At the Delta Calgary South Hotel Featuring Speakers Kari Dunn Buron and Paula Aquilla

135 Southland Drive SE, Calgary, AB

Learn practical skills that can be immediately implemented into existing curriculum and training programs, at home or in school!

Friday November 16th – Kari Dunn Buron

Autism Spectrum Disorders involve difficulties in the areas of Social Thinking, Relationship Building, and Emotional Regulation. This presentation will address these three areas of need as they impact a person’s ability to function in the highly social environment of school. Having a problem of social cognition impacts a person’s competence in almost all social situations. These difficulties can lead to explosive behavior and even aggression. Kari will present a brief overview of the social thinking research, and autism learning theories emerging from the new field of educational neuroscience. She will then describe and illustrate 5 systematic approaches to teaching social information, and increasing a person’s ability to understand and regulate their emotional responses. The strategy discussion will focus on the use of the 5-Point Scale and also include Video Self Modeling, 5 Stars, relaxation, and direct teaching of relationship skills.

Kari Dunn Buron, MS worked in K-12 with students with autism for 30+ years. Kari developed an Autism Spectrum Disorders Certificate program for educators at Hamline University and has done volunteer work specific to autism in Trinidad, Tobago, Barbados, Tanzania and Ghana. In 2003, Kari received a Selfdesigned Fellowship that allowed her to spend a year interviewing and working internationally with a number of therapists and researchers in the area of Social Cognition, Education and Autism. She is the co-author of The Incredible 5-Point Scale, and the author of When My Worries Get Too Big, A 5 Could Make Me Lose Control and A 5 is Against the Law! (2008 ASA literary award winner). Kari is also the co-editor of a textbook for educators titled Learners on the Autism Spectrum: Preparing Highly Qualified Educators (2009 ASA literary award winner) and is the creator of a social skills magazine called The Social Times (2010 Gold Winner, National Patenting Publications Award and Gold Medal 2011 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award). Kari recently completed a work of fiction titled Adalyn’s Clare, due out in August of 2012.

Saturday November 17th – Paula Aquilla

This course will provide participants with basic neurology to understand and appreciate the process of making sense of sensory information. Each sense will be discussed from the receptors to the central nervous system. Understanding the neurology behind sensory processing can support understanding of this process that we do every moment of every day.

Participants will learn how to identify the behavioural and autonomic nervous system signs of a nervous system in a regulated and deregulated state.

Sensory diets provide the right type and right amount of intensity and duration of sensory input to help maintain the nervous system in a calm, alert state. In the calm alert state, a person can function at their best. This course will outline how to create an environment, approach, and specific activities to help maintain the nervous system in a calm, alert state. We will learn how to create sensory diets and how to integrate them into a typical day. Information gathering techniques and assessments will be discussed. Creative strategies to support success at school and at home will be shared. Participants will learn tips that they can plug into their day right away! Case studies will be discussed to illustrate these strategies. Questions are welcome!

Paula Aquilla is the mother of two teenagers and lives with her family in Toronto, Ontario. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto and has been practising occupational therapy in community, clinic, school and home based settings for 22 years. Paula is a co-author of the bookBuilding Bridges Through Sensory Integration and has contributed to several other publications. She teaches throughout North America. She is a thesis writer in the Canadian College of Osteopathy and has completed her formal osteopathic studies in 2011.

 

For more information and how to buy tickets click here or go to http://www.autismawarenesscentre.com/upcoming-conferences/calgary-ab-nov-16-a-17/