human sexuality education

Learning from Temple Grandin

/ sarahlcurtiss

I had the honor of presenting at the Champaign-Urbana Autism Conference where Temple Grandin was the key note speaker. So much of her message could be applied to human sexuality instruction.

  • Don’t yell “no!” Calmly tell people what they should be doing. (Dr. Grandin was talking about putting her finger in her water cup at the dinner table, but the same rule applies to masturbation).
  • Give lots and lots of examples of what falls within a category and it will eventually build up the concept you are working on. (Dr. Grandin was talking about understanding church steeples but the same strategy can be used to understand body parts).
  • Once you have a concept down use that concept to expand. (Dr. Grandin was talking about airplanes, but the same principle applies to privacy – one you get private body parts down you can use the concept of privacy to understand places and ideas).
  • And from Eustacia Cutler (Dr. Grandin’s mother), “The more we understand how autism [and sexuality] works the less anxious we become.” And sexuality added.

I focused on goals for sexuality instruction across the lifespan (exploring, understanding boundaries, coping with changes, and living your story) as well as modalities for instruction (socialization, formal lessons, behavior planning, and advocacy).  You can find my presentation here.

 

Guest Room

/ sarahlcurtiss

Guest Room is a short film Written & Directed by Joshua Tate and starring Lauren Potter (“Glee”) and Michael Iovine.  It won the Audience Award (Competition Short) at SXSW 2015.

I think you are going to love this movie.  It’s beautiful, emotional, and honest.  I could easily see this being used in a human sexuality classroom to help discuss parenting, consent, and support from families.  It follows the story of a young couple who are faced in a situation many young couples find themselves in, an unexpected pregnancy.  Like many young couples, the response of their families  is shock and disappointment and this makes it difficult to determine their own feelings, hopes, and wants.

There was one statistic that was mentioned in the film that I had not heard before.  It said that a women with Down Syndrome has a 50% chance of having a child with Down Syndrome.  I did a little digging to see if I could find out more and received some help from The Tech Geneticist a  project from the University of Stanford which seeks to increase the public understanding of genetics.  About half of the eggs of a women with Down Syndrome will have an extra 21st chromosome (similar to what is described in this post http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask296).  Her actual chance of having a child with Down Syndrome is less than 50% because fetuses with extra 21st chromosomes are at increased risk of complications.  According to the National Down Syndrome Society only about 50% of women with Down Syndrome are fertile (ovulate).

It’s trickier when it comes to thinking about the father.  Much less is known about the heritability (chance of passing a genetic trait on) of Down Syndrome for men with Down Syndrome, but it may be that their sperm that carry two 21st chromosomes would be less viable than their sperm that only have one.  Both the Tech Geneticist and the National Down Syndrome Society suggested men with Down Syndrome seem to have much lower fertility rates than their same age peers with two 21st chromosomes.

High School Human Sexuality 101 Week 1: Welcome

/ sarahlcurtiss / 2 Comments

This summer, at TAP in Urbana-Champaign, we are doing an eight week human sexuality group for middle school students.  We have three boys and three girls in our group who range in age throughout the middle school years (from starting 6th grade to finishing 8th grade).   Check out the slides that accompany the lesson.

Our first week was a blast.  You can check out the full curriculum here [Sex Ed week 1].  We used a worksheet to help the students come up with their own definition of human sexuality.  I love the definition we came up with as a group, “Sometimes human sexuality topics make us feel uncomfortable, but it’s a part of life, specifically, part of our private life.  Human sexuality is about how we feel about people like loving someone and liking someone, but sometimes two people’s feelings may not match with each other. Human sexuality has to do with emotions, the body, and relationships.”

We sent a letter home with parents that explained the activities with fairly significant detail, touched on next weeks activities, and provided additional resources.  One of the important parts of this letter was suggestions for ways to incorporate these topics at home.  This week, as it was mostly about introductions, the parent component focused on using the rights and responsibilities at home.

YouTube Educational Resources: Healthchannel, Sexplanations, and CSPH

/ sarahlcurtiss

YouTube has a lost of great sexuality education resources but it can be hard to find among all of the “not safe for work” content.  Here’s a few channels and videos that might be useful.  One of the most difficult tasks sex educators report is explaining intimate acts.  This can be uncomfortable and difficult so I’ve tried to focus on these difficult to teach topics.  The videos may not be the best fit for the person/people you’re working with, but they can give you an idea where to start.  The channels also have great resources for expanding your own education on sexuality topics.

 

The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health (CSPH) has a lot of great videos.  Is one of my favorite cites.  In addition to having direct information they also have videos for parents (“Use Your Words” videos).

Healthchannel is a YouTube channel with short videos on a variety of health care issues including sexual health resources including a few I’ve listed below.  The videos aren’t prefect.  They don’t feature animations with people with disabilities and focus on heterosexual couples, but they give very precise, clear information.

Sexplanations is another YouTube channel.  They have mini episodes on human sexuality topics from shared sexual behavior to STDs to anatomy.  Again the videos aren’t perfect.  They move a little too quickly than I would like, but I’ve selected a few I think could be helpful.  They could also be good to expand your own understanding of various topics.