Resources

   

Overview of Resources

Our Autism-Ready Libraries resources include guides, tools, and checklists to support youth-serving librarians and library staff in their goals to improve autism-inclusion at their libraries. These resources provide tools to identify and address barriers that exist in your library for autistic children and their families, create and promote autism-inclusive early literacy programs, conduct outreach with community organizations, and more.

While our resources have been designed to support public library staff, many of these resources may be adapted to be used in other contexts:

    • School libraries and community centers can use the Environmental Audit Checklist and the Sensory Kit Checklist to address accessibility for autistic children and their families.
    • School librarians or other early literacy educators can use the Autism-Inclusive Early Literacy Program Plans to provide inclusive storytimes.
    • Parents and caregivers can use the Autism Information & Resources guide to learn more about autism and services, and the Books for Autistic Children booklist for preschool-level books to share with their children.

To go to our resources, click on the image below:

 

Our Planning Resources are a compilation of tools to support you as you make sustainable changes to include autistic children and their families at your library. This includes tools to help identify and address potential barriers in the library environment for autistic children and their families, resources to help support you in creating inclusive programs or augmenting your current programs to increase their accessibility to autistic children.

 

Our Customer Services Resources are designed to support customer services to families with autistic children. This includes tools to help increase access to the library and library programs for autistic children, including sensory kits and visual supports. Also included are tools to support parents and caregivers, including autism information resources and booklists. The autism information resource included can be used both for library staff, as well as to support the information needs of families with autistic children.

 

You may run into challenges implementing autism-inclusive practices at your library. Our Library Staff Support Resources are designed to help you as you prepare to build off your existing skills and make autism-inclusive additions. These resources include guidance on starting and maintaining a Professional Learning Community (PLC) with peers in your library branches, systems, or area, and advocacy support, such as scripts and data to help you advocate for the support you need from library and system management in order to provide inclusive programs and outreach to families with autistic children.