Membership Site

New On-Line Portal for Teachers, SNAs and Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at school

A new comprehensive, practical on-line portal for teachers, SNAs and parents.

It shares the most effective, up-to-the minute and most easily accessible information about how to support, develop and optimise the communication skills and sensory development of each child with ASD at school.

This portal has been created by two consultant speech & language therapists – Karen O’Connor & Carmel Burke – who have over fifty years of collective experience working with children with ASD both at home and at school.

It has been created as an on-line portal so that teachers, SNAs, SETs and parents can easily and readily access answers to all their questions relating to each child’s communication development, language development, sensory development, setting up the classroom as an optimum learning environment and developing Student Support plans to name but a few areas.

By accessing this portal you will learn ways to:

deepen your understanding of each child with ASD’s sensory and communication needs within the classroom
provide the right support for each child with ASD in the classroom by identifying and understanding their specific sensory and communication needs
increase appropriate behaviour and communication by decreasing behaviours of concern using different sensory-diet strategies and programmes.
reduce what appear to be ‘destructive’ or ‘aggressive’ behaviours within the classroom and in doing so optimise the experience for each child in the class
optimise the child with ASD’s ability to be calm, listen and learn effectively within the classroom
reduce your own stress levels by understanding the child with ASD better
be a valuable and knowledgeable resource in ASD for parents and colleagues alike.

All of this will be available to you at the touch of a button on our new on-line portal.

Karen has been featured in

What is OpeningYourMind.com for Teachers?

Karen created OpeningYourMind.com for use at home or at school. The website is full of ideas, techniques, speech therapy courses and sessions, sensory sessions and programmes, video courses and video programmes developed by Karen to help children with all kinds of speech, language, communication and sensory difficulties to progress and achieve their true potential.

These programmes are suitable for children from 2-18 years and can be carried out at home or at school.

If you have any children in your class who are presenting with such difficulties, then we have the programmes for you.

What Teachers say about OpeningYourMind.com

"It's a great resource for teachers. We are getting such positive feedback from parents of kids we are working with this year. Parents are impressed with the way their programmes have been specifically tailored to their child’s needs. We developed each child’s programme based on the information and programmes from Karen’s membership site."

Principal of a Dublin school

"Karen is very compelling, very experienced and I love her holistic approach to overcoming difficulties. I also love that she is not focused on labels and is willing to look closely at children's individual needs. The videos are very helpful to inform planning for SEN children in our school. They have given us new ideas and most of all they have given us a new way of thinking about how we plan for SEN in our school."

Principal of a Co. Dublin school

How we support teachers, children and parents?

We will teach you how to:

Truly understand what is causing the child’s challenges
Look at all of the Pieces of the Jigsaw with the child to help them to progress in all areas including speech, language, attention, listening, interaction and engagement and learning in general.
Learn the most effective, up-to-the-minute speech and sensory techniques to help the child to be calm, regulated and improving in speech and language development
Understand how techniques such as sound therapy can develop the child’s speech, language and sensory skills quickly and easily
Use techniques that impact the neuroplasticity of the brain to speed up the child’s progress in all areas
Create Therapeutic Listening sound therapy programmes for the children that you
work with.
Help each child in your classroom achieve their greatest potential!

Our Courses & Programmes

Speech Therapy Courses

Course 1

Does my child really have Autism (ASD)?

Course 2

How to really help a child with Dyspraxia achieve their greatest potential?

Course 3

How can we really help children with Sensory processing difficulties (SPD)?

Course 4

Is Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) or Auditory processing disorder (APD) really for life? No!

Course 5

Does my child really have ADHD?

Course 6

How to help a child with Global developmental delay (GDD) achieve their true potential?

Course 7

How to help children with Intellectual disability achieve their greatest potential?

Spotlight Programmes

Programme 1

“Why does my child not like hugs & kisses?”
The Touch Sense

Programme 2

“Why is my child’s eye-contact so poor?”
The Visual Sense

Programme 3

“Why is my child so busy, moving all the time?”
The Movement Sense

Programme 4

“Why is my child’s speech so poor?”
The Oral Sense

Programme 5

“Why does my child cover his ears to certain sounds?”
The Auditory Sense

€1500

€ 1400 Up to 5 users for 12 Months

Unlimited Access
Monthly Q&As for Teachers
Full Courses & Treatments
Spotlight Courses
Downloads & Resources
Library of Live Sessions
Growing library of content being added all the time

Great Value