Free autism workshops on tap in East Brunswick Parents Of Autistic Children (POAC), a nonprofit organization located in New Jersey, offers help to families struggling with autism. The panel provides free training sessions and workshops to parents, teachers and other care providers of autistic children. The scientifically based training is designed to improve the lives of children living with autism. POAC will sponsor a five-part training series at Churchill Junior High School, Norton Road, East Brunswick. All sessions are set for 6-9 p.m. The workshop schedule is as follows: • Jan. 16 - "Teaching Functional Communication Skills" will demonstrate how incorporating B.F. Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior, as well as an understanding of how to capture and contrive motivation, promotes the development of functional communication; • Feb. 6 - "Structuring the Home Environment for Success," featuring the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA) that have offered a basis for many successful school programs for children with autism, will provide parents and caregivers with specific strategies for structuring the home environment in a way that will offer optimal benefit; • Feb. 12 - "Teaching Cooperation and Reducing Problem Behaviors" will supply parents and caregivers of those with autism with practical procedures to use in the home to increase cooperative behaviors and decrease problem behaviors;• Feb. 27 - "Teaching Adaptive Life Skills in the Home," which will help participants utilize the principles of ABA to teach adaptive life skills in the home to foster independence and provide guidelines for using antecedent manipulations and reinforcement-based strategies to decrease the food refusal of selective eaters, also will review a toilet-training protocol created by Foxx and Azrin as well as various modifications that may be used based upon individual cognitive or physical issues; • March 4 - "Increasing Social Opportunities for Children withAutism" will provide parents, teachers, and caregivers of children with autism with an overview of strategies to effectively teach and generalize social skills in the home and community. For more information on all sessions, call Simone or Gary at (732) 888-1000 or log on to www.poac.net.