World Autism Awareness Day

Origami Resource Center:

Some therapists have found that origami helps those with low self esteem, anxiety, ADHD, autism, mental retardation, and other psychological conditions.

Mrs. Granda's supplies project in order to teach origami to kids with ADHD and/or Asperger's, from 2 years ago:

Thank you so much for your donations to this origami project proposal. The books and papers have arrived and my students are thoroughly enjoying the art of origami! Students come to borrow the books and paper for study hall, their time with our Behavior Specialist, and to make copies to take home. Origami has become a trend in our high school classes. Students are teaching each other how to make new things and sharing ideas. It is really cool for me to see younger students (who have difficulty reading) able to "read" the visual instructions in the origami books. All throughout the art program, origami is helping build my students' confidence. I posted pictures of my students checking out the books on the day they arrived. My high school class took a break from the current project to enjoy the new supplies!

I'm sure many readers have heard of "The Strange Case of Origami Yoda" by Tom Angleberger.  Less known perhaps is that Mr. Angleberger has Asperger Syndrome.

Tom, whom I interviewed last year, has Asperger Syndrome and has never made a big deal of it — never even spelled out that   Dwight, the hero of his Origami Yoda series, has Asperger Syndrome, too.

Temple Grandin:

You know, all I wanted to do was draw pictures of horses when I was little. My mother said, "Well let's do a picture of something else." They've got to learn how to do something else. Let's say the kid is fixated on Legos. Let's get him working on building different things. The thing about the autistic mind is it tends to be fixated. Like if a kid loves racecars, let's use racecars for math. Let's figure out how long it takes a racecar to go a certain distance. In other words, use that fixation in order to motivate that kid, that's one of the things we need to do.

One of the autistic kids I used to work with in gymnastics had a fixation with planes.  He could tell you everything you ever needed to know about them.  I tried to impress him with paper gliders but he never took to much interest in those.

If anyone knows of any other good links to stories related to origami and autism, drop me a link.