Workshops

BIA provides workshops and training seminars on multiple subjects. Each has been developed from our highly successful in-house workshops. We have presented both single topic subjects and workshop series to multiple school districts and professional organizations interested in learning more about techniques for helping children with ASD. Workshops can be tailored for individual families or groups of families.

BIA has developed the following workshops for the community. These workshops have been well received by parents and educational professionals in the community serving young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Workshops are provided in small groups using a combination of lecture, discussion, activities, video, workbooks, and additional reading. Each workshop is three hours in length. The following topics are available:

Creating Fruitful Peer Play Experiences   

A workshop focusing on how to create successful peer play for the child with ASD. It outlines how to break down skills required for interactive play into achievable goals. Participants are also provided with clearly demonstrated strategies for facilitating positive peer play experiences. •

Developing Play Behavior

Learn how to establish basic learning readiness skills; establishing attention, developing imitation, and maintaining motivation through the medium of play. Learn how to assess a child's play level and interests and to expand a child's play. Learn how to visually organize play environments so children are more apt to initiate and sustain play. •

Establishing Communication Skills

This training gives participants useful intervention strategies for establishing communication skills for both verbal and non-verbal children. Focus is put on designing activities and communication systems that will assist children in developing the skills to effectively request items/activities acknowledge/greet others, comment on his or surroundings, appropriately protest, and seek information. •

Social and Communicative Competence

This workshop focuses on the social and communicative skills necessary for children with ASD to successfully interact with their peers. The workshop is geared toward teaching and supporting students who are demonstrating basic functional communication skills and engaging in play scenarios yet lack the skills necessary to engage in reciprocal conversations and cooperative play schemes with their peers. •

Language Processing and Production

Learn how children with ASD uniquely process language. Learn how to to design appropriate activities for expanding a child's language skills from the single word level to multiple word processing.

**Should you have a group of 6 or more who would be interested in one or more of the training topics, we would be happy to present the training at your site. Please specify name of members in group or group name, address, and contact number. We will contact you to arrange a date.

Below are comments from education professionals who have attended our various workshops:

"This training allowed me to mentally organize my knowledge of autism."

"The variance of presentation skills was great, (e.g., video, case studies, work sheets, etc.) all great!"

"Very thorough and great examples."

"The real life examples of interventions were the key to making this a great presentation."

"Great review of information and clarification of terms."

"[It was] Very valuable to have my classroom para-educator with me [at the training]"

For more information, please feel free to contact us. •