BY AIZA DELA CRUZ
I RECENTLY attended a webinar on “Introduction to Crafting a Home Program for Children on the Autism Spectrum” conducted by the Autism Society Philippines (ASP) with Joyla Ofrecia, a national trustee and special education practitioner, as the lecturer.
This talk was timely as the mode of education will continue to be modular. For parents like me with children on the spectrum, it is up to us to make a home program for our children customized to their specific needs, learning capabilities, and interests.
I will share the information I have learned from the webinar.
A home program is an alternative learning program in conjunction or continuation to a currently availed learning program, such as intervention and therapy classes for children who cannot have formal instruction in a regular school, have specific needs and differences, and have a different learning style such as children on the spectrum.
For children on the spectrum, they need to have a home program as it will help them become independent and productive. It will also help in their behavior management and support their school or therapy interventions.
Some things need to be considered in preparing a home program. It is essential to have the commitment, involvement, and cooperation of all people involved. These are people that the child usually interacts with or living with at home, teachers, and therapists.
The people who will help the child must have a concrete plan and stick to it as much as possible. Everyone should be on board with the plan and help in achieving the goals. They should not waver just because the child cried or the child found it difficult. Persons involved should also not stop following the plan because it is time-consuming, inconvenient, or the other person in the team has stopped cooperating.
The team must also be creative with the resources. Not everything can or needs to be bought. It just takes creativity to come up with solutions. Does the child have no kitchen playset for an activity? Use what you currently have in the kitchen. The purpose is not to have a toy but for the child to learn.
In crafting the home program, there are five points to remember:
1. The child’s own needs always come first. Craft a program that has the best interests of the child, not your expectations as a parent. Choose activities that will be beneficial to the child. Consider also their interests. If the child shows interest in reading but cannot read yet, teach him words with pictures first.
2. As parents, we often push our children into our expectations of them. We want them to be academically bright – so we enroll them in school early. However, this should not be the case. More so when our children are on the spectrum. We should help children develop skills necessary for community integration. This, is what experts call pre-learning behaviors, which are needed to be improved before anything else to move on to more complicated skills later on. These First Things First are: sitting, waiting and turn-taking, approach-request, coming when called, feeding, toileting, and walking with others.
3. Always take into account the child’s ability. Start from the level of their learning or intellectual capability. Never assume that they would be like other typical children; age is not a basis for their learning capability. Start small and gradually work your way up.
4. Talk with the whole family and get their level of commitment, involvement, and cooperation. Do not expect or insist that everyone would have the same level of commitment as yours. Their commitment will increase later on as they see results and improvements. The most important thing is that they are willing to commit and cooperate with you.
5. Take into consideration family traditions, values, and beliefs when crafting the program. If the family does the novena every six in the evening, you should consider that when creating a schedule for your child. The goal is integration, not exclusion.
I enjoin everyone to have more compassion and understanding for all children with different abilities.
I would also like to hear the experiences of other parents who have children on the autism spectrum. You may email me at genevieveaiza.delacruz@gmail.com. I am a member of the Autism Society Philippines (ASP), a national non-profit organization dedicated to the well-being of persons on the autism spectrum disorder./PN
