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If you’ve got a 4-year-old with autism that is still mastering toileting, you’re not alone. Potty training, eating different kinds of foods, and developing good social skills can be some skills preschoolers with autism need help with.
Learning how to best parent your 2- to 5-year-old child with autism will be the focus of the upcoming Autism Community Workshops, co-presented by the University of Memphis, Le Bonheur, and the Autism Society of the Mid-South (ASMS).
Across the autism spectrum, parents see delayed toileting, notes Laura Casey, an associate professor of special education/applied behavior analysis at the University of Memphis. There are also food selectivity issues, she says. In fact, the workshops arose from parents wanting help with these types of behaviors.
Kids with autism may only eat foods of a particular color or type, which can lead to nutritional and health issues. “Some parents will sneak spinach into yogurt but we want kids to eat a variety of foods without being deceptive. We’ll focus on getting kids to eat a larger variety of foods,” says Casey.
The workshops are free and start Saturday, June 28th, at 8:30 a.m. with coffee and sign-in, the program runs from 9 to 11 a.m. Classes will be held at Le Bonheur Outpatient Rehab, 7714 Poplar Avenue, Germantown, 38138.
The workshop schedule is: June 28 • Social Skills, July 26 • Toilet Training, and August 23 • Food and Mealtime.
RSVP at LebMemASDworkshops@gmail.com or call 287-4771 for more information.