4th Assignment
The severe end of the autistic spectrum is described as predominantly linked to severe learning difficulties. How might a teacher and therapist team work together to assess, differentiate and realize the intellectual and communicative potential of an autistic child. Choose an age group relevant to your interest or experience.
Introduction
Communication and linguistic development of autistic children
The lack of social communication and self-activity are the basic symptoms of autism. The autistic child’s ability to communicate is limited and some times does not even exist. The autistic child seems to be indifferent to the natural human environment and retires in an emotional isolation. (1)
He usually turns to himself; he is indifferent to activation, creation, success and his future at all. He lives in his own lonely world and his main interest is the personal activity. He is uninterested in the reactions that are provoked by his behavior to the family or to the general environment ( 1995).
In general, the autistic child avoids communication with his peers and adults too, but some times he may have a peculiar communication with other people only through playing. Many times he becomes aggressive, hits people around him and creates destruction. His desire for anything permanent and unchangeable derives by the fear of change and prevents his communication and his ability’s expansion to adapt to new situations. The child lives usually under intense and overwhelming stress any time he is called upon to face changes in his environment i.e. to change his seat in the classroom, his schedule, the position of his toys etc (, 1992). (2)
When we talk about linguistic development we mean the child’s progress who has the aim to gain the language ability during the first years of his life. As (1996) referred the child’s linguistic development includes two allocated processes. (3) (4) The first process is the child’s innate effort to gain the system of the language: phonology, grammar-syntax, morphology, vocabulary, meaning. This process is normally completed during the end of the preschool age. The second process is the child’s fight to be efficient in linguistic expression and communication as well.
Autistic children present a disorder in their linguistic expression as well as in their speech. The lingual weaknesses are usually expressed in phonetics and syntax. Their speech is many times characterized by voices without any meaning and by syllables which are often repeated. The speech is also monotonous, usually without rhythm lacking normal phonetic melody and many times characterized by telegraph type. Apart from these, we may also distinguish weakness in the content and use of language or phenomena of echolalia. That is to say, we may observe a repetition of words or phrases without meaning that children hear from people of their environment ( 1991). (5–6)
Appropriate educational environment adapted to children’s needs. (7)
Let us take as example a group of preschool autistic children being at the severe end of the autistic spectrum, aged between three and five years old. First of all the tidying up of the classroom and the rest of the educational areas is a very important factor which contributes to these children’s needs. An emphasis must be given to auditory or visional external stimuli that distract their attention. Speech exercises (8), for example, demand the children’s and therapists’ absolute concentration in order for articulation or syntax mistakes to be avoided, otherwise the children’s progress will be delayed.
The usage of educational material which includes familiar objects from the child’s environment, especially in the beginning of the therapy, it is also important. In the age between three and five years old children cannot easily be adapted to something unknown. Thus, a familiar object of their personal environment would help them to assimilate information easily and incorporate themselves in their new educational environment ( 1995).
Perhaps it would be helpful if the objects that are not involved in the educational process and distract children’s attention to be taken away from the educational area.
