Breathe Into It: Using Mindfulness to Make Meaningful Changes
Late last year, CLE-Austin students took a survey to let us know what groups they would find appealing. Surprisingly, our students indicated an interest in Mindfulness! Mindfulness, as it turns out, is one of the most skillful means to break free of outdated patterns and breakthrough to greater health and well-being.
Integrity and Perseverance: Keys to Change
This month's Career Student Spotlight goes to Jeff H. Jeff is a recent graduate of the McFatter Technical School of Culinary Arts. Having graduated only 7 months ago, Jeff has already accomplished a great many things.
Creating Routines
We developed four lists for creating routines, waking up, meal planning and money management. Breaking down big goals into micro tasks can help you reach the goals you’ve been working on.
CLE’s Top Chef
At the beginning, David talked about his desire to be independent and live on his own. Although he wanted this for himself he was unsure of what it looked like and where to begin. We worked together to break down skills and focus on one goal at a time. From the very beginning a goal David had was learning how to cook.
My Open Letter: The Luckiest Brother
If you have a brother or sister getting ready to go off to college, you probably have mixed emotions. If you have a brother or sister with Autism going away to college, then you absolutely do.
Losing Measurement, Gaining Perspective
So how long is one year? And how much can we accomplish, grow, and learn in one year? It depends on who’s measuring. This year’s lesson, for me, has been to break the stick that we measure ourselves by.
Interview with a CLE Mentor and Mentee
I had the pleasure to sit down with Coral and her CLE mentor, Kelsey, for an interview about mentoring.
What Does it Mean to be a Feminist with a Disability?
You only need to turn on the news today to see that there is a renewed importance surrounding the concept of feminism and the overall treatment of women in society.
Finding Love at CLE: Student Spotlight
I would love to introduce you to a couple who met here at CLE and have cultivated their relationship over the past 11 months. They were holding hands throughout the interview and very attentive to each other’s verbalizations.
An Ideal Partner: CLE Students Talk About Their Model Relationships
I set about asking students in Austin what they want in their ideal partner and we got some great qualities listed. Very few students talked about physical traits that they want in a partner, most talk about the personal qualities that they think are important to them in a relationship.
Clear Communication – It’s not so Clear…
Communication is the key to connection and the key to getting what we want and need in life. But the how, when, why, and where of communicating effectively is not so easy.
My Open Letter: Parent to Parent – There Is Much To Address
You’re approaching your child’s transition from high school to adulthood, and I have a guess what you’re feeling. You may be intimidated about choosing what’s next for your child. Just getting your child through K-12 may have absorbed all your attention until now. You may find leaving behind familiar supports feels risky, like launching a rowboat on the open sea.
Neurodiversity – A Civil and Human Right
Neurodiversity is not just a new word, it’s a concept, a scientific and human based approach to neurological differences; it’s a movement to destigmatize and empower a large group of our population. When we speak of neurodiversity, we are asserting that our neurological differences are as fundamental to our humanity as the colors of our skin, the cultures and beliefs that shape us and our orientations.
Myths About Autism
Have you heard some of these common myths about autism… “Everyone with autism is ‘anti-social’ and doesn’t want friends,” or “People with autism are all pretty much alike,” or “People with autism don’t feel any emotion?”
Supporting a Community of Neurodiverse Students
Neurodiversity is the concept that neurological differences such as Autism, ADD, and ADHD are the result of naturally occurring variations within the human genome. Neurodiversity promotes and embraces our differences. This way of thinking focuses more on accommodating and supporting the neurodiverse population rather than looking for a cure or a way to "fix" the behaviors exhibited by those with neurological differences.
A Person is More than their Diagnosis
Images, stereotypes, and ideas of diagnoses, we all have them. If I were to name a few, I imagine that a few images might be conjured in your head. For example, if I mentioned Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), you might picture a boy running around the room while a teacher is struggling to teach a class. If I brought up the term, Reading Disorder, you might picture a young girl reading a series of letters in the wrong order. If I said, "he has an anxiety disorder," you might picture a man struggling with leaving the house, shivering in a corner.
Preparing Young Adults for the Workforce: A Successful Experience for Employer and Employee
One of the most important aspects of adult life can be finding a rewarding career that provides the opportunity to contribute, learn, and grow personally and professionally.
How Do You Make Your Apartment Your Home?
We took a short survey of a handful of our students and asked them how they decorate and add those touches of personality and comfort to make their apartments a home. These are their responses and some pictures of the very personalized abodes of some of our students.
Sharing Space: CLE Denver Roommates Talk About How They Co-Decorate
In the ILS Department at CLE, we work with student roommates on various living skills in their apartments.
Adulting: The #Struggle and How We Overcome It
Everyday stories of adulting induce a collective sigh in millennial culture and are important for acknowledging the gap between achievement, expectation, and reality. Growing up is hard, and the challenge isn't rooted in grit, character, or ownership – it's in resources and opportunity. Young people today have been protected more than they've been prepared, and it's time that we take a different approach.