Helping Students with Autism Succeed in Regular Classrooms

Transcription

1 Helping Students with Autism Succeed in Regular Classrooms William L. Heward, Ed.D., BCBA-D The Ohio State University The International Congress on Applied Behavior Analysis in the Treatment of Autism Salerno, Italy - March 22, 2014

2 Outline What does success in the regular classroom look like? What skills does a student with ASD need for success in the regular classroom? What are some evidence-based practices for teaching those skills children with ASD?

3 Success in the regular classroom means the child.. achieves IEP goals makes meaningful progress in the regular curriculum has friends among classmates is happy is safe

4 Success requires at minimum: Placement in least restrictive environment (LRE): can achieve IEP goals at or near instructional level in reading and math Appropriate supports: teachers willing to modify curriculum, materials, & methods collaboration between regular class and special education teachers

5 Maximum success requires: Wise selection of behavior change targets Intensive, high-fidelity implementations of researchbased teaching methods High rates of active student response throughout the school day Effective programming for generalized outcomes Direct and frequent measurement of student performance Ongoing home-school partnership Administrators who require and support all of the above

6 Why is ABA the most effective treatment for children with autism? ABA is the discipline that has most consistently studied the problem of what behavior changes, made in what order and by what techniques, will confer the maximal benefit to the child. - Donald M. Baer (2005)

7 What behavior changes are most important?

8 My panel of autism experts

9 Most important for success in the mainstream classroom Display near-zero levels of problem behavior ->!! 16 Participate and learn in group lessons ->!! 16 Complete assigned tasks independently ->!! 15 Interact appropriately with peers ->!! 13 Comply with classroom rules/follow directions!-> 12 Get teacher attention/assistance appropriately ->! 11

10 In what order should these behavior changes be taught? Participate and learn in group lessons Complete assigned tasks independently Interact appropriately with peers Comply with classroom rules/follow directions Get teacher attention/assistance appropriately

11 What teaching techniques will be most effective?

12 The primary goal of the National Standards Project is to provide critical information about which treatments have been shown to be effective for individuals with ASD. The project examined and quantified the level of research supporting interventions for people on the autism spectrum. Covers a broad range of applied treatments and identifies the level of scientific evidence available for each. It includes 775 research studies

13 A multi-university center to promote the use of evidence-based practice for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. The National Professional Development Center on ASD is funded by the US Dept of Education. and operated by a consortium of 3 major university autism research centers. The NPDC has identified 24 evidence-based practices.

14 None of the techniques Iʼm going to describe today as methods to help students with ASD achieve success in the reg class appears by name on this, or any other published list of evidence-based practices for autism. However, many of the EBPs shown here, such as antecedent-based interventions, differential reinforcement, discrete trial training, extinction, naturalistic intervention, peer-mediated interventions, prompting, reinforcement, self-management, task analysis, and visual supports, to name a few, play central roles in the techniques we are now going to look at.

15 Convergence of NAC and NPDC evidence

16 Participate and learn in group lessons

17 Group instruction challenges teachers to.. maintain students' attention provide each student with frequent opportunities to respond provide feedback for student responses prevent and deal with disruptive behavior monitor students' learning

18 A common teaching mistake: Assuming students are learning when they are paying attention. Students can be "on-task" throughout a lesson, and make few, if any, lesson-related responses. Research is clear: lessons in which students respond actively and often produce more learning than lessons in which students passively attend.

19 Examples: On-task Behavior Looking at the teacher - Looking at a book Looking at a worksheet - Watching a video Turning pages - Watching a peer respond Being on-task isn t a bad thing! But it's nowhere near as good as active student responding (ASR).

20 Defining and Measuring Active Student Response ASR occurs each time a student makes a detectable response to the lesson. Frequency is the basic measure of ASR (i.e., count over time) The kinds of responses that qualify as ASR are as varied as the kinds of lessons that are taught.

21 Examples of ASR Words read - Problems solved Facts stated - Sentences written Molecules analyzed - Workbook questions answered Positive comments spoken - Artists identified Packages sorted - Scales played Boards cut- Animals classified Etcetera Etcetera- Etcetera

22 Instead of assuming on-task students are learning: Make sure each student gets lots of ASR during the lesson! Not difficult in 1-to-1 tutoring. The real challenge is group instruction.

23 One way to make sure students participate!

24 Choral Responding Students respond orally in unison to each question, problem, or item presented by the teacher.