In this preschool class, teachers and specialized therapists may gradually introduce every autistic child to an everyday routine school and help him to associate with other children in order to be prepared for school education. (9)
One of the autistic child’s characteristics is that he does not use the commonly used ways of communication, meaning glances, smiles and simulated movements. He is careless and indifferent about his speech and the sound world, having peculiar reactions too, such as being indifferent to the conversations or frightened and surprised when he hears a whistle or an unusual noise. He seems to be alienated; he does not hear, gives echolaliatic answers and some times covers his ears as if he wants to protect himself from a danger (1984). Teachers must be ready to face such problems and problems of aggressive or self-destructive behavior, in the same way they are ready to teach children studying and writing. One of the teaching methods is the cycle of the systematic teaching (discrete-trial teaching) which according to (1996) is the predominant educational method when we start to teach autistic children. This method includes five steps:
- the child’s concentration
- the distinctive stimulant presentation by the teacher-therapist
- the child’s reaction towards the distinctive stimulant
- the positive or negative offers from the educators (reward or correction) in relation to the child’s reaction and
- the span of time which is among the efforts of the systematic teaching. (10-11)
Ways of teaching
Speech disorders (12) in autism mainly depend on the lack of the natural innate need for communication of these children with other people. Communication problems may not be faced just by teaching children how to talk even if it is possible. The problem for the group of children we refer to is that this speech is based on a parrot-learning vocabulary. Perhaps, the most appropriate way for the teachers to encourage the communicative usage of speech is to offer children as many social and other experiences as they can. If for example there are videotapes from festivities they ca be used in order to attract the children’s attention. Children’s photos are very useful too because they show a unique moment in time. Usual life events such as trips or celebrations may also help education very much. Apart from these, it is very important to encourage these children to communicate in any way they can and it is useful to pronounce again what a child expresses when he corresponds to the stimuli that are given by people around him. ( 1991) (13)
In the group we refer to, there are also some children that do not have speech at all or their speech is extremely limited. We must encourage these children to use signs, to try to use sign language using their hands or by touch in order to communicate. The point is that we have to take advantage of any chance of communication. (14)
We must always keep in mind that these children’s attention span is very easily disrupted. While they concentrate on something, they may listen to a noise and then their attention will automatically be disrupted. (15)
They also think in a very specific way and they understand the literal sense of speech. But on the other hand these children may have many hidden abilities, or understand and observe details that we may never pay attention to. Thus, may be we should try to use other methods of education such as visual ones. (16)
Many of the autistic children are excellent in activities i.e. the connection of pieces in a puzzle and the construction with the usage of cubes. They may also be easily occupied in tests that are involved in space, perception, but are usually weaker in oral tests where understanding and language expression is demanded ( 1979). (17)
(1971) referred to a vision-hearing method where every word includes letters especially drawn to seem as the meaning that we understand when we hear the specific word. For example the word “fall” presents letters that fall and the word “run” presents letters that are like runners. A similar way may also help some children to learn sounds of talking. For example, the learning of sounds would be easier if there was a picture of a train for the sound -try- and a picture of a cat for the sound -c-. Some autistic children may easily memorize words that are involved with pictures. (1992) mentions that if a child looks at pictures in a book, this will help him to learn the meanings of the words, especially if these pictures show the accurate meaning of words in a realistic way. Words may easily be learned too if there are written signs on some objects in the classroom. In order for a child to remember a word, he plays again in his fantasy the “video” of the object or the sign.
Activities such as playing with water, coins or keys may be very useful.(1987) support the theory that it is wrong to try to remove a child’s obsessions. It is better to replace them with others. As an example, they use a child who was obsessed by taking the keys from people around him. So, his teacher decided to allow the child to play with keys only two hours a day. The rest of the time the child was not allowed to touch them. Meantime, the teacher tried to use his obsession in a positive way. Using keys she started to teach him maths. As a result, the child considering it as a game he gradually started to count and understand the basic arithmetic.
Children with autism usually have greater progress to visual-kinetic activities development than speech skillfulness and mainly to the understanding and usage of complex and abstract speech. In general the pragmatic intelligence quotient of children with autism is higher than the linguistic one ( 1974).
The teacher-therapist has to correct the child’s mistakes without scolding him or getting angry with him. He must also be careful about the sound of his voice which must be firm and not enthusiastic when he talks to the child. (18)
Ways to develop motivations for learning
(19)
a) when a child has lack of interest for learning, then the reinforcement of his every effort and not only of his successful reactions is necessary( 1987).
b) teachers or therapists may offer more chances to autistic children to choose the material and the activities that are going to get involved in. (1987) refer that the social reaction of the autistic children is impressively improved when they are given chances to choose their activities.
c) the effects of newly presented stimuli contribute to the increase of interest and the faster learning progress. The frequent changes of material are necessary because these children usually are indifferent to learning and lose their interest for the teaching targets (1980).
d) short term targets are necessary because the child is able to achieve them. In this way the child’s and teacher’s efforts are reinforced. On the contrary both of them are tired of very ambitious targets. For example the naming of objects through pictures may not be efficient for a child which has not learned yet how to name three dimensional objects. So, gradual teaching helps very much (1980).
