Free Online

This curriculum has been developed by various organization and available free online from their websites.

Advocates for Youth – Sex Education Lesson Plans

/ Madison D'Avella

Advocates for Youth is an organization that is dedicated to improving sexual and reproductive health among adolescents and securing the rights of young people.

Advocates for Youth recognizes that sex education should equip people with tools to make informed decisions about sex and relationships, instead of withholding information and telling young people not to have sex.

The organization works with AMAZE to publish animated videos that provide children and adolescents with accessible and age-appropriate sexual information. More information about AMAZE can be found here.

Advocates for Youth offers a K-12 sex education curriculum specifically for students with intellectual disabilities that includes all of the topics the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has labeled as essential. The curriculum emphasizes the importance of rights, respect, and responsibility, and covers topics such as gender identity, race, and healthy relationships. This curriculum can be found on the Advocates for Youth website, linked here.

In addition to making efforts to improve sexual education in the classroom, Advocates for Youth hosts virtual and in-person events for people interested in learning more! Some of their previous events involved discussions about STIs, abortion, and consent.

Sex Ed for Self-Advocates

/ Sarah Durante

The Organization for Autism Research (OAR) was founded by parents and grandparents. OAR strives to use science to address social, educational, and treatment concerns in the Autism community. Their mission is to fund research, provide useful information and resources to the community, as well as hold programs to improve quality of life for individuals with Autism.

The OAR has put together an online guide for sexuality and sex ed. This guide is self-paced and intended for people on the Autism Spectrum aged 15 and older. This guide consists of nine modules: Public vs Private, Puberty, Healthy Relationships, Consent, Dating 101, Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity, Am I Ready?, Sexual Activity, Online Relationships and Safety. Each module consists of a video overview and 10-15 smaller sections.

This guide is completely free and can be accessed at the link below:

Sex Ed

More Info. Less Weird. AMAZE Takes the Awkward Out of Sex Ed

/ stuti1993 / Leave a comment

These days, it is hard to find an age appropriate content about sex, dating and abuse. Children have questions about their bodies, gender and reproduction. Teenagers worry if their bodies are developing normally or not while older adolescents struggle with peer pressure, changing relationships and emerging sexual feelings. AMAZE is an amazing website for parents and educators which helps them to expose their child to age appropriate content about sex through short videos. The website provides an insight to young people to successfully understand puberty, healthy body image, distinguish between healthy and unhealthy relationships, concepts of consent and mutual respect. Video topics are designed to meet the learning objectives outlined in the National Sexuality Education Standards.

Parents are the primary sexual educators of their children. By answering children’s questions, a parent let them know that you are “askable” and establishes an open line of communication that will serve you and your children well as they mature into sexually healthy young adults.

AMAZE also has resources for younger children like the parents’ playlist from amaze jr. It is designed to help parents become comfortable and confident talking to their children openly and honestly at any age.

https://amaze.org/

There are some videos for parents reference.

This video will help parents to know when to talk about sexuality with their kids.

Do you think so playing “doctor – doctor” is safe or not? Check this video out which helps you to communicate your thinking and others about this game.

This video will model to the adolescents with disabilities to learn about manage their relationships with person they like or have attractions. This video guide them to deal with peer pressure and make healthy relationship.

This video helps your child to understand their body parts, difference between a male and female, and similarities between boy and girl.

https://youtu.be/wW627gpkWbw

The Healthy Bodies Toolkit

/ sarahlcurtiss

Healthy bodiesThis publication was developed and written by Vanderbilt Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND).  There is a boy version and girl version.  Each version has a booklet for parents or teachers and supplemental materials which include storyboards and visuals that you can use in implementing the methods outlined in the toolkit.  It is free and there is a Spanish version!

Here is the website: https://vkc.vumc.org/healthybodies/

Adult Human Sexuality Curriculum

/ Veronica

These curricula materials are for educators working with young adults. It is a bit more in depth than the high school curriculum and discusses human sexuality in a broader sense.AdultHumanSexuality

High School Human Sexuality Curriculum

/ Veronica
This is the session of Human Sexuality 101 was offered by The Autism Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. This group was designed for three high school/young adult girls and boys with ASD.   The teens in this group were bright and engaging and have had a little formal exposure to sexuality concepts, but still struggle with the more nuanced facets. Many of these activities could be adapted for groups of various sizes and ability levels.

You can find all of our lesson plans for the high school human sexuality classes here.

HighSchoolHumanSexuality

F.L.A.S.H.

/ sarahlcurtiss

flashFLASH is a curriculum that was developed in the Seattle area and was adapted for students with special needs.  It’s free and has some nice lesson plans.  I don’t usually use any of them from start to finish on their own, but it’s a starting place to get ideas.  Did I mention that it’s free?  Many of the lessons have “transparencies” that are in Power Point form.

Free Curriculum and Parent Resources

/ sarahlcurtiss

A lot of the curriculum we used for the puberty unit of our Human Sexuality 101 group was adapted from “Teaching Sexual Health“.  They are a group out of Canada that provides support for teachers and parents.  I used their general curriculum but they also have a curriculum for students of differing ability levels.  They have great resources for parents including “webisodes” that give examples of parents talking to kids about sexuality topics.  The website is very well organized and easy to use!

Image

Free Curriculum- Parent Version, Teacher Version, Spanish Version

/ sarahlcurtiss

ImageI’m really excited about this free curriculum, “Sexuality Across the Lifespan” by: DiAnn L. Baxley and Anna L. Zendell.  It has versions for educators, teachers, and Spanish speakers.  You can view the curriculum by clicking on the links below.

What makes this special?  They do a nice job at adjusting lessons for different age groups, giving ideas for supplemental activities, and giving ideas for incorporating the topics into routines.  The parent version really focuses on how to reinforce healthy sexual development through interactions and daily routines.

This curriculum in not comprehensive but does have sections on social skills, dating, sexual abuse, puberty, and anatomy.  I hope you find this useful!

Introduction to Sexuality Education for Individuals Who Are Deaf-Blind and Significantly Developmentally Delayed

/ sarahlcurtiss

I found this great (free) book online.  Although it targets parents, caregivers, and professionals who work with individuals who are deaf-blind and significantly developmentally delayed- you may find useful info even if this not your target population.  Kate Moss & Robbie Blaha’s overall approach to education considers four basic tools for instruction: routines, units, teachable moments, and behavior plans.  Chapters include …

Chapter 1 – Introduction
Chapter 2 – Sexuality Education
Chapter 3 – Developing an Instruction Plan
Chapter 4 – Modesty
Chapter 5 – Appropriate Touch and Personal Boundaries
Chapter 6 – Menstruation
Chapter 7 – Masturbation
Chapter 8 – Sexual Health Care
Chapter 9 – Sexual Abuse

I just want to highlight a couple of things I found particularly useful.  They provide instructions for developing a sexual education policy and provide a model policy as well as sample permission forms.  I also thought that their plan for supporting with menstruation was well thought out and useful.

There’s also the Texas School for the Blind and Visually-Impaired’s website, which offers some strategies for supporting and educating visually impaired individuals about many topics such as gender roles, social skills, personal safety, gender identity, sexual language, masturbation, and reproductive anatomy.