Welcome to my learning journey for the Teaching Students with Autism course through Queen's University. I created this blog to document my learning, to reflect, to collect resources and tools, and to share and discuss supporting students with ASD and other exceptionalities.
I am continually working toward improving my teaching practice and creating an inclusive and supportive learning environment for all of my students. My hope is that I will continue to add to this resource over time and use it as a tool to refer back to and share with colleagues.
Navigating the Blog
The blog posts are organized from learning and reflections at the beginning of the course and working backward. The further back you go, the newer the posts are just to make it easier to go through, so the date stamps do not reflect the order of the posts.
You can access my reflections by clicking the "Reflections" label on the right-hand side.
Commenting
I welcome your comments! Please share with me your ideas, favorite resources, links, etc.
Think about how you could use this video in your own life. Include things like how you might use this video? Do you have reservations around protecting students’ rights to privacy? Are your students mature enough to be thoughtful about this information? Does this video fit in with your school’s culture?
This video informs about autism in such a child-friendly and positive way. I think I would use this in my class for sure to teach about strengths, stretches, and diversity along with some of Adriene Gear’s “Powerful Understanding” lessons about diversity. This video can be a wonderful tool to promote discussion of how to support our peers when they encounter challenges. One thing I did notice was that the video did not use person-first language, but that is something that I could always have a conversation about with my students. I do have reservations about protecting students’ privacy, but I think this can be shared along with many other videos, storybooks, and photos celebrating the diversity of people in our communities.
I think many students are mature enough to handle this video and have a conversation about neurological differences. Exposing students to diversity is important in changing their perceptions of people different from them and creating a more accepting society in the future. For instance, my students know that I have a wife and that is important for them to know to understand that people, despite their difference, are still people. My students are very respectful and open-minded learners.
Yes, this video fits into my school culture. Every class in my school has at least two students with exceptional needs (1 of which has autism), so students are aware that some of their peers have learning differences. Diversity is acknowledged and celebrated in my school.
Write one or two sentences in response to Silberman’s claim that we need “understanding teachers, accommodating employers, supportive communities and, parents who have faith in their children’s potential.”
In response to Silberman's words, I think many of us are here because we do have faith in the potential of children with autism, and we want to learn how to best support these children as much as we can.
Autism is a complex condition that affects brain development and results in differences in social interaction, communication, interests and behaviour. (British Columbia Ministry of Health, n.d.)
Three domains affected: Social interactions, communication, and interests and behavior in the DSM IV and now only 2 areas observed for diagnosis: social impairment and ritualistic behaviour. (Alder et. al, 2014)
Importance
An ASD diagnosis is highly important for early intervention which leads to overall better outcomes for a child, access to funding and services, and comfort in understanding one’s neurodiversity. Early diagnosis has shown to be successful, according to Adler et al, in improving cognitive scores, social interactions, and adaptive behavior as well as improved communication skills. (2014) Diagnosis also provides patients and caregivers with access to funds for medical services.
In British Columbia, the importance of early diagnosis is evident in the funding model. There is a large amount of funding, up to $22,000, per year available for children with ASD under 6 years old, which plummets to up to $6000 per year from ages 6 to 18. This large amount of funding for under 6 years of age is for intense intervention like a behavioral intervention plan, access to specialists, and training for caregivers. (BC Ministry of Children and Family Development, 2017, p. 10-11) In a way, it’s sad that the funding drops so much, especially as we see most children are diagnosed at school age.
The diagnosis is also important for individuals and their families because individuals with ASD finally have answers explaining how and why they may think and do things differently and so do caregivers.
Challenges
Challenges that exist in getting diagnosed include the possible stigma and discrimination to the individual receiving the diagnosis and well as financial barriers in the U.S. since private health insurance companies include ASD in pre-existing conditions increasing the cost for insurance for those with the diagnosis. We're we have access to subsidized healthcare here in British Columbia, but I imagine the cost for specialists would be exorbitant.
Additional challenges are present in the diagnosis process itself since there are so many variables “including parent reports, the provider of testing, their educational background, standardized objective measures, evaluation process, and the patient’s involvement,” in addition to the diversity of traits of patients. (Adler et al., 2014, p. 15)
I found it particularly interesting that the attire a clinician wears during an examination could also interfere -I hadn’t thought about how something I might perceive as mundane could have such an impact.
