Pop in this new innovative DVD, “The Transporters” and get ready to enter a land of toy trains, cable cars, buses, ferries and other mechanical characters donning human faces, designed to teach children with autism to recognize and name emotions.
Since children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) tend to like mechanical objects with highly predictable movement rather than faces that are constantly changing, this DVD combines both in a delightful, kid-paced series of episodes featuring eight expressive faced characters from dependable William, the Chain Ferry and Jennie the Tram who can be a bit boastful, to youthful, happy Sally, the Cable Car. Providing a comfortable context to learn a challenging concept, “The Transporters” teaches children with ASD to recognize and name emotions in different situations and on different faces.
When the little boy, Jamie, leaves for school, his toys come alive and transport the viewer to an engaging world of adventure, reactions and problem solving. The fifteen episodes graduate in theme from simpler to more complex emotions to recognize–from happy, sad and angry to proud, jealous, joking and ashamed–with quizzes following the stories to check understanding.
As I viewed the episodes, I was impressed with the care that the researchers and developers took to select words and situations that named and reinforced emotions through clear, short sentences, exercising flexibility of language. Sally’s “happy” was linked with enjoy, love, laugh, friends, favorite thing to do, get there on time, good working order, helping friends, thank, and great friends. Varied phrases described the episode that capture the resulting emotion, teaching children language in many contexts. Nigel however was “angry” linked to stop shouting, didn’t say thank you, take more time, stuck behind, and forced to go slowly. Using the vocabulary associated with situations linked to an emotion and matching it with a closeup of the facial expression is an effective teaching tool for children with ASD. Emotions are taught within social situations, with resulting reactions explained and named by the narrator.
Backed by research, “The Transporters” has been found to be effective in teaching emotions to children with autism who viewed the DVD for just 15 minutes a day over a month period. They were able to identify and generalize what they learned. A parent whose child with autism viewed the episodes said, “My 4 year-old son, on the spectrum loved these videos from the first time he saw them. He has recognized and pointed out my facial expressions for the first time and more readily recognizes expressions in books.” An added value is that his 6 year-old typically developing brother loved them too!
Developed in the UK, “The Transporters” uses some vocabulary such as “funicular railway” for elevated train and “tram” for train which is less familiar to those of us on the other side of the Atlantic, but doesn’t detract from the learning accomplished through these episodes.
25% of the profits go to further research and autism charities. This is a win-win deal. Help your child cue into social situations by accurately reading faces and contribute to further research to help us help kids.
Appropriate for 4-8 year olds
Every speech-language pathologist yearns to grab a bag of goodies that will amuse, entice and teach their preschoolers the foundation of language, building the basics for communication and literacy.
“Come Learn With Me” is my goody bag of choice! Use it yourself and share it with parents. Save the precious time of collecting props and pictures and unzip this set of books, objects and pictures to begin assessing and teaching receptive and expressive language and cognitive skills. Clearly the authors’ 30 years of combined early childhood experience is evident in this well organized, complete, simple to use tool with step-by-step lessons. They have anticipated developmental stages and what would be most useful to stimulate them.
Each area of development—receptive and expressive language and cognitive development—is broken down into 5-6 skills, progressing from the easiest to the hardest, with complete instructions on how to teach that skill beginning with ages that it is developing, prerequisite skills, sample objectives, baseline data, how to increase that skill and prompts, including modifications for children with visual or physical limitations. With each skill so clearly defined and broken down into activities, parents can easily utilize this manual and kit too. Parents often ask me, “What should my child be doing now?” I could easily refer to the developmental milestones and show what tasks were appropriate for their child’s age.
Therapists, teachers and parents have unlimited options with the bags of vehicles, food, farm animals, and function objects. Everything is kid-sized so they love to play with the objects, while the five books provide simple, colorful, cartoon drawings within the categories of things to ride, on the farm, in your house and moving out and about. With increased emphasis on data collection, therapists can easily record responses in the front cover of each book, using dry erase pens. The illustrations in the books as well as the 66 individual pictures of objects, animals and people by category, are a strength of this teaching tool. Clear enough to keep it simple, but just enough detail to identify the picture; these punchy drawings attract the child. The thick laminated, interchangeable pictures are the right size for a child’s hands while the thrill of ripping off the Velcro and sticking the picture on to the page is just the interaction needed to keep kids engaged.
The simple backdrop of book pages provides the flexibility we want in teaching preschoolers language skills. Kids can identify vocabulary, follow directions, answer questions, and create their own stories as they place their picture discs on each page of the books, interchanging the drawings to create unlimited stories as the groundwork for understanding and using vocabulary, grammar, and concepts. The inherent adaptability of this teaching tool is evident in the fact that I use it with children on the autism spectrum as well as with language and articulation delays or disorders.
Although parts are offered separately, my recommendation would be to buy the whole kit, ultimately saving money by giving you more flexibility and options for language learning.
When I was at the International Toy Fair in New York City in February, I stopped in at Dolphin Books and was introduced to their new book on baby signs, A First Guide to Baby Signing. I was impressed because it was authored by a professional who actually works with sign language, Katie Mayne, a teacher of the deaf.
Parents are increasingly interested in teaching sign language to their babies. Sign language provides babies with a way to communicate with hand movements long before their vocal mechanism is ready to say words. Allowing babies and toddlers to express their needs and wants earlier, relieves frustration and gives us a peek into their thoughts and desires.
The author’s expertise accounts for the simple but accurate information and inclusion of important tips such as making sure family members and care givers can recognize and use signs too since the purpose is to provide a means for your child to communicate. Her tip to keep background noise to a minimum correlates with research that says babies learn language better in a quiet environment, since they have a harder time distinguishing foreground and background sounds.
The yummy colors and kid-friendly graphics surround captivating pictures of babies and moms signing 44 basic words divided into ten categories from “starter signs” relating to your child’s basic needs of hunger and thirst, to “indoor”, “outdoor” and “evening” signs. The categories of signs as well as the sequence in which they are introduced are based on language learning while individual signs were chosen to link to earliest speech sounds and words spoken. Step-by-step photographs make learning easy and fun.
Grab this inviting manual and start signing with your child. Your reward will be a gesture of “I love you” far before your child can say the words.
