1. Cat 8 Service Learning Sample Prelims Ppt

2. Read a book, live a life PD 2007 Champions

3. Area of concern Autism is a developmental disability which affects communication, social interaction and behaviour. Autistic children lack the social skills required of them to interact with the community. Studies indicate that the percentage of children in Singapore suffering from autism has risen over the years from 1 in 3000-4000 births to 1 in 110 births and figures are still rising due to increased awareness of the condition (Wing, 1996 in Autism Association (Singapore), 2002 ).

4. Main Challenge (I) Lack of relevant resources for autistic children & their caregivers to help the autistic children be equipped with the necessary social communication skills to interact with the community

5. Main Challenge (II) Social stories describe a social situation, including social cues and appropriate behavior and is a tool used by many speech therapists to teach social skills to autistic childre. Presently, the social stories available are very expensive and not very relevant to the Asian society.

6. Service Objective To provide autistic children or their caretakers with relevant resources so that they may be equipped with the communication skills necessary for integration with the local community

7. Learning Objectives To learn to understand the needs of the autistic community To be creative in coming up with the resources to help autistic children To learn to interact with autistic children

8. Target Community Fei Yue Early Intervention Centre (Fei Yue) Fei Yue is a non-profit organization, set up to provide intervention programs to autistic children from low income families.

9. Plan of Action

10. Phase 1 – Development & Creation In this phase, we are creating a social storybook for children suffering from autism. The stories are kept short and simple to cater to the children’s short attention spans. Each of the story is accompanied with illustrations to capture the attention of the children. The stories were written under the close guidance of a certified speech therapist and our coach.

11. Phase 2 – Reading & Interaction Sessions We intend to conduct reading sessions three times a week at Fei Yue, using the resources we create Various strategies such as sketch-and-tell & role-playing will be employed to engage the autistic child.

12. Phase 3 – Feedback & Improvements At the end of all the reading and interaction activities, we will create a questionnaire and administer it to the parents of the children involved. Based on their feedback, we will work to improve on our stories and create the animations for the stories to be put on VCDs.

13. Phase 4 – Publication & Distribution In this final phase, our group will send our edited draft to the publisher. Eventually, we will distribute our publication to various non-profit autism-related organizations, and needy families with autistic children.

14. Delegation of roles (I) PhaseCoordinator Phase 1: Development & Creation of Resources Ferris and Kai Zhi Phase 2: Reading & Interaction Sessions Joseph Phase 3: Feedback and Improvement Yi Sheng Phase 4: Publication and DistributionZhe Wei

15. Each of us is delegated a role to ensure maximum efficiency in the development and production of our resources. We are meeting every Friday afternoon to evaluate our progress and brainstorm for more effective designs. Delegation of roles (II)

16. Timeline PhaseTime Frame Phase 1: Development & CreationSep 2006 to June 2007 Phase 2: Reading & InteractionJune 2007 to August 2007 Phase 3: Feedback & Improvements July / August 2007 Phase 4: Publication and Distribution September 2007 to December 2007

17. Reflections We are carrying out regular self and group reflections to aid in our growth process and also in improving our service rendered.

18. Sample reflections One major challenge that the whole team faces is the lack of experience in understanding and handling autistic children. We are learning to overcome this by talking to the social workers at Fei Yue and consulting our seniors who have worked with autistic children before.

19. Acknowledgements We would like to thank our teacher-mentor for guiding us in this project, social workers and therapists at Fei Yue for allowing us to serve the autistic children there.

20. Thank you!