References:
Adler et al. (2014). Evolution of Autism: From Kanner to the DSM-V: In J. Taxton, Handbook of Early Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders (pp.3-19)
Coming to terms with the possibility of a child having ASD can be an emotional and exhausting process. To help families navigate the beginning of their journey a little easier, I've created a brochure that contains pertinent information for families at the beginning of the diagnosis journey.
Please click here to go view the brochure on Canva.
I created an ASD brochure for families. I found that the website was helpful, but I can imagine for some families it can also be quite overwhelming with such a wealth of information. One thing that I thought was interesting in the list of signs of ASD was under the communication category list was "no signs of babbling by 12 months," because speech delay was removed from the DSM V. (British Columbia Ministry of Health, n.d.-a) What surprised me was the number of languages parent handbooks were available in and the access to interpreters in over 50 different languages -I think this is particularly important for newcomers!
At my school, we have a Response to Intervention model that we use the classroom teacher is responsible for working with the family to try to meet the needs of the student in class through differentiation and changing and implementing strategies and may consult with the resource teacher for strategies to use to help meet the child’s needs. Some of the strategies include:
Adapt curriculum (difficulty, amount)
Adapt materials (literacy, numeracy)
Adapt teaching strategies (groups, pairing)
Provide extra time
Provide preferential seating
Adjust classroom layout/environment
Use of movement breaks
Use visuals to support program/outlines
Use positive reinforcement
Implement Positive Behaviour Supports (PBIS)
(Vancouver School Board, n.d.)
If these implementations are not enough, the teacher collects information from the family, observations, and student’s work and submits a Pre-referral intervention form (PRIS form) to bring the child to the school-based team (SBT) with the approval of the parent.
Once in Tier 2, the SBT meets with the teacher and a case manager is assigned. The SBT works with the teacher to collect information more rigorously used to collaboratively come up with new strategies to implement. If after about a month these strategies have not yielded results, the student is brought up again, more data is collected, and new strategies are implemented.
If a month later no strategies have not been helpful, the administrator, teacher, and SBT can ask for help from the District Learning Services staff and move on to Tier 3. In Tier 3 the district learning services staff work with teachers to come up with strategies and help teachers implement them. The SBT also enlist the help of specialists to help assess the student such to collect more information that will be used to build a case for a possible ministry designation. The duration of this whole process can vary. I've added a chart that I created that explains the RTI model at my school.
If a student with a designation enrolls in the school, that student is assigned to the caseload of a resource teacher -in my school, we have a primary resource teacher and an intermediate resource teacher -who works with the family, specialists, and classroom teacher to review/create IEP goals and helps support through either push-in or pull-out support.
Vancouver School Board (n.d.). Pre-referral intervention form. Vancouver School Board.
That “autism” was just a shorter way to refer to “autism spectrum disorder”
Receiving an ASD designation was uncomplicated and relatively fast. I thought that it was as easy as getting a referral to specialists that’d do the testing, and the outcome would be revealed in a matter of weeks.
I used to think that ASD was very common, maybe 1 in 34 people, because of my experience working in British Columbia. My school, for instance, has 14 students with G designations and some students with pending designations, so I assumed it was common.
Now I know…
That ASD has a long history. If Kanner noticed it in the 1940s, it surely must’ve been present before then. Perhaps those individuals were misdiagnosed with schizophrenia or something else.
“Autism spectrum disorder” is sort of an inclusive term that incorporates host of disorders that previously had their own categories before they became amalgamated in the DSM V
That just getting an appointment for an assessment, after receiving the referral can take months, and that can hinder families’ access to funds for services that can support their child. In some cases, it can put families at a miss of thousands of dollars if the referral, assessment, and diagnosis process period pushes past the child’s sixth birthday.
Based on the Steve Silberman video, that the prevalence of individuals was closer to 1 in 64 as of 2015. I wonder if this has increased since then due to the DSM 5 amalgamating the categories under ASD.
Going through the “Teaching Students with Autism: A Resource Guide for Teachers,” I realized there were still a lot of little things I hadn’t considered during instruction, for instance, “Unusual Patterns of Attention.” (p. 15) It didn’t occur to me that I could be showing a student something and think that they were paying attention to the details I’m sharing, when in fact they are paying attention to a small irrelevant detail like a paper clip holding something together, or the colour of my nail polish that day.
This guide offers many different strategies. I haven’t gone through them all yet, but some are great and I’m definitely going to give them a try, and others may be challenging to work through without the support of a resource teacher or SSA present in my classroom. I have two students with low incidence designations (one with physical and cognitive challenges and another with ASD) in my class and due the shortage of EAs support often gets redirected to classes with higher needs.
