This interactive social skills program, developed for students with ASD and other social cognitive challenges, takes students on a journey into space. Here they learn major social skills, including understanding emotions, feelings and thinking patterns, reflective problem solving, stress release, dealing with bullying, goal setting and self-regulation. The space theme is sure to appeal to students in 4-5 grade. An accompanying student manual gives students a permanent record of their accomplishments and allow teachers and parents to review and assess children s progress.
Margaret Carter has worked as a teacher with Education Queensland for nine years and for eleven years with Brisbane Catholic Education, both as a special education consultant and a guidance counselor. Behavior, conflict resolution, student achievement, inclusion and inclusive education, and childhood grief are the areas in which she is working. Reducing communication apprehension in primary school children is the focus of her doctorate degree. Margaret now works in private practice as a behavior change specialist.
Josie Santomoura has a postgraduate certificate in creative writing and is a full-time author. She is a children’s/young adult fiction author, and writes under the pseudonym of Josie Montano. Josie also self-publishes various resources on Asperger Syndrome.
Margaret and Josie met while working together on the same team, Margaret as a guidance counselor and Josie as a parent of a child with Asperger Syndrome. They have known each other now for seven years, and have collaborated on various projects, including this book.