ACT with young people on the autism spectrum
Learn key practical strategies and adaptations to make your work fun, flexible and impactful
Course Description
Working with autism is a key skill requirement for practitioners working with young people. This includes the ability to adapt therapeutic interventions in a way that is meaningful to neurodivergent young people.
One particular intervention that is particularly useful for working with autistic young people is Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT helps build skills of psychological flexibility to assist young people to successfully navigate various developmental tasks including learning habits, social relationships and emotion regulation.
In this workshop, leading expert in the use of ACT with young people on the autism spectrum, Jodie Wassner will guide you through some of the key practical strategies and adaptations you can make to ensure your work is fun, flexible and impactful. Jodie will be focusing on young people between the ages of approximately 7 through to 18 years old.
Through an Acceptance Commitment Therapy framework, at the end of this workshop participants will be able to:
- Describe how to guide young people towards a valued and meaningful life in the face of difficulty.
- Teach flexibility to young people to enable them to handle difficult thoughts and feelings as they emerge.
- Demonstrate skills to enhance willingness to experience difficulty via cognitive and behavioural techniques.
- Recognise the “why” behind a behaviour to help guide adult action with the best chance of success.
- Utilise language that promotes better listening and calmer responses.
- Describe differences in brain function that impact a child’s responses.
- Identify key strategies to prevent meltdowns.
- Identify key skills to help young people develop persistence
- Celebrate diversity and the strengths that typically accompany neurodivergence, particularly autism.
- Identify the best times and best methods for teaching social skills through a neuro-affirming lens.
This highly practical workshop is designed for professionals who are already familiar with autistic presentations, including psychologists, social workers, counsellors, teachers, speech pathologists, occupational therapists and behaviour analysts.
This program is sponsored by Contextual Consulting and is approved for 3 CE credits for psychologists. To find out more, including attendance requirements and how to access your certificate, go to our continuing education information page.
Contextual Consulting is committed to the identification and resolution of potential conflicts of interest in the planning, promotion, delivery, and evaluation of continuing education. Potential conflicts of interest occur when an individual assumes a professional role in the planning, promotion, delivery, or evaluation of continuing education where personal, professional, legal, financial, or other interests could reasonably be expected to impair their objectivity, competence, or effectiveness.
There was no commercial support for this event. None of the planners or presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.
Through an Acceptance Commitment Therapy framework, at the end of this workshop participants will be able to:
- Describe how to ACT can be used with young people on the autistic spectrum
- Demonstrate skills to enhance willingness to experience difficulty via cognitive and behavioural techniques.
- Describe the principles for identifying central motivations for child behaviour, that can be used to guide adult action with the best chance of success.
- Identify key skills to help young people develop persistence