Autism Resource Guide

I’m excited to offer my free ebook: From Prompting to Shaping to Letting Go: Resources for Parenting Your Child with Autism. The 20-page guide is filled with information that can help you (or a parent you know):

  1. investigate some informational sites that are packed with relevant topics such as autism treatments, biological interventions, socialization and behavioral and coping strategies (for you and your child!).
  2. find sites that will encourage you to learn more about Applied Behavior Analysis so that you can decide if ABA is the intervention that will best help your child.
  3. connect with sites that offer real help for real problems like toileting, anger management and anxiety.
  4. link up with sites that can give you tips to help you parent your high schooler or young adult with autism.
  5. determine whether behavioral therapy is right for your child.

My Resource Guide is meant to be a starting point on your quest to find information–whether your child seems “different” or is exhibiting symptoms of autism or has already been diagnosed.

The guide is divided into the following sections:

  1. A Place to Start
  2. Informational Websites
  3. Books
  4. Program Materials
  5. Parent Training Sites
  6. Research Papers and Articles

Clicking on the links under each section will eventually provide plenty of keywords to help you find your own sites, and you will soon discover that, unlike the mid-’90s when this type of information did not exist online, there is today a vast amount of information on autism for you to explore. Each of the “Parent Training Sites” I have listed offers different ways to help parents and children, and the “Informational Websites” are packed with articles that address an assortment of concerns.

When you scroll through the pages, it will become apparent that many of the sites, especially in the last section, “Parent Training Sites,” are ABA-specific, and that is because it was the intervention I used with my daughter and forms the basis of my book, From Prompting to Shaping to Letting Go: My Love Affair With ABA and How Being a “Bad Mom” Helped My Daughter With Autism Succeed. Applied Behavior Analysis is based on science, and after just one session with my daughter, I knew I had made the right choice.

Autism clinics did not existed when I started my daughter’s home program in 1995, so I felt I had no choice. Several families in my county were doing the same, and we sometimes shared therapists (which were mostly behavioral therapy students from the local university). I didn’t want to wait until the therapists would begin, so I gathered my supplies, created the programs and started my daughter’s home program.

I do not know how public school staff feel about implementing ABA for autism today, but I was practically bullied each day by the instructors and staff for teaching my daughter behaviorally (hence, the “Bad Mom” moniker, which was given to me by the principal).

But I knew my daughter was making progress. She was learning more and learning it faster than she ever did in the “resource room.” And in response, I hired more therapists (but at any one time I employed perhaps four therapists max because they were students with other responsibilities). At that time, the “resource room” was the only place where my daughter would receive any kind of teaching (and there was very little, as I was to see for myself by sneaking into the observation room).

A home program may be cost prohibitive and impractical, but so many other options exist. My Autism Resource Guide is a gateway to a vast amount of information, and it offers you the tools necessary to decide how you can help your child.

I hope From Prompting to Shaping to Letting Go: Resources to Parenting Your Child with Autism will be useful, and, as always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me at kathleenjae@outlook.com. I look forward to hearing from you!