Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorder - Assignment Example

Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorder and different teaching methods in the room. This paper deals with Autism and Autism spectrum Disorder (ASD) and discusses wide ranging teaching methods as interventionist approaches in classroom settings. Though Autism was spotted in 1943 itself, it gained significance only in 1990s thus heralding the arrival of TEACCH program as a framework for treating the ASD by educational techniques rather than through medications since it is not a mental illness though it may be found along with mental disorders such as Downs’s syndrome. This ASD must have been there since time memorial and not a disability for being unfit to lead normal life. It is said great scientists Newton and Einstein too had Autism in some form or other. Only it has been recognized of late and meriting the attention of the social scientists to ease the ASD affected individuals out of the so-called disorder so that they can scale newer heights. Introduction Autism is a developmental problem found early in childhood that results in verbal, non-verbal communication or social interaction disability. Usually this disability becomes evident before the age of three and has a bearing upon educational performance when the child grows older. Autism Spectrum Disorder Autism is also known as autism spectrum disorder, pervasive development disorder (PDD), PDD- not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), atypical autism, and Asperger’s Syndrome. Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) occurring early in life will last for the rest of one’s life. It is not a single disorder but a syndrome of collection of characteristics in growing children. Though ASD is found in both males and females, the incidence is more in males. It is severe and pervasive when it affects almost all the faculties of the individual even though he may be very intelligent or high functioning. ASD also occurs when the individual has cognitive impairment also known as mental retardation or mental impairment. ASD can also occur due to neurobiological reasons affecting the physical brain or chemistry of the brain. When the individual is not able to communicate by using speech or language or when his speech is delayed or quality of communication or verbal skills are affected, he is deemed to have ASD. In some cases, the individual cannot display unspoken language such as gestures, facial expressions. ASD also makes the individual unable to understand what others say and respond to them or their non-verbal movements. The individual will have difficulty maintaining friendship and social contact regardless of age even though he may want to keep the relationships. He will be sensitive to touch, smell, taste, hearing or sight or will have unusual response to such sensory information. Uneven development of skills in such individuals will result in their high proficiency in some areas and nil proficiency in still other areas. The list is not exhaustive. However, ASD should not be mistaken for mental illness, mental disorder, emotional disturbance or a pregnancy related one. As these symptoms are not identical in all, it is very difficult to identify and diagnose ASD. It will be dangerous to compare persons with ASD, as each one will be unique in his disorder characteristics. However, the ASD affected individuals share certain attributes. They can certainly improve their conditions with proper educational techniques. Certain behaviors such as aggression, property destruction or self-injury which are acquired behaviors in them and can be corrected with other good behaviors by learning. Even though the ASD individuals may have high intelligence, the disorder affect their lives especially relationships. Though they do care for others, they may not be able to express it in a typical way. (Doyle, Iland, and Future Horizons inc. 2004, p 1-18) Even great scientists like Einstein and Newton are now speculated to have had Autism. (Muir, 2003) There is no medical basis for diagnosis of ASD but based on behavior. Diagnosis lies in identification of atypical development of children in their socialization, communication and they should also be having narrow interests or repetitive behaviors. No two ASD children display behavior in the same pattern and therefore will have different diagnostic criteria for each of them. ASD usually is seen with other disorders of cognitive impairment, fragile X syndrome, Down Syndrome, and tuberous sclerosis. Though cause of ASD is not known, it may be due to a combination of factors such heredity, environment, and brain functioning. (Ruble.2004) Ever since autism was categorized for special education in 1991, there has been extensive research on the condition resulting in interventionist approaches for educating children with ASD. Autism is widely prevalent occurring in 1 out of every 500 children and in 1 out of 160 ASD children along with other disorders of Asperger’s syndrome and PDD-NOS. Though a small percentage of them show improvements due to interventions, impact of the disorder does not altogether disappear. (Ruble.2004) Feng et al (2008) call Autism as theory of mind (ToM) and they have found functional relationship between intervention and learning of skills by the ASD affected individual. It has been found by them that the participant individual with ASD increased his social interactions as a response to the interventionist approaches. His teachers, mother and peers also validated the effectiveness of the interventionist approaches. Hart and Whalon (2008 Nov) give twenty strategies for learning by children with ASD in an inclusive classroom setting. Most of them being communication-building methods meant for ASD affected children, they can also be beneficial for other students of the inclusive classroom. They are functional assessment of the academic environment, self-management, Graphic organizers, visual cues, scripts, flexible groupings, task analysis, task selection and variation, planned activity routines, directions in multiple forms, activity schedules, video self-modeling, initiating, priming, visualization, mnemonic devices, universal design principles, social stories, collaboration with families and plan for generalization. Any intervention requires partnership between family and the school for an effective collaboration and sharing of information so that parents are empowered with the knowledge of the special needs of their children and to monitor their children from the early stages of development. Public schools have special education programs for autism-affected children of age 