Autism Spectrum & Neurodivergent Learners
Autism is a bio-neurological developmental disability. Autism impacts the normal development of the brain in the areas of social interaction, communication skills, and cognitive function. Individuals with autism typically have difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication, social interactions, and leisure or play activities. They are unique learners, so one approach is not for everyone. First understand the interests, strengths of the individual you work with to best help them based on the spectrum of their abilities and goals. They may not understand the social dynamics of contexts in which they are expected to actively participate, regardless of their high level of intelligence. FONEMZ is a hierarchical program, that is very logical and starts with building on individual sound production, to sound blending into syllables, to word building, to connecting with the alphabet, spelling and reading. The routine of this multimodal approach, which reviews, adds new sounds and progresses to more challenging activities in every session, lends itself to many unique populations including learners with autism.