Good Resources
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Good Resources
| Thu, 09-29-2005 - 1:18pm |
Ok gals we often refer people to various websites and other resources. How bout a thread for resources. Remember to be cautious when posting links as your post may be eaten. I promised in another thread to provide this one. Please everyone else join in with your favorite resources. I will be back with more later.
Autism Society of America
www dot autism-society dot org
Make sure to check the link for your local chapter.


Great idea!
Google is your friend. Learn how to use it and other search engines:
search for specific strings by putting them in double quotes and be as specific as possible (-examples are in angled brackets ):
-no quotes- returned 241,000 hits
<"town of oyster bay group activity program"> in quotes returned 2 hits
<"Sensory Integration Dysfunction"> returned 78,000 hits
<"vestibular hyposensitivity"> -22 hits
you can group strings. A search on
<"Sensory Integration Dysfunction" "vestibular hyposensitivity"> -2 hits
a minus "-" will search for sites which do have one specific reference
will produce 283,000 hits
<"aspergers syndrome"> will produce 157,000 hits
<"aspergers syndrome" -autism> will produce 58,000 hits, because it excludes all those sites with the word "autism" thereon. -OK that's not really vaild, but you see where I'm going with this.
Most search engines have help and tips.
Remember to search on alternate spellings or syntax too: Searches on words like "behaviour", or "Asperger's" etc etc may turn up more global references, which can have vey useful information or research little known in the US.
You can look up your local state dept of Education (many of them have webstites e.g. the one for NYS is www dot vesid dot nysed dot gov). Do a search on special education. Often these sites have good specific information, such as state approved special ed private schools and links to other local resources. Often you can use these resources to drill down to *other* resources. e.g. A SpecEd school may be able to point you to a support group or social skills group locally.
Also check your town/township to see if they have anything. (any "services for the handicapped" lol). You might be surprised
Community centers: Think outside the box and your own religion. Check out the YMCA or Jewish community centers for support groups for you and SN classes or programs for kids (social skills groups, etc).
CYO -catholic youth organization often hold sporting events, which are more about fun and less about competition. Google somthing like <"catholic youth organization" "New York">, substituting your own state or region and you will get appropriate hits
Special olympics, as Renee said may be a good intro to classes which may otherwise be an expensive gamble, such as therapeutic horseriding.
Find out if your school district has a Special Education PTA and join it. If your district does not have one, try adjoining districts (most don't care if you are not in that actual district). Other parents are the single best source of information, in my experience.
HTH
-Paula
visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
Good idea Renee! Not sure if you just want website resources or local ones so I'll list a few favorite of both under different topics.
Websites:
General info:
--IRCA articles, iidc dot indiana dot edu slash IRCA articles (has lots of easy to understand papers on practical issues
--neurodiversity dot dom (articles on everything!)
--childnett dot tv (has videos of lectures on different topics)
OT/Sensory:
--The therapy shoppe: therapyshoppe dot com (nice mail order supplier)
--otexchange dot com (ot's and other professionals exchange ideas)
--helpingdelayed kids dot com (one mom's site with tons of OT and floortime ideas)
--floortime dot org: the parent's handbook (written by parents) is easy to understand and has lots of good practical ideas for stimulating pretend play and OT. I think Dr. Greenspan is a genius, but truthfully, I found this booklet (in adobe) more accessible than his writing.
PECS:
--free downloads so you can make do-it-yourself cards, schedules: do2learn dot org
--order pecs ready-made, at a price, but nice products: pyramidproducts dot.com
GFCF:
--Miss Roben's "your allergy-free grocer" lots of mail order products, but good recipes too
--Gluten Free Pantry: again, nice mail order, can find some products in health food stores, some good recipes online
--"The Mom's Guide to Meal Makeovers" a great cookbook for anyone, not GFCF (but easy to adapt) mostly just about healthy eating. Website has nice newsletter--mealsmakeovermoms dot com
--our Whole Foods store has GFCF seminars, from time to time. Designed to walk you through the store and highlight products. They also have good online lists of GFCF products.
Toys:
toys r us: if you go to the "imaginarium" section to the toy search section, you can search under developmental toys by the "learning value" (ie, motor skills, linguistic, etc.)
Local organizations for help:
I've found our the autism center at our local university to be really helpful. They have good free lectures and provide lots of advice about local resources.
Our school system has a program called "parent to parent" where they match parents of children with special needs with a parent whose child has similar needs.
Looking forward to reading everyone's favorites!
Katherine