Autism Workshops

Child and Adolescent Services

January 2012  

Dear parents & guardians
Staff at the Mental Health Clinic are going to offer a series of information sessions and video presentations about Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).  These will be of particular interest to families of newly-diagnosed children, but all are welcome.  Feel free to pass along the information to others who are involved with your child (babysitters, recreation leaders, etc) or anyone who may be interested. Even if you are still waiting for your child’s diagnostic assessment to be done, please join us.
The attached schedule shows the topics we will be covering. The sessions will start at 9:30 and run until 11:30 or 12:00 on Thursday mornings at the Dawson Center Conference room, starting on February 16th. We are making the sessions available via Telehealth to Queens General Hospital, the North Queens clinic in Caledonia, and at Fishermen’s Memorial Hospital.
Please call our team’s secretary, Alisa Zwicker, at 543-4604 ext. 2319 to let her know when and where you will be attending so we can prepare enough handout materials for everyone.  You do not have to come to all of the sessions; just choose the ones of interest to you.  Please Note: There have been new presentations and videos added to the schedule since last year, so check if there are new topics that may be of interest.
Finally, if you are interested in receiving material monthly about ASDs via e-mail newsletter, please let Paul Peters know by e-mailing him at ppeters@ssdha.nshealth.ca.
Sincerely,


Valerie MacDonald, PhD    Paul Peters
Psychologist      Child Community Support Worker

Winter/Spring 2012 Information Sessions

Date	presentation	* videos	Presenter(s)
February 16	Autism Basics	“Autism and Me”; “Intricate Minds”	Val MacDonald & Paul Peters
February 23	Autism & Sensory ProcessingNEW!		Jason Lomond & Paul Peters
March 1	Safety and Environment	“Aspergers and Dads”, “Autism Times 2”	Val MacDonald & Paul Peters
March 8		“A Different Mind”; “Manners for the Real World” NEW!	Paul Peters
March 15		*
March 22	Behaviour Basics		Val MacDonald & Paul Peters
March 29		“1-2-3 Magic” NEW!	Paul Peters
April 5	Visual Supports (with lots of samples of visual tools and systems)		Val MacDonald & Paul Peters
April 12	Social Stories NEW!		Val MacDonald & Paul Peters
April 19	Social Skills	Hidden Curriculum	Val MacDonald & Paul Peters
April 26		A sampler of various  DVDs of video-modelling for teaching social skills	Paul Peters
May 3	Emotional Regulation	“Difficult Moments” & “5 Point Scale”	Val MacDonald & Paul Peters
May 10	Social Thinking NEW!		Val MacDonald & Paul Peters
May 17		“Autism: the way I see it”  by Temple Grandin	Paul Peters