The developmental challenges of children with special needs means they are often more at risk of physical or emotional exploitation. This book provides invaluable tools to help parents, carers and teachers protect vulnerable children. Difficult topics are sensitively and straightforwardly addressed through step-by-step guidelines for parents and learning activities for children. Guidance to carers includes information on how to identify warning signs of abuse, and recognise tell-tale behaviour changes in their child. Intervention activities help children learn which adults to trust and how to stay safe, while reducing the fear, shame or stigma surrounding abuse. Aimed at ages 5-12, these learning devices have been specifically designed to meet a range of comprehension and developmental abilities, with instructions for parents to adapt them to meet the specific needs of their child. This important guidebook empowers adults to fulfil their responsibility to protect and support children, and to provide a safe environment in which every child can reach their highest potential free from coercion or abuse.

This book provides invaluable information for adults who provide care for children with special needs. The book includes teaching interventions to help children to have an increased sense of self-esteem and the skills to protect themselves. Tools are also provided to empower parents to protect their children and ensure a safe learning environment.

Children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) require specialized teaching strategies when learning about puberty, sexuality and relationships. This professional resource offers practical teaching advice geared towards the needs of young people on the autism spectrum. Beginning with information on good practice, policy, teaching methods and recent research, the book then divides into key sex education topics that assist professionals in developing their own individualized and developmentally appropriate curricula. Covering issues of gender, public and private, puberty, hygiene, emotions, sex and more, each topic provides an overview of the difficulties that children with autism might experience, discussion and activity ideas and photocopiable resources including instructional stories, checklists and illustrations. The final section demonstrates how to respond to ongoing patterns of inappropriate behaviour and put together a behaviour plan. Aiming to explain and support the child's developing sexuality while also addressing crucial issues of safety, this book is a much-needed teaching manual for all professionals working with children and young adults with autism including educators in mainstream and special education, psychologists, therapists and social workers.

This is a practical educational resource to help teach the social rules of touch and personal space to children and teens with Autism Spectrum Disorder with the aim of keeping them safe and helping them to understand what are appropriate interactions in family, educational and community situations. The lessons in the book look at different groups of people that the child is likely to encounter such as close family members, teachers, peers, strangers and medical professionals. Through photocopiable worksheets and activities children are taught about different types of touch and in what settings, where on the body, and for how long touch is appropriate with each group. The book also includes discussion on how best to teach the child to recognise if someone touches them inappropriately and what is appropriate when it comes to self-touch.

The rules of physical contact can be tricky to grasp and children with special needs are at a heightened risk of abuse. This friendly picture book explains in simple terms how to tell the difference between acceptable and inappropriate touch, thereby helping the child with special needs stay safe. Each story covers a different type of touch from accidental to friendly to hurtful and will help children understand how boundaries change depending on the context. It explores when and where it is okay to touch other people, when and where other people can touch you, why self touching sometimes needs to be private, and what to do if touch feels inappropriate. This book is an invaluable teaching resource and discussion starter for parents, teachers and carers working with children with special needs.

This book supports the professional learning of school principals, and those who aspire to be such, in development of their skills and knowledge around fostering inclusive schools for students with special education needs. The book includes 27 case stories that are based on research with school principals. Each case includes expert commentaries and resources to support principals and emerging leaders as they consider how to effectively support students with special education needs in inclusive schools. Its premise is based on the recognition that there are increasing numbers of students with disabilities and special education needs in neighbourhood schools. Principals need to develop new competencies to navigate the challenges, and benefits, of including students with special education needs into inclusive classroom settings. The book provides opportunities to build leadership competencies by considering a diversity of cases related to inclusive leadership. The cases in the book are divided among nine sections addressing the following areas: transitions, early years, elementary school cases, secondary school cases, community supports, school board/district supports, school teams, complex cases, and cases specific to new teachers. Seven cross-cutting themes are addressed in these cases including: communication, parents/caregivers, agency/efficacy, collaboration, relationships/trust, legal, and advocacy.

Being different from the masses is one of the greatest gifts that you possess! Let s face it: Who wants to be just like everyone else? Talk about boring! People come in all shapes and sizes and are born with natural and unnatural gifts and talents like no other, and your greatest challenge is to discover your gifts and then apply them to the world to create a better place, a better planet, a better universe! That is my challenge to you so that all of us can get along peacefully and become truly a population of one. I would like to ask you some questions to help you discover what makes you unique, different, and awesome. Are you different? Are you unique? Do you look different than others? Talk differently than others? Do you walk differently than others? Have you been born with talents that very few others have? Have you been brainwashed to look at your talents as a disability? Do you stay up nights dwelling on all the things in life you don t have, rather than focus on all the blessings you do have? Have you ever been bullied at school, at home, and in many areas in your life? Have you ever been called a retard, dumb, disabled ? If you have answered yes to any of these questions, perhaps you have yet to understand, accept, and apply your unique gifts to make the world a better place. If you have answered Yes to any of these questions, I feel your pain, I have walked in your shoes, and I can empathize with your situation. I have been bullied, called a retard, told that I am disabled, put in special classes, advised that I should not expect to reach my goals. My name is Tyler McNamer and I have been called ALL of the above many, many times in my life. I am nineteen years old and have been blessed with autism my entire life. I have chosen to accept my label of autism not as a disability but as an extraordinary ability and I want to help you overcome the label that you may have suffered from for many years of your life. So what is autism? The dictionary defines autism as a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by great difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with others. Also, it is defined as a mental condition in which fantasy dominates over reality. So just how many people today are affected by this condition? According to a recent WebMD study, 1 in 88 kids today has autism and for boys the numbers is 1 in 54. Also you might be surprised to learn that since 2002, autism has increased by 78 percent. Let s put those numbers in perspective. A high school with 1,000 students enrolled is going to have 11 students with this condition, and a bigger high school with 2,500 students is going to have 28 students with autism. So, now that you know more about autism, let me highlight some of the things you will learn by reading this book since I want to assure you that this book is not just a book about autism it is a book about how we can all live together in harmony regardless of our differences. In this book, you are going to learn that, despite our differences and diversities, we can get along and become a population of one to serve others. In this book, you will learn the importance of becoming the leader in your own life, following your dreams. You will learn to focus on your blessings instead of being discouraged by your challenges. In this book, you will learn to embrace change and continue to learn for a lifetime. In this book, you will learn what it is like to be blessed with the unique ability of having autism. You will learn how not only to cope with your gifts, but to thrive in life and pursue your goals despite your challenges. In this book, you will learn how to turn your ability into a blessing to serve others