A digital tool for early autism stimulation
Help is in Your Hands is a digital tool created by the MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis, to teach stimulation strategies to families of children diagnosed with autism at an early age. These strategies can be implemented in daily life and in their natural environment. This free tool is now also available in Spanish , thanks to an adaptation by the Fundació Autisme Mas Casadeval and the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona , with the collaboration of the "la Caixa" Foundation and the advice of the MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis.
The digital platform consists of four modules that, through various videos depicting real-life situations of families with young children with autism, illustrate how everyday activities can be used to teach children to connect, communicate, and learn. It is a tool that adapts the Denver Model of early intervention for children with autism for implementation in community settings and services, making it easy and engaging for families and therapists to use.
Anyone can access Help is in your hands and open a free account at: https://es.helpisinyourhands.org/
Drs. Sally Rogers and Aubyn Stahmer , authors of the original English version of *Help is in Your Hands *, explained the objective of this new tool during a presentation organized by Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in Barcelona on October 19th: “The Denver Model was created for highly specialized professionals in autism and early intervention. But then we realized it was necessary to develop a tool that could put the active ingredients of the interventions we have researched for so many years into the hands of families and therapists around the world , to reach places where they might not have access to an autism specialist,” explained Rogers. To achieve this, “we needed to create engaging materials that require little time and include examples linked to daily life, because parents are the people who spend the most time with their children at home, and they are also the most important people in their lives,” she added.
Stahmer, for her part, emphasized that the fact that it is an adaptation does not mean it loses effectiveness and that " it is not a lighter intervention ." In this regard, she stressed the need and importance of "reaching as many families as possible in order to impact the maximum number of children with autism."
" Help is in Your Hands is a tool that does not intend for parents to become therapists, nor does it replace the guidance of the therapist, but it helps families to continue stimulating the child in their natural environment and at all times," as explained by María Díez-Juan and Aritz Aranbarri , two of the professionals specializing in autism at the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in Barcelona who have led its adaptation into Spanish, within the framework of the TEA CARE Mas Casadevall program.
Dr. David G. Amaral
The event also included testimonials from some of the families who have been able to use this tool thanks to the pilot version in Spanish, who highly valued being able to visualize real situations implemented by other families to learn strategies that they can apply in their daily lives.
TEA CARE is a collaborative project that seeks the involvement of citizens, through donations to the solidarity initiatives platform of the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital Barcelona .
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