Autism spectrum disorder is a disorder which covers many different issues like motor, communication, sensory and behavioural. So, during time of intervention, it is important to consider all these issues which help them to catch up the near normal development.
During the time of intervention, encourage the child to use functional communication, spontaneous communication, practice self helps skills, adaptive skills, readiness for academics and reduce maladaptive or disruptive behaviour. Along with this, implement the strategy to apply learned behaviour or skills in new environment or situations. Educational and school-based therapies are one such strategy which helps the child to improve their generalization by interacting with same aged children.
Educational and school based intervention helps to improve educational potential in children with disabilities. Through this, a child with autism can improve their social skills and communication with others and it will help them in generalization
How autism affects child’s schooling and education?
A study conducted by Liz Burton (2019) in US states that about 70% of ASD children are attending the mainstream schools. The main problem that children with autism face is lack of support given to their needs. According to National Autism Society, around 60% of teachers are not trained to teach ASD children. Poor school environment is a disadvantage for children with autism which affects their learning skills and coping with life. That’s why in this study author stressed on importance of integrating suitable educational and school-based therapy for school curriculum.
While integrating, we can include all the professionals which can help the child with autism through an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary approach. The professionals include student, teacher, speech therapist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, social workers and parent. When all these participants in a team work together, it will help the child to improve their learning skills.
There are different studies also conducted on school based and educational intervention in autistic child. All the studies conclude that educational and school based therapies are very effective for a child with autism. The result shows that the child had improvement in social skills, responsiveness and quality of life at both school and home.
Some recent studies shows that autistic children have specific area of strength and weaknesses which suggest that individualized intervention plan is required and states that children who spend 7-10 hour per day at school have better social interaction compared to children only going to clinic. So, the old model which included only caregiver and clinician expanded to caregivers, clinician and teachers.
IDEA (INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES EDUCATION ACT) recommended that children with disabilities including ASD need to get the educational services and school-based therapy to learn as much as they can.
Educational environment:
- Make environment with minimal restriction to access learning experience and peer interactions
- Design specific strategy to meet needs and skills of child.
- Make individualised goal
- Make specific plan
- Make entire specialists to work together
Strategies for educational and school-based therapy
- TEACCH (Treatment & Education of Autistic & Communication Handicapped Children) is developed by the University of North Carolina. It is a clinical training & research-based program basically used for ASD.
- It uses the method called structured teaching and it is based on the unique learning needs of ASD children.
- It provides certain strategies for teachers which can be use in the classroom to improve or achieve the academics & therapeutic goals.
- It is usually applied in a classroom setting
Principles of TEACCH are:
- Physical structure: – It is individual`s surroundings or environment. Make an appropriate environment and boundaries for each task
- Consistent schedule: – Schedule the activities for a day. It is established either through verbal communication, written, pointing or drawing.
- Establishment of expectation: – Here, focus is on making the child to do the activity independently.
- Maintenance of routine: – Establishing and maintaining the routine is important for ASD. Parent, teacher and clinician work together to maintain the consistency of routine.
- Implementation of visual based cues: – When dealing with ASD use supplements for the verbal information with visual cues.Educational Applications for Kids with Autism
TEACCH is one of strategies used for ASD child who are further moving to educational and school- based task.
So, the educational and school-based therapies are very effective for children with autism. Through this we can help the children with autism to fully engage in learning process to give better educational experience and also help them to reach their full potential.
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