Tasks Galore

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Tasks Galore takes a look at developing tasks that address skills across curriculum areas. Task ideas are presented within the following categories:

• Fine Motor Skills: Pre-writing, writing, and computer skills
• Readiness: Matching and sorting skills
• Language Arts: Book, print and phonemic awareness, decoding and word recognition, comprehension, and vocabulary
• Math: Number sense, numeration, and numerical operations, spatial sense, measurement, patterns, relationships and functions
• Reasoning: Concepts as relate to the student’s environment: exploring materials, making predictions, generating attributes and using common objects
• Play: Art, music, manipulatives, games and independent play

About the Authors

Laurie Eckenrode, Pat Fennell, and Kathy Hearsey are former teachers of students with special needs. Much of their work has been serving in different capacities for Division TEACCH. Laurie taught in an exemplary structured teaching classroom, which she developed, and which served as a TEACCH training model. She now uses this expertise in her work as a preschool itinerant teacher/consultant. Pat served as a psychoeducational therapist with the Chapel Hill TEACCH Clinic. Kathy continues her work as a TEACCH therapist and was a former director of the TEACCH’s supported employment program. The three authors have extensively trained parents and professionals in structured teaching methodology and have won many awards for their achievements in the field of special education. Together, Laurie, Pat, and Kathy have over 65 years of experience working with exceptional children and adults.

Reviews

Gary B. Mesibov, Ph.D, Director
Division TEACCH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Tasks Galore is a wonderful collection of structured activities for children with autism spectrum disorders and related developmental disabilities. Developed by 3 splendid teachers, the activities reflect the creativity, ingenuity, and solid educational values that they brought to their classrooms. This book will be of great use to teachers, parents, and others working with this population. Activities are presented in all areas related to a comprehensive curriculum and the detailed colored photographs will allow parents and professionals to recreate these tasks in their classrooms and homes. For anyone using any structured visual materials for children with disabilities, this book is a must and will make an important contribution to their efforts. A book like this has been sorely needed for years and I am so glad that it is now available for wide distribution. I cannot imagine a more valuable resource.

Sally Ozonoff, Ph.D, Director
M.I.N.D. Institute
University of California at Davis

There are many books on autism available today, but few contain hands-on activities and practical techniques that can be used to teach children with autism. This wonderful book fills that gap. Tasks Galore contains hundreds of ideas for teaching children with autism academic, language, fine motor, play, and many other skills. Detailed color photographs of task ideas will help both parents and providers capitalize on the unique visual strengths of children with autism. This book will be a valuable resource for trainees in education, psychology, speech-language pathology, and many other disciplines. Tasks Galore will also be appreciated by seasoned educators, therapists, and parents looking for new programming ideas. I highly recommend it.