Description
- Subject Area: Storytime
- Type: Online seminar course
- Length: 4 hours
- Level: aimed at public library staff
- Organisers: Griffith University, First5Forever and AutismCRC
- Presenter: Marleen Westerveld
- Format: Online Moodle course
- Date: Completed 30/8/2020
This online course aimed to give the attendee an overview on the characteristics of autism, the emergent literacy development of children on the spectrum and then provide ways to modify and adapt storytime sessions for children with autism.
I attended this online course to help broaden my knowledge of how to manage a storytime session that could be attended by children with autism. My team leader had also signed me up for the training without my knowledge, but thought the knowledge gained from the course would be useful for when we go back to presenting sessions.
This training is very relevant to my current position working within a public library because we are facilitating children literacy sessions daily. There is also a good chance that we do have children with autism attending without our knowledge, so it would be beneficial to gain some ideas on what I could be doing to help them enjoy the sessions.
Although in the past they have offered this training face to face, but due to restrictions it was placed online. I would of benefited more from the in-person training style for it being more hands on, but this was still a beneficial training. Although I already knew some of the basic information presented, it was helpful to gain a greater understanding on autism and how I could be helping these children within my presented storytime sessions.
With the knowledge gained in this training I will be able to modify my sessions for wherever I could have children with autism attending. It has also got me wanting to take it to my team leader to see if we could present the occasional storytime exclusively aimed for children with autism.
