Texas State Autism Conference

Andrea Cherry, Heidi Bassesst and I presented at the Texas State Autism Conference this last week in Corpus Christi. It was a lot of fun. I wasn't to nervous since the other two presenters had presented last year and both are very knowledgable. However, when we picked up our badges and I had to add he presenter sticker too it I must admit a little fear did creep in.

Some how I got lucky and got to stay on the 18th floor of our Hotel which was the excutive floor. I had to use my room key to get to the floor. Andrea and Heidi shared a room two floors down from me. At night they would come in and turn down my bedsheets, leave me ice water, and snacks on my desk. Talk about being pampered. They also turned on my tv to some nice quiet music. Scared me the first time I came in because I thought I had walked into someone elses room.

This is a view from my window. We were right on the beach. The blue light in the center top of the picture is the USS Lexington. It looked really pretty lite up at night although you really can't tell in this picture.

Here's my room. You can see the ship through the window.

This is the day view out my window/ on my balcony. The white building just under the bridge is were we presented. It's called the American Bank Center. It was a very nice facility.

Another view from the balcony.

The pictures didn't turn out to good, but this is our second presentation on Thrusday afternoon. the room was packed!!!!! We presented twice -two three hour presentations. Once in the morning and then another one in the afternoon. From left to right, Heidi, Jennifer, Andrea

Me answering questions. We only had one person that did not like what we presented.

The first session was on Target Generalization: Integrating ABA and TEACCH in the classroom

The afternoon session that day was Structured Centers to Maximize Learning & Generalization for Students with ASD.

The second presentation was basically explaining my classroom setup and how I teach play skills that generalize to the general ed. classroom. Must admit after standing the first three hours I was getting a little tired of standing. There were lots of good questions and several people asked if we could come to there districts or if they could come visit my classroom.

I think so far we are going to do trainings for Abiline ISD, San Antonio, Region 4 possibly Corpus. Friday we didn't present so I was able to go to a few sessions. Laughed my head off when I sat down in one and the lady next to me asked why I was there. She had been to our two presentations the day before and she said I already knew everything. She couldn't understand why I was sitting in the session. At break I was going to go back to the hotel and get some headach medicine. It took me 20 minutes to get out of the room b/c people kept coming up and asking me question. It made me feel really good.
No trip is ever complete without a few mess ups. I turned on my mic for the second presentations and hit some button that made a very loud noise. You know the ones that are almost as bad as fingernails on a chalk board. It took me a minute to figure out what had happened. When we were checking into the hotel I dropped my purse and everything fell out. Oh well good stories.
This is the few from the Conference center, just outside of the Ballroom that we were presenting in.
Saturday we did a make and take session on Academic and Vocational Jigs. We had to turn away some people because we didn't have enough materials for everyone. Our facilitator was a little nervous to tell people the session was close. Apparently the day before they closed a make and take session and a brawl broke out. One lady was very upset she couldn't get in. I'm surprised at how adults act sometimes.

Dr. Temple Grandin was the keynote speaker. She was really good. I was excited to finally hear her speak. She is a very famous person with ASD. They are actually making a movie about her life that comes out in Feb. I'm very excited. She talked about how she has learned how to sell her product since she doesn't have the best social skills. Check out her website.http://www.templegrandin.com/templehome.html

She's pretty amazing and a very good public speaker.