Autism Friendly Computer Lessons at My Small Factory

Alex at Small Factory Productions making his Wall-E movie

Alex loves the computer. In fact, he pretty much has stolen my prizy purple laptop and declares that it is his. He loves to go into the graphics program and draw pictures and logos and lately he has been going into Word and writing us letters about the way he feels. He has mad computer skills and it is something he really enjoys doing.

We recently found out about a relatively local business, Small Factory Productions, that gives computer animation and multi-media classes to kids. The owner is autism-friendly and welcomes children of all abilities. Alex went a few weeks ago to his first class and struggled a bit transitioning into the class. Ok, he melted down. He didn't want to do the flash animation and spent the entire class playing in PhotoBooth and KidPics. The decision was made to try private classes for a bit until he was comfortable and then down the road try a group class again. He had off last week for scheduling reasons and this week he has been asking every day for his computer class. We had a little talk about behavior and he promised to try again without a meltdown.

Before class he packed a bag with some of his favorite Wall-E toys and sat down on my computer and drew a Wall-E. He told me that he wanted to go to computer class and show Chris, the owner and teacher that he could make Wall-E. We live "all wall-e, all the time!" here it seems.

So, off to computer class we went this morning and Alex was so excited. When he got there he went right into Kidpics and was drawing Wall-E very primitively. Chris showed him how using flash he could make Wall-E move across the screen so with very little resistence he got Alex into Flash and he drew a very basic Wall-E and off they went. The 2 of them worked together and drew Wall-E, Eve and Hal (the cockroach?) and made a quick movie complete with a "ending credits" - Alex loves credits. The 2 of them had a blast and Alex cannot wait to go back next week to do more.

Small Factory is located in Fair Haven, NJ for more info go to: http://www.mysmallfactory.com/