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To Dance with Fireflies ~ Iowa Falls Style

Enjoy a walk around Iowa Falls, IA, the setting of To Dance with Fireflieswith Stephen Grant and his “Audie.” Enjoy the Scenic City and always dance with fireflies in your heart.

How to Teach a Child with ASD to SMILE

My father was a huge influence in my life and ultimately, in my career. He was not a professional man. He was patriotic. He worked hard. He was kind and generous. He owned a café, The Red Rooster in Iowa Falls, IA. I worked there, first as a dishwasher, then as a waitress, and what I loved most, as a fry cook. I learned a lot about all three of those jobs but what I remember most was the big, wooden, carved sign that my dad had specially made. It hung over the door just as one exited the kitchen and went out into the main dinning room. Nobody could miss it and who would want to. In its simplicity, it read, “You’re not dressed unless you’re wearing your smile.”

A smile is a social thing, you know. People on the spectrum have difficulty with social things to say the least. I’m going to dig in here and give you some ideas of how you can help. In fact, I’m going to say, you MUST help because it IS that important.
All of the following ideas/strategies are based on speech/language therapy. I’m going to share many things about what our family personally did and continues to do.
• Imitation of making funny faces in a mirror (always in a turn taking manner with the adult sitting behind or beside the child)
• Tickling (always to a similar theme – when our son was young we’d roll on the floor together and I’d say, “Doug, tell me your secret to thinness.” I’d tickle and we’d laugh)
• Water play in a bucket – bath time for parents – pour, paint, play, sing, read
• Slapstick humor – watching the old Laurel/Hardy, Three Stooges, Andy Hardy movies TOGETHER.
• Favorite cartoon books – what is the child’s favorite that is non-violent? Doug liked Garfield and we still have the entire set. We drew them. Talked about them. Wrote new ones. Do you see the WE here?
• What’s silly about that? This is one of the most effective means of teaching a person how to look at a scenario and find a silly response. (my blog of July 21, 11 describes this in depth – take a look)
• Taking pictures and looking at pictures of people smiling (discriminate between them)
• Use Photo Booth on an iPad and make goofy pictures of yourself and client
• Teach how and why smiles are part of communication
• Role play using typical peers discriminating between giving and not giving smiles to see how to elicit a smile back
• Put yourself in silly, verbal situations such as, “Today I rode my horse to school and could not find a place to park him.”
• Put yourself in silly, physical situations such as, “I dropped my pencil and it’s very heavy to pick up. It must weight 1000 pounds.” (animation ~ animation)
• Let parents/caregivers know how important smiles are to overall communication
• Put a big SMILE sign in your therapy setting or carry one with you attached to a tongue depressor. Hold the sign up by YOUR face and smile back.

Redundancy ~ Daily practice
All team members ~ Include parents ~ Make it fun
Make it functional
It is social survival

A smile is contagious, infectious, catching, communicable, and transmittable.
I want all SLPs and parents to go to one public place this week.
SMILE at two people at this place.
Do not smile at two people at this place.
Comment on this blog what communicative, kind, social, reciprocal results you find
“When You’re Smilin’”

To Dance with Fireflies February Special

Fireflies is set in Iowa Falls, IA. A mainstream romance and key words are: Vietnam Vet, PTSD, 199th Infantry, love, war, grief, Down syndrome, family, reminiscing, friendships, and so much that you will love reading as either a man or woman.

Email Kathie at kathieh2@cox.net and so that your copy of To Dance with Fireflies and your buckeye can get in the mail ASAP! Only $13.00 + postage + a buckeye to you for Good Luck ~ we all need more of that.

Kathie Harrington, Literary Spotlight in Las Vegas Review Journal – View

VIEW STAFF – Las Vegas Review Journal
Posted: Jan. 22, 2013 | 12:18 a.m.
Las Vegas resident Kathie Harrington is the author of two books on autism, “Tears of Laughter – Tears of Pain” and “I Never Told My Son He Couldn’t Dance,” and the children’s book, “Bayo, The Boo Cow.” A speech language pathologist, Harrington graduated with her master’s degree from Truman State in Kirksville, Mo.

In her first novel, “To Dance with Fireflies,” Harrington’s heroine, Audrey Benway, leaves Las Vegas to travel to her hometown, Iowa Falls, Iowa. While there, she revisits a past filled with romance and loss. Despite her commitment to her husband and children at home, Audrey can’t help but wonder what became of Stephen Grant. The man who never knew he was the father of her first child still haunts Audrey’s thoughts after 25 years. When her friends tell her he recently returned to town, Audrey can’t resist calling on him.

For more information on Harrington’s novel, visit willowmoonpublishing.com.

EXCERPT FROM ‘TO DANCE WITH FIREFLIES’

All of a sudden, there they were dancing before her. Audrey had almost forgotten about the magic of fireflies. How could she? How could anyone forget the waltzes, the two-steps, the Charleston’s, the line dances, the beauty and mystery that surrounded every Midwestern summer’s evening? The fields were ablaze with delight, and her eyes were glowing as bright as the lanterns that shined from the millions of fireflies dancing in the Iowa fields. They never seemed to end. Miles and miles, dances and dances, their show went on with a streak here and a bolt there. Into the bushes and out again – no rest at night – fireflies had business to watch over. The sunshine of the day would be their repose. Audrey caught them as a child. She followed them into the bushes as an adolescent. She ignored them as a young adult and even moved away from both of their homes.

How would she relate to the fireflies of Iowa today? The winds that blew through her life between yesterday and her life today were strands of memory cohesively held by her perceptions of a world that was, and the island she had fashioned. She imagined the winds calm, the past as settled, and the fields standing silent in their vigil.

However, for Audrey Benway, the winds were kicking up, and fireflies were dancing all around her.

**** Get your copies of any of the books from Kathie and they will be AUTOGRAPHED. Contact Kathie at her E mail address: kathieh2@cox.net

To Dance with Fireflies 2013 Gift from Author Kathie Harrington

A FREE Harmony mouse pad with each printed copy of To Dance with Fireflies. That’s right, I have a limited supply of Harmony mouse pads ready to send to you ~ 1 per copy. It’s a BUNDLE of the Harmony and Fireflies!

Here’s how to order your copy today: E Mail me at kathieh2@cox.net with “Fireflies order” as the subject. Let me know how many copies you’d like and we’ll go from there.

REMEMBER: To Dance with Fireflies is on sale for $13.00 + shipping

“The harmony of life ~ is love.” Read more about To Dance with Fireflies and the 199 th Infantry as well as the books connection to the Vietnam War. And the romance ~ yes, Fireflies is definitely, unmistakably, a romance.

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