I spent two day last week with Dr. Ron Leaf, a co-director of the Autism Partnership, an international organization based in California that provides Applied Behavior Analysis services on both coasts and on several continents. He spoke about and offered demonstrations of ABA both to manage and improve behavior and to support academic skills.
One of his hobby horses is function. Do the things we teach children with disabilities improve function? It's critical especially for children who will not have the ability to got to college. Many children with disabilities can, but there is a larger group that will not. Will the skills they learn help them function independently in the community? Will it help them get to work, will it help them purchase the food they need to live on their own? When there parents get too old to keep them at home, who will be responsible for these disabled adults?
I'm lucky: I have a principal that understands that function is the most important for my students with Autism. I have struggled to find a structured, visual way to help them learn to count money, tell time, and read a calendar. Last week after two days with Dr. Leaf, I took my boys by public bus to the Museum of Natural History. It was really about the bus trip and purchasing lunch at McDonald's. My guys were stellar, but I also felt really great that the skills that we were learning and reinforcing would be generalized into a community setting.
So, to help my readers out, I have made the method I use to teach counting coins available to you. I hope you find them helpful!
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