KAWARTHA LAKES- Students diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder will now have the opportunity to broaden their horizons and enhance their social skills with a new After School Skills Development Program with the Trillium Lakelands District School Board.
The board recently announced the new virtual after school program, which is made up of four individual programs, each with a specific social skills focus and target age groups.
“When students have been diagnosed with autism, some have difficulty interacting socially with others,” said Special Education Consultant Kristi Henshall. “Our hope with this is that we provide students with that skill development within the areas of social, so they can interact and communicate in school and out of school.”
According to Henshall, the programs were initially planned to be done in a face-to-face setting but due to the pandemic, they adapted to a virtual setting.
“We selected the program knowing they would work in a virtual world,” she said. “They’re going to be engaging for our learners, they’ll have fun while learning skills.”
The programs are for students who would benefit from and participate in social skills instruction virtually, using Google Meet and additional support materials provided in a Google Classroom.
“We are thrilled to have funding from the Ministry of Education to support an After School Skills Development Program for students in Trillium Lakelands District School Board,” said Jennifer M Johnston,Superintendent of Learning. “Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder have varying and complex needs and the programs we have developed will supplement the targeted programming that is already happening in TLDSB schools and in the community to support our students to develop and practice new skills in a fun and engaging way.”
Program one and two are for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills, (PEERS) and will focus on Grades 5 to 8 and Grades 9 to 12.
According to Henshall, the PEERS program will help students make and keep friends, focusing on topics of conversations, what friends talk about and who are good friends to have. The PEERS programs are 10 weeks long and will run from January to March 2021 and the application deadline is December 17, 2020.
Program three is the Social Thinking and Me Skills Development Program for Grades 3 to 5. Students will learn about skills needed to develop a deeper understanding of their emotions, social communication, communicating emotions, how to understand the size of a problem and being flexible in their thinking. This program will run for eight weeks from February to April 2021 and the application deadline is January 29, 2021.
“We are really excited about seeing what the program looks like and getting feed back,” said Henshall. “It is our hope to offer it again next year.”
Program four is the MILO@Home Skills and Development Program for students in Kindergarten to Grade 2. According to Henshall, MILO the robot will teach a lot of the program. MILO is one of the school boards four robots that circulate through various schools in need of his help. This program will operate for 14 weeks from March to June 2021 and the application deadline is February 12, 2021.
In the MILO@Home program, students will learn skills around greetings, saying hello and goodbye and MILO’s face will demonstrate various emotions.
“We use the robot to do the initial engagement, then a skills facilitator will support students in transferring the skills learned from the robot to people,” said Henshall.
And while the priority is to support students with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Henshall noted that if spaces are available, students who would benefit we would be included.
“The end goal is always student learning, student fun and engagement, learning social skills and applying them at home and back in the classroom,” she said.
For more information visit, https://www.tldsb.ca/after-school-skills-development-program/. The application form can be found at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdOO10Rv3Oza9RTvInADv0G9f6PkMDcYYOUpPGfSDL5leNBCQ/viewform.