As far as thinking about IEP goals, the guide has given me a place to return to when considering planning for areas of growth for my student with ASD and possibilities for attainable core competency goals.
Goals
1. I am still determined to learn more about social skills development and how to engage my student in group activities that are enjoyable.
2. I’m also determined to find out how to create attainable curricular competency goals and how to assess understanding, especially when some of the big ideas are so abstract.
3. I am determined to be able to create a solid IEP.
References:
Adler et al. (2014). Evolution of Autism: From Kanner to the DSM-V: In J. Taxton, Handbook of Early Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders (pp.3-19)
British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2000). Teaching students with autism: a resource guide for schools[PDF]. Retrieved from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/kindergarten-to-grade-12/teach/teaching-tools/inclusive/autism.pdf
“At its core, ASD is a disorder of social interaction, marked by a lack of social initiation and reciprocity.” -Bernier, 2014, p. 69
(Bernier, 2014, p. 71)
The first domain to be discussed in terms of stretched for people with ASD is the social domain. According to Bernier, people with ASD may demonstrate impairment in social interaction defined by:
-impairment in the use of non-verbal cues and behaviors
-failure to develop relationships with peers at a developmentally appropriate level
-lack of ability to share enjoyments, interests, and achievements
-lack of social-emotional reciprocity
Lack of Gaze
Eye contact usually established as an infant early and often and
an important biological trait in humans for perceiving feelings in social encounters
-infants with autism often fail to develop this skill
-this trait is specific to ASD and not observable in any other disorder
Social orienting
Behavioral response to auditory or visual social stimuli such as turning your head toward a
speaker or making eye contact with the speaker
-In a study by Dawson et al., children with ASD preferred non-social over social stimulus
sounds, non-speech sounds over speech sounds, and geometric patterns over social sciences
Joint attention key social deficit: the sharing of an object or event with another person
-this develops typically with infants on 6-18 months and not so in infants with ASD
-Some children with ASD may point to something of interest in the distance but do
not coordinate their gaze back to another person to share their enjoyment
-children may point to something to satisfy their need rather than to create a social encounter
Impairement in Imitation: the way children develop simple to highly complex skills ranging from social smiling to language acquisition
-typically developing children often mimic caregivers facial expressions and gestures
-many children with ASD have difficulting imitating simple actions and gestures which is due to their social development impairment
Aloofness: lack of understanding toward empathy and others
-A child with ASD may run over another child to get to the slide first as if that child was an object
-a child with ASD may not offer comfort to another child or may laugh at inappropriate times
-”Theory of Mind” Simon Baron-Cohen hypothesized that the inability to infer others' mental states and to attribute mental states to self and others was a core feature of autism. Also included that if someone is unable to infer others mental states, they are unable to have an effective response (facial expression) that is appropriate to others’ mental states (Bernier, 2014, p. 70)
Social reciprocity-mutual exchange ie cornerstone of growth and survival
-parents model this with children by showing and sharing objects with them and children soon learn that when they do this with parents they are rewarded with positive gestures
-deficits in facial perception :
1. Structure appearance
2. Facial expression may make social interactions and forming friendships difficult -foundation of empathy
References:
Bernier, R. (2014). Chapter 4: Assessment of the Core Features of ASD. In J. Tarbox, D. R. Dixon, P. Sturmey, & J. L. Matson (Authors), Handbook of Early Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders Research, Policy, and Practice (pp. 65-79). New York, NY: Springer New York.
Assessment of social domain
-It's important for clinicians to have an understanding of key milestones in development of a child to make assessment
Behaviors in early social development that distinguish children with ASD from typically developing and developmentally delayed peers
In your reflection journal, note the areas of challenge and consider the people you know with ASD. Can you make connections, begin to design supports and/or interventions to address these challenges?
Challenges for people with ASD include:
Communication functions: intent and frequency -purpose of communication and how many messages to communicate at a time
Register variation: politeness, social recognition -how communication changes depending on who you talk to
Presumptions: perspective-taking, rules of conduct (quantity, quality, relation, manner)
Paralinguistics:Prosody -communication of meaning of words through tone of voice- as well as gaze, gestures, proximity.
Social Behaviours: conventional gestures such as hands signs that have meaning ie. thumbs up for "good", facial expression, or social actions and behaviors (not staying on the phone during dinner etc.)
