Artful Adaptations: Reworking the Classroom for Students with Autism

Spectrum Disorders

Krista Renee AllenProfessor Robert Carpenter

Issue

• Autism is a spectrum disorder- it affects individuals differently.

• Autism affects the ability to communicate and interact.

• Prevalence: 1 in every 110 births

(Autism Society, 2008)

Research Questions• What does the literature recommend for

working with students who are on the autism spectrum?

• What strategies are general education teachers using in their classrooms?

• How do classroom practices align with the literature?

What does the literature recommend?

• Visual supports (Prizant & Rubin, 1999)

• Predictability (MacDuff, Krantz, & McClannahan, 1993)

• Boundaries to clearly separate areas (Heflin & Alberto, 2001)

• Movement (Lang et al., 2010)

• Reduce personally aversive stimuli (Jazen, 1996; Kientz & Dunn, 1997)

• Family/Parent-enhanced instruction (Gabovitch & Curtin, 2009)

What strategies are teachers using?

Interviews with elementary classroom teachers:•Taught a child with autism within the last year•30 minutes•General classroom practices- the environment•Practices specific to students with ASD’s

Visual reward system

“We do a daily choice, green or red. We have it split into every part of the day and she’ll color green if she makes good choices and red if she makes bad choices. Then she’ll get a reward. She has a reward menu of things she can earn.”

-1st grade

Movement needs

“I put the kids that need to move in the back so they are allowed to stand, move their feet, do things like that while I’m talking.”

-2nd grade

Brain Gym

“We take Brain Gym breaks generally after math because they are physical in the morning and then in the afternoon they do about a solid hour of math. This is our 115th day of school. [We count and] for every 10 days of class we do a different exercise. ”

-2nd grade

The writing process

“He just hated writing and his anxiety would go up so I said to the special ed. teacher, ‘just give him an AlphaSmart.’ Now he loves to write and he’s all excited about it. A lot of times kids with autism don’t like the actual physical process of writing. ”

-4th grade

Using fascinations to foster social development

“He would love to make a friend. He loves to build with LEGO. So sometimes [the paraprofessional] will take him out with a friend and they’ll build for a while.”

-5th grade

Misalignments

• Very little parent involvement“They don’t come in…. Probably because they are working… because autism is very expensive. Insurance companies don’t pay for treatments that [children with autism] need [such as] speech therapies and sensory activities.”

• Behavior after “specials” due to broken routine

Recommendations• Accommodations in communication for low-

income families• More support to and from “specials”- enhance

visual schedule• Professional development• Frequent communication with resource room

teachers, specialists, paraprofessionals, and families