3 or below giving speech and other therapies besides preschool programs for developing socialization and readiness skills. The National Research Council has given following directives for children of age 8 and below: They should be immediately enrolled into intervention programs on diagnosis with ASD for active participation by the affected children for not less than 25 hours a week for one full year depending upon their age and developmental levels. There should be minimum one adult at the school for two children with ASD. Parents should also be given training. There should continuous assessment of progress and adjustments made as may be found necessary. . (Ruble.2004) Following teaching methods are in place for autistic children. Structured teaching (TEACCH) The Treatment and Education of Autistic and related Communication-handicapped Children (TEACCH) program from North Carolina has prescribed structured teaching for children with ASD. It is followed in U.K. also. The structured teaching enables the child to see what exactly the task is and what will come about when the task is over. The child is given a schedule of things to be done in certain order and things to be done are also shown in pictures so that the child is clear about what should be done. The things to be done are planned according to the needs and skills of the child. For example, the picture may contain bowls of certain colors or sizes kept in certain order which the child has to sort out in similar manner as shown in the picture. The things to be done are followed step by step so that crucial pre-requisite skills are not left out. This structured teaching is aimed to relieve the child of anxiety and get motivated with improved attention. The work demonstrated visually enables the child to perceive what is to be done and ignore unimportant details which will be otherwise present in an oral instruction without pictures. The child also need not have high dependence on an adult to do the task. The structured teaching will be of particular benefit to a child who is easily distractible, often inattentive or always unhappy. This will be handy when a new skill is to be taught and the child has difficulty understanding what should be done. This can be practiced at home like making the child dress himself independently and to acquire washing skills. The child is helped with timetables and schedules so that he is aware of what is going on presently and what is going to happen next as he has difficulty to cope with cancellations and unannounced changes and often become distressed as a result. As such, timetables are useful at home as well as school. By the pictorial charts of his routine at school, he is more relaxed by seeing things to be done visually. He is made to feel the same way at home also by similar charts. The time tables and schedules can contain symbols, pictures, drawings or words The pictures and instructions in words are useful for children to learn toilet habits also. It should be noted that structured teaching is not as simple it sounds. It is a daunting task for the teacher to arrange things in a meticulously structured way so that not even the smallest link in a task is left out. (Hannah.2001) Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) Introduced by Lori Frost and Andrew Bondy, the system seeks to communicate by way of pictures. The method starts with simple and single words and goes on to building up of phrases and sentences and ultimately enabling the ASD child to communicate without voice. The system claims to help develop skills for communicating with other people by the child. Though the PECS program has ready-made pictures and visual symbols, it can be adapted to make one’s own visuals according to the needs of the child. PECS is stated to be effective in developing communication like making request, questions, comments and responding to them. Similar to TEACCH, PECS tells the child with ASD what will happen during the day and in what sequence. This kind of understanding by the child with ASD helps avoid tantrums and developing frustrations by the child. The computer usage has made implementing of PECS with more efficiency. The desktop and laptop devices can b used to show pictures developed according to the individual needs of the ASD children. Those with motor impairments need not even have to use keyboards, as touch screen facilities are now available. (Yapko. 2003, p 121-122) Facilitated Communication This was first introduced in Australia during 1980s and later in the USA during 1990s especially for children with Cerebral Palsy. Intention behind this was to help non-verbal individuals by facilitated communication. In this method, a facilitator intervenes to give physical support to the ASD affected child so that the child can point to the symbolic representation by means of pictures or keys on the keyboard for communicating his message. This method became controversial because of the use of the facilitators since they happened to communicate their own thoughts and wishes though unintentionally without the participation of the children. Although the author argues that there is no scientific basis to this FC approach, the inventor of this model found it to be useful. (Yapko. 2003 p121-122) Auditory Integration Training The Berard Method Originally intended for rehabilitation of those with auditory system disorders such as hearing loss or hearing distortion, Dr Guy Berard found it useful for ASD also after more than 35 years of his clinical practice. As he found that distortions in hearing resulted in behavioral problems, this method uses music for educating the ASD children. The schedule is usually two half hour session daily for 10-20 days. The Berard method of music has the styles of reggae, pop, folk, rock, new age and jazz having wide range frequencies and rapid beats. More devices have been since developed namely “Digital auditory Aerobics (DAA), the Electronic Auditory Stimulation effect program (EASe program) and the Kirby Auditory Modulation System (KAMS)” (Yapko, 2003 p 125) The AIT has been found to have significantly mitigated problems of ASD besides others such as “central auditory processing disorders (CAPD), speech and language disorders, attention deficit disorders etc.” (aithelps.com) Dr Berard’s claims that his program normalizes the way the brain processes information so that we often see the sensory issues and hypersensitivity diminishes or resolve completely as well as speech and language improvements. If one can hear more accurately, one can develop speech more accurately and easily. If one can have more normalized senses then there are fewer over-loads and a reduction in "self-stimming" behaviors. AIT is a good pre-curser to other therapies as once the functions are more normalized it allows the individual to utilize other therapies more effectively. (aithelps.com) There are also other methods using music by name Tomatis method and SAMONAS method. SAMONAS is the acronym for Spectral Activated Music of Optimal Natural Structure. (Yapko. 