-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx
To: drpat9355
Sent: Mon, Aug 8, 2011 5:23 pm
Subject: Parent Registration



Your Name: xxxxxxx
City: xxxxxx
State: xx
Zip Code: xxxxx2
Country: USA
Email: xxxxxx@ymail.com
School age/group of my child: Primary
Type of school my child is now attending: Home school
Tutor hours needed: Part time: 30-40hr/wk
I have a third party who will be training my tutors.: No
Comments:: How do you mean training the tutors?
I would like to know if they have experience with autistic children?How much
they charge an hour?
Because,I would need three tutors my three children are autistic.Two of them are
high function and one is asperger syndrome.So,if you could help I would
appreciate it.Thank you




-----Original Message-----
From: drpat9355
To: xxxxx
Sent: Sun, Aug 14, 2011 6:20 pm
Subject: Re: Parent Registration


Dear xxxx,

My heart goes out to you for the challenges you have to deal with. I have one child with autism (now 18 years old) and feel I have been challenged to near my limits in working with him.

First, I recommend that you go to the following web page of links on our web site:
http://www.autismtutors.com/Links.html

These are all programs that we have found to useful for our son over the last 18 years in controlling his behavior, and bringing out his ability to express himself appropriately both verbally and in social situations. (He's not Cary Grant yet, but we're still working on him! :) ).

After you review the links, you can see the tremendous amount of information available to help your children. After you have had a chance to educate yourself some more, then you will be better able to determine whether you want to find a tutor who won't need training (which I suggest for you at the beginning.) As you learn and become better educated about the different programs, you can then be better suited to train tutors who know less than you do. If you find one tutor which is quite knowledgable, that tutor can help you to train others who might not know as much.

I didn't get a chance to ask how old your children are. The younger the children are, the greater success you are likely to have with them.

As far as how much the tutors charge, the amount they charge will depend on their experience level and how much training they need. An experienced tutor that knows what to do for you will be more expensive; a novice tutor with little experience will be less expensive, but will need more direction.

I'm not sure how effective it will be for one tutor to work with more than one child at a time. There will be many distractions that will reduce the teaching effectiveness with more than one student. You may wish to have two tutors come at one time--have the more experienced one work with your target student, and have the other tutor engage the other 2 children. Stategies of this type can be developed as you work with your children and find out what works and what doesn't work.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I want to mention the subject of respite care. You have your hands full!!!!! In order for you to stay strong and make the best decisions for your children, you will need to be away from them from time to time so you can develop stategies for their education and development. If you are run down and overextended, you will not be a very effective advocate for your children. For respite care, there are probably programs available in your very own city. Type in, "Respite care for parents with children with autism in Kansas City, MO" in Google search. I'm sure you will be able to find help.

Best of luck to you, and I pray that God will watch over you and guide you.

Sincerely,

Dr. Patricia Wilson

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx
To: info
Sent: Fri, Aug 5, 2011 1:29 pm
Subject: Autism Tutor


Hi,

I was browsing the Internet searching for volunteer opportunities to work with students with special needs when I came across this website. I am interested in learning more about how this outreach program works.

I am currently an Intervention Specialist in the xxxxx City School District in xxxx. This will be my 4th year teaching and I have worked with two students who are autistic for the past two years. I am interested to learn more to help them develop social skills to allow them to integrate better with peers. I am very fond of working with students with autism.

If I could be provided with more information about the program, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you for your time and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thank you,
xxxxx

xxx,

Thanks for your interest in our web site. My husband and I started the site because we have an 18 year old son on the spectrum, and found many programs to help him that required that he have one-on-one intervention to implement. We found that using non-family members was more effective, but had a great deal of trouble finding tutors to help him. I created this web site so that we and other families could find tutors to help him. Families and tutors are listed by location, and that an interested tutor such as yourself could find a family who could use your help. In Ohio, we have 250 families listed. I'm quite sure that there are at least a few families listed who are not far from you.

Also, we have a broad range of abilities in our tutors. Some are PhD candidates, some are college freshmen who have experience working with a family member, but without formal training. Many of the families will provide training for the particular types of programs they wish to implement with you for their child.

We have many links on our site for programs we've used for our own son over the years. Each link will provide quite a bit of information about the programs that are available, and can give you a jumping off point for further research on your part. Here is our link page: http://www.autismtutors.com/Links.html

You may be interested only in learning about the different types of programs available, or you may wish to work with additional families. The opportunities you may have as a result of your experience with this web site are that you may work with a child in the home setting, school setting, or in some other capacity, depending on the families' particular needs. Also the number of hours you wish to work per week are highly variable, depending on how much you want to take on.

If you are interested in finding families in your area, I suggest that you go to the following link to register:
http://www.autismtutors.com/TutorEducator.html. This page will give you more information about the registration process. Make sure that you follow the link to the Tutor Registration page. After you register, you will be directed to Paypal to make a $26.00 contribution to help run our site. Then you will be given an opportunity to create a user name and password, and returned to our site to log in. If you get lost or stuck at any point in this process, please email me and I'll provide whatever help you need.

Make sure that in the comment section, you list your credentials and what you have to offer, which would make your listing more appealing to families looking for help.

I look forward to receiving your registration, and welcoming you to our team!

Sincerely,

Dr. Patricia Wilson

Hello, my name is Ron Orr, and I'm the hidden partner behind Dr. Wilson, who helps to manage her web site. I'm also her husband, and Josh's father. Dr. Pat and I are both very proud of Josh, as he recently was on stage, by himself, in front of about 800 people, for the Shaker Heights High School spring choir concert. He signed for the song, as the choir sang, offstage. Go to this link to see it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoYDnk7Fhfc.

Welcome!

Hello, families and tutors! It has been a long time coming, but we have finally managed to add a blog to our site. I will be following up with some insights, observations, and concerns I've had with my son, Joshua, who is now 18 years old. I will also share some of the experiences we've had with tutors and different programs from our web site.