The Eating Game: Get Awesome Meals Everyday. Jean Nicols, $79.95

After more than 25 years working with children with Autism and witnessing the difficulties many of them have with eating healthy meals, Jean Nicols decided the time had come for a creative solution to this challenge. The result is The Eating Game, a unique planning kit based on recommendations made in Canada’s Food Guide, for children, adolescents and adults.

Using Velcro-backed pictures of a wide variety of foods form all the food groups, the kit creates a visual support that helps the user to actively participate in daily food planning.  The routine of using the kit to plan the next day’s meals provides a structure that should have positive results day after day and make mealtime more relaxing and rewarding for the whole family.

Everyday Education: Visual Support for Children with Autism. Pernille Dyrbjerg & Maria Vedel, $28.95

'These are my signs! Before I got my signs all I could do was cry.'
– Dicte, a 7-year-old with infantile autism

“Visual support aids can be highly effective tools for increasing levels of communication and independence in children with autism, who often have difficulty interpreting spoken language and non-verbal facial expressions. Fully illustrated with inspiring examples, Everyday Education provides a wealth of ideas for creating visual support aids for children on the autism spectrum. Photographs and clear, practical explanations describe how these tools can be arranged helpfully around the home for the child to use. This fun and encouraging book will be a valuable source of ideas for parents of children with autism and professionals working with them.”

Hygiene and Related Behaviors for Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum and Related Disorders: a Fun Curriculum with a Focus on Social Understanding.  Kelly Mahler, $24.95

Beyond showers and tooth brushes — this fun and ready-to-use curriculum stresses the role of perspective-taking and the social impact of good hygiene.

ISPEEK at Home: Over 1300 Visual Communication Images on CD-ROM. Janet Dixon, $47.95

ISPEEK at School: Over 1300 Visual Communication Images on CD-ROM. Janet Dixon, $39.95

The collection of 1300 picture symbols on each ISPEEK CD-ROM provides easy-to-use and enjoyable tools for overcoming communication difficulties in children with autistic spectrum disorders. Each CD-ROM also provides useful word templates to inspire teachers, parents and carers in putting together daily schedules, as well as PDF samples to assist them in setting up visual aids for children with autism, helping them to interact better with their home or school environment. These bright, contemporary and culturally various symbols will be a welcome communication aid for parents, carers and other professionals working with people on the autism spectrum at home and school.

• ISPEEK at Home contains symbols for a wide range of situations typically encountered in the home and beyond, from feelings and facial expressions to health, hygiene and holidays.

• ISPEEK at School can be applied to a wide range of situations typically encountered at school, from social skills to school curricula, work and break times. These are also suitable for parents and carers to use at home, covering the important themes of transitions and independence.

Learning With a Visual Brain in an Auditory World: Visual Language Strategies for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Ellyn Lucas Arwood, & Carole Kaulitz, $34.95

“Children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often present parents and educators with perplexing symptoms. Even though the skills of children with ASD can range from very high to very low, they have similar underlying learning systems. Knowledge about these learning systems helps provide direction for choosing effective assessment and intervention methods for helping individuals with ASD learn to behave, to perform academically, and to become socially competent.”

Outsmarting Explosive Behavior: a Visual System of Support and Intervention for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Judy Endow, Foreword by Brenda Smith Myles, $49.95

Outsmarting Explosive Behavior is a visual model designed to help decrease, and in some cases eliminate, explosive behavior. Using a train metaphor, the parent/facilitator and student identify triggers, design positive interventions to prevent the “anger” train from leaving the station and preventing a car from moving further down the line. The three-piece package contains:

• a book for facilitators that explains the model
• a large poster-size visual showing the train model with ready-made parts that can be personalized
• a workbook for the individual with AS designed to draw out
• the personalized interventions that will make the model work.

Though designed to encourage participation by the person with explosive behavior, positive results are seen even when the model is implemented on behalf of someone unable to actively participate, such as nonreaders.

Pics for PECS 2009: Symbols for Visual Communication. CD-ROM, Pyramid Educational Products, $67.95

The 2009 CD contains all of the pictures from 2002 through 2008 PLUS nearly 200 new pictures for a grand total of over 2000 pictures. Click here to see a sample page.

Practically Speaking: Language, Literacy, and Academic Development for Students with AAC Needs. Edited by Gloria Soto & Carole Zangari, $50.95

When K-12 students use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), what can SLPs and educators do to ensure the best academic and social outcomes? They'll find out in this accessible guidebook—every professional's key to helping students develop the language and literacy skills that lead to higher academic achievement and positive peer relationships.

Seeing is Believing: Video Self-Modeling for People with Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities. Tom Buggey, $24.95

Video self-modeling (VSM) is a proven and effective method for teaching new or more advanced skills and behaviors to people with autism. The technique uses homemade videos (created by parents, teachers, or therapists) to demonstrate a desired behavior.

Seeing Is Believing begins with an overview of the research and science behind VSM and insights into why it is a particularly good teaching method for people with autism and other developmental disabilities. It then explains the process of making self-modeling videos from start to finish, including how to:

• choose the behavior/skill to teach
• conduct a task analysis
• select and use camcorders and video software
• storyboard video scenes
• plan and shoot footage
• transfer the video to a VCR, DVD, or computer
• edit and manipulate the footage
• keep track of and interpret data

These videos can teach or modify a wide variety of behaviors and skills, such as controlling tantrums, increasing the frequency and length of verbal responses, making requests, interacting with peers, and solving math problems.

The Social Skills Picture Book for High School and Beyond. Jed Baker, $45.95

The Social Skills Picture Book for High School and Beyond offers parents and educators of teens (and young adults) photos of actual students engaging in a variety of social situations. This visual learning format shows, rather than tells, students the right (and wrong) ways to interact in different circumstances. The photos illustrate the positive and the negative consequences of social interactions in a wide variety of real-life situations that are important to teens.

Visual Supports for People with Autism: a Guide for Parents and Professionals. Marlene Cohen & Donna Sloan, $27.50

“Visual Supports for People with Autism shows parents and educators how incorporating these aids while teaching can improve academic performance, behavior, interaction with others, and self-help skills. The authors, both certified behavior analysts, describe the deficits typical of autism — language, memory, temporal sequential skills, attention, motivation, and social skills — and present strategies to use visual supports to address those issues at school and home.”

Visual Thinking Strategies for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders: the Language of Pictures. Ellyn Lucas Arwood, Carole Kaulitz & Mabel Brown, $28.50

Visuals of all kinds (photographs, checklists, line drawings, cartoons, flowcharts, stick figures, etc.) are commonly used as supports for individuals on the autism spectrum who tend to think and learn visually. However, not all visuals are created equal and, therefore, visuals don't all work equally well. This companion to Learning with a Visual Brain in an Auditory World helps the reader understand how to match the developmental levels of pictures and visuals to the developmental level of the person looking at the visual. In this way, appropriate visuals provide the language development for children with autism spectrum disorders. Drawing from their experience with children and youth for decades, the authors also show how effective communication can help reduce the confusion and anxiety that often lead to behavioral outbursts.

What Are Visual Strategies? Linda Hodgdon, $3.50

This quick-and-easy pamphlet helps parents and caregivers to understand the use of visual strategies in overcoming communication challenges.