My passion lies in education and more specifically in inspiring shared experiences and building positive memories for children and adolescents on the autism spectrum.
Early on in my career, I realised that this is the most effective way to teach new skills. My duty as a teacher is to create stimulating learning opportunities that elicit active participation and communication.
In my practice I use Attention Autism to create stories, to provide visual and sensory experiences, to promote co-operation and to teach the social and functional skills that children and adolescents on the autism spectrum need in order to develop their independence.
As an Attention Autism Advanced Practitioner I have run many workshops and collaborated with parents, teaching staff, speech and language therapists and outside agencies to develop fun, creative and practical learning strategies to support pupils.
For example, I recently collaborated with teachers to create sensory stories that were based on the special interests of their students and through which the children had the opportunity to learn about turn-taking and sharing. Also, I worked with parents to create a series of motivating games and activities to help their children improve their diet.
I have been working as an ASD consultant and as an ASD educator for many years, most recently as a Communication Lead Teacher in Sheffield and ASD Lead Teacher in schools in London. I have an Honours degree in Psychology & Pedagogics (Kapodestrian University of Athens) and an MSc in Child and Adolescent Mental Health (King’s College London).