals in one: modeling language about the environment and what’s happening in it, and providing reinforcement for a positive behavior. Additionally, for older children, using behavior specific praise sets an example for how to use positive praise statements with siblings in the home environment and peers in the school environment.

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA Courtney is a behavior analyst, educator, and writer in the Pacific Northwest. She has over fifteen years of experience in the field of autism services, and over ten years of master’s level experience in classroom teaching and ABA therapy. Her areas of expertise include infant and toddler development, parent coaching, ABA clinical leadership and training, P-12 special education, and case consultation for children and young adults with autism and other special needs. Courtney lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.

Does your young child with autism struggle to complete routines or follow instructions, even when you are right there to help them? Are you at your wit’s end of trying to figure out how to motivate them in the moment? Do you feel down when your child refuses to do things you are confident they CAN do…but for whatever reason, WON’T do sometimes?

Enter the star chart, also known as a token system, also known as a fixed schedule of reinforcement.

“Star charts” don’t have to use stars at all – any kind of symbol will do. A great way to visualize how a star chart works is to translate it from your own experience. For example, have you ever tried to create a habit of exercising, or meet a different type of goal that required you to do a specific activity one time per day? You may have used a basic wall calendar to track this, by marking off each day that you exercised on the corresponding date box on the calendar. Maybe you set a goal for yourself for a minimum number of days to have a mark by the end of the month to achieve some type of reward, like a special meal or a new item of clothing.

Star charts for children with autism work on a much shorter scale, but the overall idea is the same. Star charts are a way of tracking progress toward a large goal, or a series of basic actions, using tokens to signify each action which, when enough are collected, can be exchanged for a preferred item or activity (the “reinforcer”).

Now that you know what a star chart is, here is a simple method to follow when introducing star charts with your child – or reintroducing them after a long break:

Start With One Star

If you tried a star chart before and it didn’t work, chances are there was too much of a delay between earning enough stars to get a reward and actually getting that reward. If your child needs a lot of help here, refer to my post about “First-Then Schedules for Beginners.” First-then schedules are a great precursor to star charts. They address the same concepts, but the connection between following an instruction or doing a required task and obtaining reinforcement is more immediate than with a star chart. 

Another way you can start with one star is by filling in all the previous stars before beginning. For example, if you are introducing a star chart for a new difficult activity like cleaning up toys, sitting for a set period of time at the dinner table, or completing the toileting routine, you might have a chart with 5 to 10 stars. When filled in, they would result in a choice of a preferred item or activity. For this new difficult task, though, you could fill in all but the last star before starting. Then, you can help your child complete the required task, give them the last star, and then immediately provide the reinforcer or reward.

This is a good strategy to use if your child is new to star charts or out of practice, or anytime you introduce a new required task or set of tasks that they aren’t familiar with, or haven’t previously been successful with. 

Don’t Let Too Much Time Go By Between Stars

If your child is now used to the routine of earning stars and then cashing them in for a reward, that’s great news! You might even get into the habit of not giving them a star every time they do a task. Some of this drift is natural and expected, especially in the home routine where there is quite a bit of on-the-fly decision making associated with how to modify activities for the whole family to successfully move through each scheduled part of the day. This can even be a great way to start naturally “fading” reinforcement so that your child learns to do tasks when they are asked, whether or not reinforcement or tokens are awarded right away.

However, you do need to be careful here. When too much time goes by between awarding stars – and as a result, the final reward – the strength of the final reward could be diluted. If this happens too often, you may find that the token system is no longer working. When this happens, you’ll need to scale back and award stars more frequently for awhile. Sometimes, you may even need to scale all the way back to one star, or first-then, when this happens.

Use a Variety of Reinforcers, and Changes Them Often

This is one of the hardest things to do, because it requires you to stay on top of your child’s preferences and likes, and plan ahead to make them available as rewards for cashed-in stars. One way to make this process a bit easier is to design your reinforcers around a few themes. For example, if your child really loves Daniel Tiger, you could get a variety of Daniel Tiger books, action figures, party supplies, and other small items to make available as reward choices. You could also expand this theme into adjacent themes, such as tigers or animals that talk. You could also take an activity that is shown on the show, like baking a cake or having a picnic, and do an experience-based reinforcer. In this type of scenario your child would be allowed to cash in their stars for a special baking session with your or a scheduled picnic with a loved one.

If you’re finding that the token system approach stops working for your child after a period of time, and you’ve already tried adjusting the number of stars down, that could mean that the rewards you are offering are no longer functional. Here are some additional ideas for reinforcers that can last across multiple star chart completions:

• Advent calendars: who says these are just for the month of December? Advent calendars are available year-round on Amazon, and today the options go far beyond chocolate. For example, LEGO, Hot Wheels, and Funko all make advent calendars annually and the overstock can be purchased after the holidays are over. Advent calendars provide you with 24 miniature rewards – and the fun of opening them – to use as available cash-in prizes for your child’s star chart. You also have the added fun of getting to skip around and choose numbers out of order.
• Figure set toys: again, figure set toys are available in a range of themes and characters, from a range of manufacturers and sellers – online or in-store. Figure sets contain anywhere from six to twenty figures in one set, which you can award your child one at a time each time they complete a star chart, until they’ve earned the complete set.
• Science experiment kits: science experiment kits are a popular gift, but they’re often over all too quickly. Once the box has been open and the goo has been made or the volcano has exploded, what then? These kits are a bit hard to maximize bang for buck when used in the traditional fashion. But when used as part of a reinforcement system, you can make the anticipation part of the fun. Offer your child the option to earn one piece of the kit for each star chart they cash in. Then, when they’ve earned each kit component, you can do the experiment together, and it will be that much more memorable.

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA Courtney is a behavior analyst, educator, and writer in the Pacific Northwest. She has over fifteen years of experience in the field of autism services, and over ten years of master’s level experience in classroom teaching and ABA therapy. Her areas of expertise include infant and toddler development, parent coaching, ABA clinical leadership and training, P-12 special education, and case consultation for children and young adults with autism and other special needs. Courtney lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.