2003 p125) Incidental Teaching When a student displays interests and motivation, the instructor provides appropriate activities for him. This is based on applied behavior analysis (ABA) that prompts employing of strategies for preschool activities. When a child with ASD shows particular interest in items or activities, he is encouraged by the teacher through questioning or prompting. The student gets the required item or activity by making responding to the teacher appropriately. Introduced by Hart and Risley in 1978-80, incidental teaching has the advantages of skill generalization, social initiation. The parents are also able to adopt this method of teaching in the student’s daily routine at home. It has been proved by a single-case research that incidental teaching is an effective teaching just as any other teaching or training methods. McGee et al in 1983 found that two children with ASD who had no functional or prompted speech, responded to the method of incidental teaching by quickly learning to label items. The said researchers in another study of 1985 proved that incidental teaching could prevent cue dependency. It also saves time by learning speech skills along with other skills simultaneously. The three students of elementary school age had non-contextual speech prior to being recruited for incidental teaching. Incidental teaching was also employed by Miranda-Linne and Melin in 1992 on ASD children for teaching them color adjectives simultaneously with another method of discrete trial formats. The combination of the methods resulted in positive outcomes of questions being answered accurately by the ASD affected children. They also made speeches unprompted. (Simpson et al. 2004, p 54-61) Students with ASD in Higher Education A U.K. case study of M.J.Taylor in 2005 conducted for two-year period showed that students with ASD undergoing higher education in universities also needed accommodation just as in school settings. It was found in a study of Konur in 2002 that out of 68,000 students with disabilities, 3,700 had mental health problems including ASD. The study says that autism was identified by an American psychologist as early as in 1943 as reported by Kanner in 1943. The current study took three students labeled as A,B, and C. Student A very rarely spoke, had to be reminded of his attendance and submission of his course work and was in need of his parent’s support for university attendance. He was not answering questions during the classes, tutorials and laboratory sessions and did not join any group work with co-students and displayed discomfort while making demonstrations of computer software. . (Taylor M.J 2006) Student B talked endlessly and was disrupting classes. He too required reminders for the deadlines by the staff but did not wish his parents to be contacted. He was not able to adapt himself to university conventions while in classes. For example, he would talk loudly or read newspaper during the classes or listen to music and would sleep also at times. When questioned about such behaviors, he was surprised that he so behaved. Besides, he used to ask questions on a specific topic that had no relevance to the subject being taught. Student C would ask detailed questions during the sessions but on irrelevant topics. Apart from this, he displayed no ASD symptoms. He asked for sitting individually during examinations which was granted. He was hard working and capable and was found to be quite interested in studies during the sessions. As all the three students had ASD in one form or other, it was found by the study that students in higher education also needed special attention and support. As a part of intervention for these students, first their co students had to be informed of their autistic conditions. Instead of being given group work Student A was given independent work and was being communicated with via email, telephones and writings if he had difficulty to speak on one to one basis. Similar adjustments according to individual peculiarities have been advocated for the students with ASD in higher education. (Taylor M.J 2006) Conclusion The forgoing teaching methods in a classroom setting for Autistic children with ASD cover a wide range of disorders and each of them applies to different conditions and therefore no single method can be universally applied for the individuals of ASD. References Aithelps.com “AIT for Autism & PDD” December 19, 2008 Aithelps.com, “What is Auditory Integration Training or AIT” December 19, 2008< http://www.aithelps.com/> Doyle T Barbara, Illand Emily Doyle, and Future Horizons inc. (2004) Autism Spectrum Disorders from A to Z: Assessment, Diagnosis - & More! Future Horizons Feng Hua, Lo Ya-yu, Tsai Shuling, Cartledge Gwendolin. (200, Oct) The Effects of Theory-of-Mind and Social Skill Training on the Social Competence of a Sixth-Grade Student With Autism. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions Vol 10 Iss 4 p 228-243 Hannah Liz. (2001) Teaching Young Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders: A Practical Guide for Parents and Staff in Mainstream Schools and Nurseries, National Autistic Society. Hart E Juliet, Whalon J Kelly, @008 Nov, Promote Academic Engagement and Communication of Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder in Inclusive Settings, Interventions in School and Clinic, Vol 44 iss 2 pge 116-121 , December 19, 2008< http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/pqdweb?did=1591184361&sid=3&Fm t=3&clientId=7961&RQT=309&VName=PQD> Muir Hazel (2003) Einstein and Newton showed signs of Autism, New Scientist April 2003, December 19, 2008< http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3676-einstein- and-newton- showed-signs-of-autism.html> Ruble Lisa. (2004) Autism Spectrum Disorders: Primer for Parents and Educators, Special Needs, National Association of School of Psychologists, December 19, 2008 Simpson L Richard, Myles Smith Brenda, Griswold E Deborah, de Boer-ott R Sonja and Kline Sue Ann. (2004) Autism Spectrum DisordersCorwin Press, p 54-62 Taylor, M.j. (2006) Teaching students with autistic spectrum disorders in HE, Education + Training Vol 47 No 7 pp 484-495 December 19, 2008 Yapko Diane. (2003) Understanding Autism Spectrum Disorders: Frequently Asked Questions. Jessica Kingsley Publishers Read More