Help children with autism strengthen their connections—supportive strategies for ages 1 to 11
To guide your efforts to help your child flourish, this book has 90 playful, evidence-based activities. Thriving with Autism provides an easy, effective toolbox to supplement and support the developmental work parents and caregivers are doing with their children. These solutions are designed for kids with autism from ages 1 to 11. The benefits can last a lifetime.
From building better conversation abilities to strengthening social skills, Thriving with Autism delivers practical, everyday ways to connect, encourage, and play. Featuring exercises like Acts of Friendliness, The Human Burrito, and Emotional Charades, this comprehensive guide encourages your child with autism to boost their communication, engagement, and self-regulation skills.
Thriving with Autism includes:
- Hands-on activities—Make learning fun with lots of lessons that can help kids across the autism spectrum.
- Simple strategies—Tackle these easy, research-driven activities one by one at home.
- Engaging and practical—Find helpful tips and suggestions, as well as full-color illustrations that are sure to inspire and delight you and your child.
Now there’s a smart, sensible way to help teach kids with autism necessary skills.
THRIVING WITH AUSTISM has proven itself to be an invaluable tool with the potential for positive and lasting results. We've been trying to do a new activity every week, and the entire family has enjoyed participating. One of kid's favorites is TRAMPOLINE FRENZY, which has really helped with their retention and learning comprehension.
While I personally do not have a child with autism, I've worked with autistic children in the past. Initially, I thought this book would be something I used and referred to in the future, but soon discovered the advantages it offered my daughter. She sometimes struggles with communicating her feelings, and isn't very attentive when learning a new skill. This could be because of her age, or it could be developmental. Regardless, she's really thrived with this book. I think it would be very beneficial for families with children that have a hard time expressing themselves, and for those with autistic children.
Katie Cook offers on her website, Autism Therapy Career College, an awesome Thriving with Autism - eCourse and Community. It provides video demonstrations of how to do the activities from the book and gives me a full background on the science behind why these activities work, so I can make-up my own activities using the same strategies. I haven't seen anything like this before. Very cool!
I love that the activities are explained in detail, and outline clearly why each activity works for children with autism. Having each activity state for which age range it is best suited is also super helpful when trying to come up with an activity plan for kids of different age groups. Overall, I really enjoyed how straight forward and SUPER FUN all of the activities are!
Tip: Emotions book and Searchlight were my favorites :)
I’m looking forward to do the Activities-In-Action Parent Training Program at atcconline.com – can’t wait to get started soon!
This is an excellent book not just for young ones with autism but its the perfect book for families who are struggling with self isolating during covid too. The activities are unique and engaging and not overly complicated. There are age ranges for each one but many if not all of them can be modified in any way the parent or caregiver sees fit in order to make it work for an older or younger child depending on the child's interests. For each activity there is a subsection titled "Why This Activity Works" which goes into just a paragraph or so highlighting why this particular activity engages which topic or area of learning/behavior.
Having a 6 year old nephew with autism myself, I also truly appreciate how this is not a book of corny "make them come out of their shell" types of activities. You can tell this book is written by someone who is not only a subject matter expert but is someone who has a heart for children on the spectrum. None of the activities have an underlying feeling of "do this to teach your autistic child to do this or be this or behave this way" ... its very lovingly crafted and doesn't read like a parenting book at all, but a book of fun things to do with your little one that are right up their alley. Loved it, could not recommend for ASD families more.