#12 AST updates and neurodiversity

The pandemic has had a challenging impact on us all. I have needed to pivot to ensure the security of the podcast and other projects I run as Autism Spectrum Teacher.

This is the first of a mini-series introducing the new online courses offering you in-depth knowledge and practical skills that you can apply straight away. The first one is 'Understanding Autism and Learning'.

The post #12 AST updates and neurodiversity appeared first on Autism Spectrum Teacher.

Last Updated on April 27, 2021 by Steph Reed

Well the past few months have been, I don’t know how to describe it… absolutely crazy! 

It’s been very strange, difficult and challenging. There’s been highs. There’s been lows. But fundamentally, things have changed. Things are different. Things are uncertain. I know that we’ve all had our own experience and our own journey and our own challenges. So I hope you and your loved ones are safe and well during this pandemic.

If you have your own children, I hope that you are all in one piece and that you have managed to have some kind of quality time together.

If you’re a key worker, we love you!

Parents, we love you! 

Teachers, we love you. Thank you to everybody!

Now things for myself, and Autism Spectrum Teacher (which is myself!) have been very challenging because like perhaps yourself or others you know, I was without any work. My work before the COVID-19 pandemic was in schools, supporting staff, families, SENCO”S and teachers, developing SEND provision and practice.

Of course, then schools closed and I was unable to support the schools, and families in the same way that I would have done before. Now, we’ve all been managing the best that we could from a distance. To a point that’s helping some people, but of course I wanted to do more and essentially, I needed to keep everything that Autism Spectrum Teacher and myself does including all of the projects and this podcast.

This is the reason why I’ve had to put the podcast on hold for the past couple of months. Without those means of ensuring stability for the podcast, I couldn’t continue it. However, I have some plans and I have put things in motion. I want to tell you all about the future plans!

We’ve all had to adapt, right? And to be honest, I’ve been really pleased with how some of the children have adapted! You know, sometimes we really do fear the worst don’t we!? 

Of course there have been many challenges and a lot more challenges I would say, but we’ve got to stick to the positive here. There have been some children that have really surprised us.

Now, this episode and the next seven podcast episodes are going to sound very different to previous episodes.

There is a theme that will be running through this and the next seven podcasts. And that is that… I’m very pleased and proud to announce that…

I have released a series of online training courses, which gives a lot of concise and digestible information as well as practical strategies and how to apply these in real day life.

There’s a lot of information out there, but I’ve designed these courses to give you the key information, how to do different types of strategies in order so that you can go away and apply them straight away, especially because we know how personalised strategies and tailored strategies are really needed as every child is so different.

So this is my way right now to be able to support teachers, teaching assistants, SENCO’s, parents, carers, and anyone who is supporting an autistic child. The eight courses are all based around different themes.

Over the next seven episodes, I’m going to introduce each course, but of course I want to give you value and I want to give you free information. So you’re going to hear snapshots from the training to give you some information so you can still listen and hopefully take something from it. And of course, if you want to learn more, then visit this page.

I’ve been working really hard on these courses, making sure that they provide really beneficial information in bite-sized presentations, as well as reflection tasks, to help you think about those individuals or children around you, and their own personal abilities and needs.

After I’ve gone through this transition period, we’ll get back into those juicy episodes where there are interviews and lots of information, but bear with me while I’m going through this transition period.

During this episode, you will hear a 5 minute ‘snapshot’ into one of the courses ‘Understanding Autism and Learning’ where I am speaking all about Neurodiversity.

Enjoy the podcast episode!

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