When I read some of these challenged I immediately think of a student with ASD I had that definitely needed help with social skills and communication. When she was invited to play, she wouldn't decline an invitation politely. A social story could be utilized to teach this as well as explicit instruction on reading facial expressions and body language. This same student is also working on understanding the importance of turn allocation and proximity. She will say something to someone but not be anywhere near them. This could be taught through direct instruction and then practiced through modeling and self-monitoring.
Austim Awareness's Social Communication Disorder and How it's Treated Has some helpful tips for working with students on social pragmatics and also describes the differences between social communication disorder and ASD.
One area of particular challenge for students with ASD is initiating social interaction. I've noticed this in my two years with the same student -who has made remarkable progress -but continues to need support to develop the necessary skills to initiate social interaction and move beyond greetings. I think this skill can be taught through the following two strategies: 1. peer-mediated social skills intervention and 2. video modeling
Peer-mediated social skills intervention is utilizing peers, pre-taught or not, to teach target skills. Henry noted many positives in his literature review such as increased social initiation by students with ASD, very little adult intervention necessary, popularity with students of ASD on the playground increased after peer-mediated intervention, promotes inclusivity at school, and self-confidence and self-esteem of students with ASD.
How it works: Teacher chooses a skill that a student with ASD finds difficult and chooses peers that are: around the same age, good at following directions, willing to participate, have good attendance, are high social status, and have age-appropriate socials skills to either be trained to teach a skill or participate in practicing a skill with the student with ASD and other students. The group meets over a course of six to eight weeks to learn and practice the skill. Modeling, prompting, reinforcing, and direct instruction are imperative roles of teacher and peers. Students used a peer-monitoring strategy to note if their partner had completed the skill accurately and documents it. When a student with ASD has been able to successfully perform a skill three times, the teacher records the intervention as successful. Henry noted that follow-up is important for this and a “booster” session necessary so that the skills are long-lasting and used into adulthood. (Henry, 2017)
I really like the idea of using peer-mediated intervention, and used it last year in a playgroup when I had consistent SSA support. I can see this being very successful for all involved. Korkiamaki noted, “Children are able to support, control, and build their own capacities and by extension , those of their peers.” (in Henry, 2017, p. 36)
Here is a video (available on youtube here) of peer-mediated intervention in practice:
The use of video modeling followed by Skill Streaming, social skills intervention developed by Arnold P. Goldstein, has shown to be effective in students with ASD achieving target skill mastery after three to six intervention sessions.
How it works: The teacher identifies the necessary target skill to be taught and creates a script modeling correct social skill procedure. Each component in the social skill sequence is performed by a student of similar age to the child learning the target skill and a teacher. It is important that the people are familiar with the student learning the skill. An iPad is used for both recording the video and viewing it. After showing the video, large visual cards are used in sequential order to break down the skill. The cards are used as an additional prop during the intervention.
I think this is a great idea that a class could undertake to create videos for a student with ASD. It would be a fun way to review certain social skills explicitly in an early primary setting, promote literacy (scriptwriting), cooperation and collaboration, as well as create a useful resource for students that need the intervention. (Kocaoz, Little, and Gallup, 2019)
Here is an example of video (available on Youtube here) modeling teaching the skill of starting a conversation:
References:
Avon Maitland School Board. [Avon Maitland DSB]. (2012, June 14). ASD peer-mediated supports -peer-mediated approach [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_Dv1gD1V_o
Henry, C. (2017). Using Peer Mediated Interventions to Enhance the Social Skills of Pupils with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Reach, 30(1), 36–44.
Kocaoz, O. E., Little, M. E., & Gallup, J. (2019). Impact of Video Modeling Combined with Skillstreaming Teaching Procedures on the Social Interaction Skills of Middle School-Aged Children with ASD. Education & Training in Autism & Developmental Disabilities, 54(3), 237–248.
Begin with student's strengths- and make sure to keep a balance of positive remarks when discussing student's possible challenges.
Ask parents what’s working or not working at home and listen. Teachers can learn a lot about a child’s home life this way as well as strategies parents have or haven’t tried. This can be particularly useful when considering practical strategies for working on certain skills. (Potter, 2008)
Avoid teacher jargon. Using teacher jargon in communicating with parents can cause confusion and leave them feeling inferior. This is an especially important consideration for parents who are English language learners. (McKlean, 2017)
These have all been so important in my communication with parents.
Bernier, R. (2014). Chapter 4: Assessment of the Core Features of ASD. In J. Tarbox, D. R. Dixon, P. Sturmey, & J. L. Matson (Authors), Handbook of Early Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders Research, Policy, and Practice (pp. 65-79). New York, NY: Springer New York.
