Autism is a neurological disorder that usually becomes apparent by age three. It typically causes delays in developing communication and social interaction skills. Autism currently affects 1 in 150 kids.

My son has Autism. He is an intelligent, energetic, and adventurous four year old boy. However, like most Autistic children he struggles with some basic language and speech concepts as well with understand social cause and effect. He is currently enrolled in speech therapy to help him improve his language skills. Teaching children with Autism requires a lot of repetitive instruction and learning materials that break complex social interactions or parts of language down into simple parts. Most of the resources that our speech therapist uses to teach my son come from specialized clearinghouses of special needs educational tools and are visual aides. Some can be prohibitively expensive for the average parent to purchase.

When my son had difficulty learning his prepositions I developed a printable based off of the resources his therapist was using. It worked very well. I began to incorporate other printables into our daily lives. I wrote a blog post about some of the printables I used and recieved a lot of positive feedback from parents.

Printables provide a wonderful free resource teaching children with Autism. Through my searches online I've found that there are free printables available to teach almost any concept. Some require only a small amount of modification and others require a great deal of creative thought. I use printables to teach speech and social concepts.

There are many times that I can't find the printable I want. Last year I wanted to teach my child what type of clothes to wear during what weather. We were struggling to keep him from walking outside in t-shirts during the winter! I couldn't find a printable that conveyed this lesson well. BUT, I did find an awesome picture of a little boy named Tommy at Learning Pages (free membership required). Tommy is the main character in "Tommy Tales", a free online book series available on the Learning Pages website. I used Tommy to create a folder game. My son and I spent time arranging weather conditions and clothing around and on Tommy until we had learned the concept. I encourage parents of Autistic children to create the printables they need when they can't find what they want. Or you can email me, and if I have time I'll create one for you. If you want a copy of my version of Tommy you can download it here, but keep in mind that I am most likely in severe copy write violation of the good people at Learning Pages. ****If you represent Learning Pages and would like this printable download removed just email me and I will do so.****

In this folder game I taught site words using clip art. We first started matching the pictures themselves. Then matching the words to the pictures. We ended with gluing the words under the correct pictures. Clip art is another great resource for making printables to teach any number of subjects. Good clip art (like the kind that comes from English as a second language websites like MES-English.com) can even be used as PECS. I've also used clip art to explain concepts like "Little" and "Big." I still have that printable if you need it you can download it here. The resolution wasn't very good on the clipart so of course the images are kind of fuzzy. But, it works just as well.

Printables are great for teaching children with autism conventional knowledge as well. My son and I just spent a whole day exploring frogs using printables we found online. When teaching about a subject I usually like to include a book, a craft, a puzzle or coloring page, and an activity. All of the information, ideas, and materials I needed to teach my son about frogs were available online and I managed to fill an entire rainy Saturday with froggy fun.

Don't underestimate the power of the humble printable in teaching children with Autism. Printables are a powerful tool for parents and educators. I will be creating and uploading more printables for teaching autistic children so book mark me.

You know what is hard to find online? Free Printable Frog Name Tags. Why would I want them? I don't know. Guess I'm just "Feeling Froggy" HA HA HA... ok, so that was lame.

Teach-nology had the only printable frog name tag that I could find and while it's cute, it's not exactly what I had in mind when I was searching.

So I made some. :) Right click "save as" to save them to your computer.




I was also hunting around for other FREE frog goodies similar to that great frog toy I found over at ToyMarkers. I didn't find anything as wicked cool as all that, but I did find some nice arts and crafts projects for kids.

PrintActivites has a nice selection of printable frog activities for the elementary level. They are primarily mazes, coloring pages, and word searches. These would be nice for a teacher or homeschooler.

FamilyFun has a frogs versus beavers printable checkers game. I like this because aside from the nice design the idea of hopping pieces with a frog is funny. I'm not sure why beavers, though? Are frogs and beavers natural enemies and no one told me?

DaniellesPlace is a paid subscription site dedicated mostly to bible crafts. BUT, they do have nice page of easy frog crafts to do with children. You have to subscribe to download and print templates, but I think most people can figure out how to make their own templates. Not a printable, but still useful for good ideas.

I saved the best for last: Kidzone (as always) has some excellent educational printables about frogs. It "itty bitty" frog book is too cute and the lesson plan on the life cycle of the frog is great. I am always impressed by the quality printables Kidzone puts out free for use.

There will probably be a "frog day" at our house soon. :)

Children with Autism often have difficulty recognizing and identifying emotions. They often miss the facial cues that other people rely on to gauge the moods of others. This printable emotions game is designed to help identify emotions on the faces of others.

Google says that some folks have landed on my site in search of free printable checkbooks or checks for kids or printable checkbook activities for highschoolers. I did a quick google search and didn't see any nice printable checks for kids that didn't require a membership to a website. Most that I did find were very stripped down and didn't have traditional check features like account and routing numbers. I didn't find any printable deposit slips, and I can remember when I was young thinking that the deposit slip was the hardest part of the banking experience.



So, I've made you some. You can download printable checks for kids in word format or you can download printable checks for kids in PDF format. The PDF format has lower resolution.



The print out contains the following items: 5 checks, 1 deposit slip, and a few register sheets. Remind your kids to record their debit card transactions too!







EDITED!!! 10/2/09

A lot of teachers have been asking for blank checks so that they can change the names and addresses for thier students. This word file contains five checks with text fields that you can edit , one deposit slip with editable text field, and three check register sheets. DOWNLOAD. It's two pages and prints in color. Each student should have their own set. Use construction paper to make a checkbook cover.