As soon-to-be teachers, I think we could all agree that education access is a basic human right; all children deserve to receive an adequate and quality education — even children with disabilities or special needs. In this blog, I will focus on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD); I will describe the ways in which educators can accommodate their teaching styles and curriculums to address the developmental and academic needs of children who lie on the spectrum. This blog is especially useful for educators interested in working with autistic children, as well as educators who advocate for an inclusion education — integrating children with autism into a mainstream, school setting.
Years of research has helped us define autism, including the deficits associated with living with the disorder and what can be done to address affected individuals’ daily struggles. Autism Spectrum Disorder consists of a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills (e.g. difficulty maintaining eye contact or delayed learning of language), executing appropriate behaviors, and sensory abilities. It is important to note that autism has many subtypes, and each individual with autism carries his or her own unique strengths and weaknesses. Because this disorder is a spectrum condition, it effects individuals to varying degrees. Autism is usually diagnosed around age 2, it is most commonly detected in males, and it is estimated to affect 1 in 59 children. Consequently, autism is a prominent disorder and a worldwide epidemic. For this reason, promoting the wellbeing of autistic children and optimizing their skill acquisition, inside of a preschool classroom, is more important than ever.
Now, many of you may be thinking: “Of course I want to support the autistic population’s right to an education because it is important to make them feel like valued and functional members of our society. But, how can this be done? How can we, as future educators, better address the needs of autistic children beginning at a young age, specifically in primary school?” These are questions that I will answer in this blog post using relevant evidence-based findings.
Concrete Example – A Case Study:
In a 2018 study, a group of researchers worked one-on-one with a kindergartener, Allen, who lies on the autism spectrum. Allen mainly struggles with cooperating during learner-centered activities and has a hard time communicating effectively with his teachers and peers. To address his issues, Allen’s educators created a curriculum that was conducive to his needs. The results of this case study indicated that “material adaptions” can help lessen autistic children’s anxiety and minimize sensory stimuli that typically over-stimulates them. One example of a material adaption, which worked well for Allen, is the use of noise-dulling headphones; this accessory blocks out excess noise in the environment, allowing Allen to better focus on the task at hand. In addition, many autistic children, including Allen, are visual learners. Thus, using visual aids (such as videos) helped Allen acquire appropriate social skills because he modeled what he viewed.
Using Reinforcements:
Two studies conducted in 2011 and 2012 concluded that using reinforcements with children with ASD can improve their attention skills, promote spontaneous use of language, and decrease their destructive behaviors. These are skills pertinent to a classroom environment. An example of this includes giving an autistic student a sticker after watching him/her appropriately interact with his/her peer during playtime; the purpose of the sticker is to increase the likelihood that the student will repeat this advantageous and desired behavior in the future.
However, there is more to the story; it is not that simple. Researchers have advocated for the use of naturalistic interventions. As the name suggests, naturalistic interventions occur in natural contexts (e.g. during play), and are characterized by a child initiating a desire to learn and an adult reinforcing that child’s behaviors. This type of intervention is based on behaviorism and applied behavioral analysis (ABA), and it fosters learner spontaneity. With this in mind, a reinforcement should be granted only once the child, him or herself, has initiated a behavior.
I would also like to briefly discuss the importance of attention. The ability to sustain attention is undoubtedly critical for learning. In fact, learning can only occur when the learner attends to the environment and therefore absorbs the presented information. Researchers Watson and Pattern claim that there are various types of attention, including sustained attention (the ability to maintain attention for a long period of time) or joint attention (the ability to coordinate attention around a single object with a social partner). One way of improving autistic children’s attention abilities is by providing reinforcements. This strategy is especially useful for teachers who will work in inclusion education programs; by having students with similar attention abilities, educators may worry less about their special needs students suddenly disengaging in the classroom material or dwelling on irrelevant aspects of the lesson plan.
In addition to effecting a child’s academics, a lack good attention skills interferes with children’s social development. Remember when I mentioned the importance of “following the child’s lead” when it comes to learning? This statement holds true when trying to improve autistic children’s joint attention. You, as the teacher, should join in the autistic child’s toy interests, follow the child’s lead, and verbalize exactly what the child is doing; doing so increases children’s abilities to gaze, point, attend to an object, et cetera. Adopting this strategy will not only promote teacher-child play, but it has been shown to also (positively) impact mother-child play at home. Specifically, researchers Kaale, Smith, and Sponheim found that joint attention cultivates social interaction in autistic children.
Teachers’ Perspectives:
Back in 2016, researcher Grossi-Kliss conducted a survey that gathered information from preschool teachers working with autistic students; these teachers were asked to rank a total of 10 skills in order of most to least important. The results of the survey indicated that improving autistic children’s communication skills and social skills is extremely vital. This is because children with ASD need language in order to effectively communicate with their peers and the people around them. Social skills, such as pretend play, are also really important to develop because a lack of play can aggravate a child’s social isolation. In the eyes of these teachers, however, motor skills were the least important skill to develop in the classroom; this is because, unlike an occupational therapist, refining fine and gross motor skills are not an educator’s main concern. The conclusions of this study should help you build a curriculum centered around addressing the communication and social skills of your potential students. Grossi-Kliss’s conclusions also nicely align with the results of the sources I described above.
As described above, it is imperative to create a classroom environment that is receptive to the needs of children with ASD because it will provide a pathway for their future success. At the end of the day, what more can a teacher ask for?
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