Take 2: Teaching Children w/ Autism Washington, DC

Take2 in Puerto Rico!

Last winter Lynn Cannon and Monica Adler Werner traveled to Puerto Rico to share Take2's mission, trainings and curriculum with the folks at the Ponce Center for Autism (CEPA) and the Consejo Estatal sobre Deficiencias del Desarrollo of Puerto Rico. After much hard work, the dedicated team of clinical staff, special education teachers, and doctoral-level clinical psychology students translated Take2 Camp into Spanish and launched the first ever, "Campamento AMIGOS"!

Campamento Amigos severd 13 children with high Functioning ASDs, ADHD and other developmental disabilities during the summer of 2012. Administration, staff and campers reported that it was a total success!  

Director, Rafael E. Oliveras-Rentas.

Social Learning Groups

Take2 is also proud to announce that, in collaboration with Ivymount School Outreach in Rockville, MD, we will be launching Unstuck and On Target© social skills groups. 

Links:

• Take2 Website

“What’s a balloon’s least favorite type of music?”
See the bottom for the answer to one awesome camper’s joke!

Britt Lake, GlobalGiving’s Director of Programs, and I recently had the pleasure of spending a morning at Take 2, a camp for kids ages 6 to 11 with Aspergers and High Functioning Autism.  We had a blast!

The team at Take 2 has done an amazing job creating a fun learning environment for the kids. The camp has taken challenging tasks like recognizing emotions, looking at and thinking about the person you are with, and uncovering the mystery of friendship and made them fun with games and prizes. The camp is a kind, patient, and supportive atmosphere for the kids, who are learning, growing, and having fun!

When we arrived, we walked into a room full of excitement. The kids were hearing about their agenda for the day and learning some of the key skills they would be practicing in their activities—like S-PEC-L when someone is talking to you (Stop what you are doing, Periodic Eye Contact and Listen to what they say).  Lynn Cannon, the Director of Take 2’s camp, talked us through some of the camp basics. The camp has almost as many staff as campers, meaning that each child has the chance to receive personal attention at camp. This year, the camp theme is detective work. Every camper is a detective, solving little mysteries every day! To make learning fun, campers earn detective points for participating in activities, staying attentive and focused, and responding well to challenging situations. At the end of the day, kids count up their detective points and pick prizes.

Britt and I sat in on the morning session, designed to help the campers discern emotions using facial expressions and tone of voice. The campers played a round of guess-that-emotion, watching Brenna, the teacher’s face for clues about the emotion she was acting out.  The game was a resounding success, with every kid guessing the emotion correctly. Then, Brenna instructed kids to listen as they heard clips of popular TV shows—iCarly, Victorious, and even Saved by the Bell (much to Britt and my delight)—to use tone of voice to understand the character’s emotions. This game was a bit more challenging, even Britt and I were listening intently to hear the characters’ emotions, but the kids came through again, guessing each emotion correctly.

At the end of our visit, we spent some time hanging out the campers during snack time and getting to know some of their fun personalities. We spoke with one boy who absolutely loves scuba diving, granted he’s never been himself, but he’s sure it’s awesome! We exchanged some jokes with another boy, including the one at the top of this post (“What’s a balloon’s least favorite type of music” See answer below). And we learned about one girl’s classmate who has the same name as Alexis!

Thank you, Take 2, for inviting us to spend the morning with you! We had a great time and GlobalGiving is thrilled to be working with such a great, local organization doing work in our own backyard!

Answer: Pop!