Creative Response Activities for Children on the Spectrum is a clear, comprehensive and intuitive guide that offers a wide selection of hands-on interventions to be used in any therapeutic or educational setting with children who are ‘on the spectrum’. From drawing and writing poetry to skiing and skateboarding, this book describes these and many other creative activities geared towards children with autistic features, attention deficits, hyperactivity, paediatric bipolar disorder and other related conditions. This new resource provides an innovative blend of theory and illustrative case examples designed to help therapists and educators assess children’s needs, formulate therapeutic and aesthetic interventions, and analyze creative outcomes.

Art as a Language for Autism addresses the clinical challenges that are common in working with autistic spectrum disorder by exploring how artistic expression can provide a communicative language for younger clients who are set in their thought processes and preferences. Exploring how both art and play-based approaches can be effective tools for engaging therapeutic work, this book introduces strategies to help young clients find expressive "languages" that can fully support communication, expression, and empathic understanding, as well as build skills for relaxation, calming, and coping. Building from a foundation of a client’s individual strengths and interests, this playful and integrative approach is informed by an awareness of the individual sensory profiles and the developmental needs of children and adolescents with autism. Through a greater awareness of these materials and processes for therapy, the reader will be able to create a space for their young clients to share what they know and care about. This exciting new book is essential reading for clinicians working with children and adolescents on the autism spectrum.

Introducing the Special Interest Communication Theory (SICT) Facilitative Framework, this guide will help you to support autistic clients and meet their needs through special interests and pop culture. Turning away from a culture that has often sought to suppress autistic special interests, Stallings asks that therapists meet autistic children and adults on their own terms. Creating an autism positive environment and engaging with special interests - from video games to K-Pop - builds rapport and helps identify therapeutic goals. Jessica Woolhiser Stallings combines this practical guide to her evidence-based framework with an overview of the history and applications of therapies and arts therapies used with autism. From a perspective that respects autistic self-advocacy and the role of art therapy in supporting individual emotional health, this guide offers tools to address anxiety, social interaction, communication, identity and more.

Although this is a clinical text, it is also more a conversation than a book. It is a means of sharing the work of artists, most of whom have varying degrees of special needs. It emphasizes that handicapping conditions do not constitute a barrier for creating therapeutically meaningful art. The precepts of Edith Kramer focus on subtly suggesting media, content, or techniques, all without interfering with the artist’s preferences. This intervention came to be known as the ‘Third Hand’ where the artist in therapy is free to accept, reject or ignore the therapist’s suggestions. The case vignettes describe how aesthetic richness is also illustrative of the uniqueness of clients’ clinical stories, with the artists’ emotional or behavioral challenges overcoming and even benefiting by their conditions. The work of early pioneers who influenced Kramer’s illustrate how her own analytical methods later shaped her approach. The format in this book also questions the author as being the ultimate authority, by posing questions to the reader, says a kind of dialogue that emphasizes there are no absolutes in art, behavioral science or therapy. While espousing Kramer’s and his own ideas, Henley also includes those of other art therapists who contribute their own expertise, in the hope that the analyses will be enriched from multiple perspectives. Dr. Henley describes how her therapeutic interventions were debated during their many years of collegial interaction. By describing Kramer’s early influences and personal art history, he describes how Kramer’s interventions helped innumerable clients and trained hundreds of student therapists. These facets will hopefully enable creative arts therapists to implement her patented artist-centered interventions. The processes and artistic outcomes will lead the way, guiding the reader toward the uses of the Third Hand and hopefully bring alive the uniqueness of these special artists’ stories.

This book bridges art therapy practice and research by presenting sensory-based relational art therapy approach (S-BRATA), a clinically tested framework for working with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that explicitly addresses sensory dysfunction and its impact on impaired attachment. The author shows how art therapy can facilitate attachment while addressing sensory problems that might underlie impaired attachment shifting the focus from the behavioral to the emotional development of the child with autism. The book additionally challenges traditional aspects of art therapy practice, particularly the focus on the relational aspect of the intervention and not the art product. Not restrictive or prescriptive and with the potential to be adapted to other interventions, S-BRATA provides an explicit framework for doing art therapy with children on the spectrum that opens the scope of art therapy practice and encourages flexibility and adaptation. Clinicians, students, and parents alike will benefit from the text’s clear outline for relational development with individuals on the spectrum and its emphasis on the importance of the psycho-emotional health of a child with ASD.

Thousands of edcuators have turned to You're Going to Love This Kid! for fresh ways to welcome and teach students with autism; and now the book teachers trust is fully revised and more practical than ever. Gathering feedback from teachers across the US during her popular workshops, autism expert Paula Kluth targeted this second edition to the specific needs of today's primary- and secondary-school educators. Still packed with the ready-to-use tips and strategies that teachers are looking for, the new edition gives readers: dozens of NEW reproducible forms, checklists, and planning tools; photos of curricular adaptations, sensory supports and classroom scenes; throughly revised and updated chapters on today's hottest topics; a study guide with challenging discussion questions for each chapter; and new ideas throughout the book based on the latest reasearch on autism, inclusion, literacy, and behaviour. Readers will also get updates on all of the other topics covered in the first edition, including fostering friendships, building communication skills, planning challenging and multidimensional lessons, and adapting the curriculum and the physical environment. And with the new first-person stories from people with autism and their teachers and parents, readers will have a better understanding of students on the spectrum and how to include them successfully.

The Legacy of Edith Kramer presents a unique exploration into the life and work of the groundbreaking artist and art therapist. This edited volume examines the artist’s personal and cultural history prior to relocating to the United States as well as the later years when she worked as an artist, art therapist, and teacher as she developed her theoretical understanding of art therapy. Kramer’s solutions to creating a meaningful artist’s life run throughout the chapters within this book, and provide the reader with a sense of what is possible. Written by an international group of contributors, this informative new text offers a multifaceted view of Edith Kramer that will be appreciated by current and future art therapists looking to better understand Kramer’s exceptional mind and contributions to the field.