Increase the skills of Moldovan autism therapists

In our last report we told you how Anna Cislaru, our centre co-ordinator, had taken training in PECS visual communication system and passed her learning onto our staff.  Now we are really beginning to see the benefits for the children who come to us for therapy.  Several children have begun to use visual supports to make requests, choose preferred activities, and approach specialists on their own initiative. For some children, PECS became the first real step toward independently expressing a need and communicating more clearly with adults.

The implementation of the method also contributed to improvements in the children’s behavior. When a child has a clear tool for communication, the level of frustration decreases and the need to express discomfort through crying, screaming, or refusal is reduced. The children became more cooperative during activities, accepted transitions more easily, and became more actively involved in the therapeutic process.

The training also improved collaboration with parents. Specialists can now explain to families more clearly how to use visual supports at home, during daily activities: at meals, during play, on walks, while preparing for sleep, or during transition moments. In this way, the skills developed at the center can be reinforced in the child’s natural environment.

Feedback from our parents show what a difference the training has made to their family life: 

Sandu’s parent, age 7: “After my child began working with visual supports, I noticed that he became calmer and less frustrated. Before, he used to cry when he could not show us what he wanted, but now he can choose a picture and communicate his need more clearly. For us as a family, this progress is very important because we feel that we understand him better.”

Daniel’s parent, age 5: “I noticed that my son began asking more often for his favorite things and participating more actively in activities. Using cards helped him become more independent and communicate without becoming upset immediately. We have also started using the same principles at home, and this helps us have more calm and cooperation in our daily routine.”

We are very grateful to all the donors who have made this staff training possible.

We were delighted recently to be able to show a small group of St Gregory's supporters around our centre recently.  We are very grateful to Diane who shares her impressions with you of both our centre and Sunny Corner, a community for adults with learning difficulty that is also supported by St Gregory's Foundation. 

Links:

• Our supporter Diane McKie talks about her visit to Rain Kids

The children we work with have complex needs that affect their communication skills, concentration, ability to manage their emotions and more.  This is why we organise our team so that different professionals can work alongside each other to support the children and their families.  It also means that we need to keep our skills as therapists up to date across a number of areas.

Thanks to generous donors in the GlobalGiving community and beyond, we have been able to take up some exciting training opportunities in the last few months.

Two of these stand out particularly.  The first was a session on play with autistic children.  Play is central to much of our therapy.  It doesn't just make therapy sessions fun, it also has value in itself.  Through play the children learn a whole range of physical and social skills.  However, for autistic children play can look different.  We were delighted that our whole team was able to take part in a training session to help us motivate our children to play, to structure our play sessions, and to help the children transfer the learning from play into real life situations.

Anna Cislaru, our Centre Co-ordinator took part in the second session, which was a two-day intensive training focussing on PECS - a pictoral language which can help children with significant difficulties in verbal communication to find 'their voice'.  She learned a huge amount about the whole process of introducing and using PECS with a child.  When she came back, she taught what she had learned to the rest of the team.  We have already been able to use her learning in sessions with some of our children.  The picture is an English language example to give you an idea of what PECS is.

Thank you very much to everyone who has donated so we can raise the standard of therapy we can offer our children.

NB the source for the PECS photo: Shashidhar Chandrashekhar and Jyothi S. Bommangoudar, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons