Teaching 6 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Dear Penndco Donors,

 Again and again we appreciate your support for our wonderful children who have required help and assistance in communication, social interactions, and social situations. Penndco Parent's Committee sends you the best appreciative words and the best wishes. 

Penndco Parents and children appreciate GlobalGiving Foundation for the valuable support! For example, Ilyas' mother Anna shared how valuable this program is for her son, and she appreciates every sponsor who financially supports the Penndco program: Teaching 6 Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Many mothers shared how often children ask them to go to Penndco. 

Parents asked us to send a Special Thank You for all Donors who supported Penndco to be renovated after Ida hurricane in September 2021. New toys, new books, and new furniture are part of GlobalGiving Foundatioin support. Thank you very much!

Have a Happy and Healthy New Year 2022!

Dear Penndco Donors! 

As everyone is aware, we experienced a serious storm on Wednesday, September 1, 2021. 

Penndco center sustained severe flooding that has left us with a loss of 80% of our toys, therapy materials, furniture, and office equipment. We lost our Social Skills Library and sensory materials and tools. Penndco center requires to be renovated. We are working on it, and we appreciate our therapists, community supporters, and parents for their real help in this restoration process. We know that you, our donors, will help us to buy new toys, books, materials, and furniture for our children. Thank you for your understanding and support.

Watching TV and videos often is a preferred activity for a child; however, we need to remember it is a passive activity that allows few opportunities for a child to communicate.            

Penndco children loves to watch TV or videos, and therapists can use TV only with a reason to interest a child in books, songs and communication. Many computer programs teach our children new vocabulary and provide an opportunity to listen and to follow directions. We recommend our parents to have a limited time watching TV with a child, and if watching TV together with a child, using the pause button for videos. Discussion during a watching TV is very important for child’s brain development. If child has a limited vocabulary, we recommend to use more effectively books activities, 3D book activities, songs and rhyming, and labeling. Our goal is limited TV/videos time, and more time in using Visual Helpers to help our children understand and talk about feelings and social situations.                     

Diana’s mother shared that she decreased TV time for her child, and she did a focus on reading the books with the real pictures. As a result, a child’s vocabulary is increased! Mother of David shared that she has used a combination of the videos, especially family videos, with reading a book to help her child to communicate and to ask help.                                    

One of the valuable Penndco recommendation is turn TV time into talking time! Penndco Board of Directors supports this statement in reaching our social and communication goals.

Dear our Donors,

We appreciate your generous gifts especially during the Covid-19 pandemic time. We have supported our children having tele-intervention sessions now. We try to find an appropriate balance between using the technology that our children love very much and communication in person. Our children required a lot of prompting and attention to participate in social situations. Our therapists continue to use the Hanen strategies and the visual helpers to support the children in increasing their social skills. 

We know how our children and their parents are waiting to have the classroom social skills activities by learning to follow routines and directions appropriately. We encourage our children to learn new signs and new words by playing with the toys and family members. Age-appropriate books and toys were sent to our children for increasing their vocabulary and play skills too.

We are happy to announce that we are ready to have the play activities in person by using the masks and hand sanitizing and following the state Covid-19 policy and procedures. Our children will have supports with hand washing practice as well as with social skills. 

Again and again we continue to say our supporters a Special Thank You! We appreciate you in reaching our goals. 

Dear Donors,

Thank you to everyone who continues to support Penndco program during hard times. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19 we are unable to work in person with our children who have required help in communication skills and social skills. We try to work through tele-intervention to providing the resources for parents and children. We encourage our parents to help their children in developing stronger social skills, vocabulary and communication by playing with toys and family members. We hope to greet the smiling faces again soon, and to hear the very important word "HI". 

To encourage to develop child's communication we are sharing fun, materials and interactive websites. Every family report as well as feedback counts!

Penndco Parents and children appreciate GlobalGiving Foundation for the valuable support!  Our Special Thank You is following to all Penndco Donors and Supporters!

Have a Happy and Healthy New Year 2021!