With the New Year, comes thoughts of what has happened in the past year, what will happen in the coming year, and feelings about ourselves and our lives.  But children significantly affected with autism have a limited understanding of the concept of “self”, and often are incapable of forming these...

Establishing meaningful emotional and physical engagement is difficult for children and adults with autism. The introduction of novelty into daily routines can increase sensory and cognitive awareness and thus increase the chances of being more connected to people and what is going on in their environment. ...

Last month I shared a large number of Autistic acronyms. One of the acronyms, RDI ®, may or may not be familiar to you.  Relationship Development Intervention was first developed by Steven E. Gutstein, Ph.D. and his wife, Dr. Rachelle Sheely, in 1996. They were determined to clarify learning problems...

There are many different pitfalls one can fall in to when creating the décor for a child’s room. The first and most popular is the traditional tendency to be attached to color based on gender. Pink for girls.  Blue for boys. While I think the majority of parents have begun to break away from that...

Many people have admirably begun to focus on reducing the negative impact of our society on the environment. We use the term “green” to indicate anything that reduces energy consumption, carbon emissions, or waste of natural resources. The benefit to the Earth is clear, but there are benefits to...

I have now been in the music therapy business for 17 years. A lot has happened in this time.  Back in 1991 faxes were still being well-used, email was not a household term and most people still had a cassette player handy. No one knew what an MP3 player was, let alone an iPod. Pearl Jam, and Nirvana...

During a particularly difficult time for me at a personal level (I was working many long hours while attempting to care for my two young children then 4 and 5) I began to feel overwhelmed and out of touch with what was important.  I know there are many of you in this position – managing work, obligations...

Entrainment is when one vibrating object is placed next to another vibrating object and they both move towards becoming the same vibration.  It is also known as phase-locking or a sympathetic response. As you can imagine, entrainment can have its benefits as well as some difficulties depending on what...

A quick visit to Wikipedia describes “communication as the process of transferring information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium in which the communicated information is understood by both sender and receiver.” Communication therefore requires that all parties understand the common...

Early one Thursday morning I was referred to a patient on the Mental Health Inpatient Unit at a local hospital. As one would expect I went into the unit anticipating to work with someone coping with depression or psychosis. What I didn’t expect was an 6 foot, 18 year old boy who immediately presented...