The Skills Of Teaching Children With Autism: Quick Tips

Teaching communication skills and learning strategies to young students with autism increases the likelihood of achieving their academic potential later on.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder in which people are hypersensitive to sights, sounds, and other sensory input. Autism symptoms are divided into three categories:

• Problems with communication

• Social impairment

• Repetitive behaviors (also known as stimming in the autism community)

An Overview of Structured Teaching for Autism

Division TEACCH established Structured Teaching to collect teaching techniques (Training and Education of Autistic and related Communication-handicapped Children).

Division TEACCH is a standardized care model for people with autism who are of any age.

Along with standardized instructional methods, the model stresses a thorough understanding of autism, collaboration with families, individualized evaluation while designing and implementing strategies, and ability growth through the curriculum (emphasizing soft skills). 

The physical structure in the school setting

The basis of structured teaching is a physical structure, which aids in ensuring that learning takes place in the classroom.

The physical layout pertains to the setting of the space in context to where materials and furniture are installed.

A physically structured classroom helps students stay organized and helps teachers, students, and visitors understand what is going on in each classroom area at any given time.

Tips for implementing physical structure

a. At the start of the year, the development of organizational structures in the classroom should be done to teach all students the process to use them.

It is beneficial to designate specific locations for specific resources such as assignments, notes home, school supplies, and personal objects and establish schedules for when and how to turn in items. 

b. Students with ASD have different organizational needs than other students.

It will be necessary to determine how the classroom atmosphere affects students' actions and attention regularly during the school year, and regular organizational changes may be necessary.

Visual schedules in the school setting 

A visual schedule uses a combination of tangible supports to express the sequence of upcoming activities or events such as objects, images, etc.

A visual schedule shows a student WHERE he or she needs to be and WHEN he or she needs to be there.
 
Tips for implementing visual schedules

a. Consider what type of knowledge will be more meaningful to the student consistently.

Staff can decide that the student can best understand objects, images, symbol drawings, or words.

b. Staff should ensure the amount of information that will be conveyed has to be conveyed to the student at one time after deciding how the information will be interpreted.

Some students thrive when only one piece of information is visible at a time, while others thrive when a short series of events or up to a full day's worth of information is provided at once.

c. The student's method of manipulating the schedule—The next step is to figure out how he or she can pass the schedule materials during the day.

Staff will decide to use the schedule items in the activity if the student is using objects to represent where to go. 

d. When teaching a student for the first time about the schedule, break it into small fragments.

Schedules can be posted in a central position making it very easy to understand in the classroom, such as a table, shelf, wall, or desk, to make students acquainted with the schedule and understand where to go in less time.   

Work systems in the school setting 

A work system is considered to be an organizational system that empowers students with ASD with all the necessary information.

The information contains the aspects of expectations when he/she arrives at a classroom.
 
Tips for implementing work systems

a. Provide only the specific and needful materials during the activities to prevent any confusion.

b. Work systems can be implemented in several settings such as -circle time, social groups, playground, home, doctor visits.

As a result, it will increase generality.

c. Develop more minor and portable work systems. You can do this with a notebook or file box, etc., for students. Thus, it will be creating different settings throughout the school day.

d. Incorporate students’ interests in the visual cues which are available in the works system  

Visual structure in the school setting 

Visual structure expands a physical or visual dimension to help students understand HOW an assignment should be performed with full capacity.

Visual structure often aids a student's concentration and interaction with resources and allows them to find the most pertinent details when completing their work.
 
Tips for implementing visual structure

a. To get the best out of resources, consider how they can be used through curricular areas or multiple purposes.

b. Consider how events may be produced uniquely. Use parent volunteers, student assistants, scout troops, and/or members of the group.

c. Think about how you can share resources with other teachers or start a lending library for activities in your school or district.

d. Instructional practices should be related to the individual evaluations of student needs and the school/ state.
 
It comprises using structure to provide consistent and meaningful routines to autism, using visual/structural supports to improve participation and independence in the classroom, and arranging classroom spaces and teaching materials to reduce anxiety and increase acceptable behavior of all the learners.