There is a Texas-based company whose website has some good blog articles – with new ones posted weekly. The company is Behavioral Innovations and its website is behavioral-innovations.com. Behavioral Innovations is an ABA company, and many of its blog articles are about ABA therapy, but a lot of them aren’t. And many of them can be especially helpful to autism grandparents.
JC and I read to our 5-year-old granddaughter, Angelina, when she is in our care, and one article, posted on 2/18/2022, has been helpful: “Best Books by Age for Kids with Autism.” The article begins by asking and explaining a few questions such as: What is your goal for your child? What are your child’s special interests? And What skills do you want your child to develop? (You can find books about brushing teeth, getting along with siblings, etc.) The article tells about 14 different books. ALL MY STRIPES: A STORY FOR CHILDREN WITH AUTISM, by Shaina Rudolph and Danielle Royer, is about a Zebra with autism and his feelings about being different from other children. This is a book that, with parental approval, we autism grandparents might feel comfortable to reading to our grandchildren. Another recommended book is WHY DOES IZZY COVER HER EARS? by Jennifer Veenendall. Izzy experiences sensory overload and her behaviors are misunderstood. This is another book that we autism grandparents may want to read to our grandchildren.
Another article on the site, posted on 2/3/2022, is entitled “Aggression in Children With Autism? How to Manage Aggressive Behavior.” If we have challenges with aggressive behavior when our grandchildren are in our care, this article can be helpful.
An article that JC and I relate to, posted on 1/31/2022, is entitled “7 Ways to Teach Independent Living Skills to Kids with Autism.” Even though Angelina is only 5 years old, JC shows her how to help with various household chores and I show her how to help when I cook. When our grandchildren are in our care, there are lots of ways we can help them learn skills for independent living.
And the 1/26/21 article is actually a 1-minute video entitled “Potty Training Tips.” The major takeaway from this video for us grandparents is that successful potty training requires everyone to be on the same page. So even though we grandparents may want to approach potty training differently from their parents when our grandchildren are in our care, that wouldn’t be productive.
At this writing the website’s blog contains over 60 articles, and I suspect that every autism grandparent will find a few that are both helpful and relevant to their own situation.