Reinforcement programmes
If continual reinforcement programmes are very important for children, they are even more important for autistic children. Reinforcement programmes that happen in certain time intervals are these where the time which is between the number of reactions and reinforcement is firm. Reinforcement programmes with changeable periods of time are these where the time which is between the child’s reactions and reinforcement is not firm. For example, if a child finishes a written page in ten minutes then he may be allowed to play for some seconds with his favorite toy and then continue on again what he was doing before. Apart from these het is necessary for teachers-therapists to take into consideration the child’s personality, his favorite preferences and the meaning of his targets and his initiatives. The teacher-therapist should never forget to encourage the autistic child for his efforts. (1971).
Criteria for the appropriate psychological-educational function
(20)
-teaching should be based on a certain and specific programme which must be strictly followed. Repetition and firmness on what is taught determinatively contribute to the progress of autistic children (21)
-every educational programme should be organized in details before its application so as to be coherent and consistent to the steps and the method that is followed
-teaching and therapy should be accompanied by teacher’s positive mood
-the child’s frequent communication with their school-mates and adults is a priority
-the child’s limited progress must be taken into consideration immediately in order for the programme to be changed (,1993).
Personalized programmes with systematic application
Every child develops according to his abilities. Psychological-educational programmes that do not correspond to the child’s abilities they either restrict his progress or disappoint him emotionally if they overwhelm his strengths (1996).
The grouping of autistic children during therapy on one side makes the therapy more difficult and on the other it cannot be done easily because children do not face homogeneous difficulties.
Let us take as an example two cases of children of the same age:
a)John’s case
John is a six-year-old autistic child. He has very good mimic abilities in kinetics but his speech is limited because he mimics phonemes and monosyllabic words. He is able to coincide and categorize objects and pictures that belong to the same category and he can understand the oral speech only if he is given simple orders. He has developed preschool activities such as recognition of colors and shapes, but he has ellipsis in learning. Finally, he has some difficulties in kinetics. In specific, he runs and jumps in an odd way and he cannot manage to mimic exercises that demand co-ordination of hands and legs. As far as his behavior is concerned he cannot concentrate for a long time. But in general, he is cooperative and does not show serious problems such as outbursts of anger and aggressiveness.
b)Sofia’s case
Sofia is a five-year-old autistic child too. She has a delay in conception and speaking. Her attention is very easily disrupted; she often makes vicious movements and expresses outbreaks of anger when stronger efforts are demanded of her. She has not yet developed basic abilities such as mimicking movements or speech, congruence of objects, understanding of simple orders, recognition of the members of the body, abilities in writing and some other delicate hand movements such as the usage of scissors.
Even though both of the children are autistic, they show a different clinical picture. John has developed many more abilities from Sofia and needs more exercise that will help his progress. But Sofia’s needs firstly demand an organized programme for the development of basic abilities and then for more complicated ones. (22)
Conclusion
All people that often associate with autistic children ought to play the teacher’s –therapist’s role. If all of them do not behave towards the child in the same way, then the child is led to confusion or gets nervous and at the same time his progress is prevented. If the therapist, for instance, demands from the child to talk in clear articulation and his parents let the child talk without correcting him, then he will never learn the appropriate articulation. The main aim has to be how to help the autistic child giving an emphasis on his abilities and anything he may offer (1999). (23)
In order to achieve the best therapeutic results, the role of the family is a necessary presupposition, but it is a need for the family to have professional support and constant education ( 1995).
Teachers, therapists and parents must constantly be aware of new methods and to evaluate the methods’ results with no prejudice.
Parent’s education helps them to be able to participate positively in their child’s therapeutic programme, something which is very important for the child because it boosts his educational and behavioral progress ( 1991). The family’s participation to the therapy is not only useful for the child but also strengthens the family, because they usually feel sad feelings due to their autistic child ( 1985).
It would also be useful for all the people such as the grandmother or the grandfather who spend time with the autistic child, to learn how to communicate with him in a very efficient way. Parents also may attend seminars and constantly be aware of the activities, the behaviour and their child’s every day reactions ( 1992).
It is a fact that the autistic child’s education may be overwhelming for parents and teachers-therapists and that is why they should anticipate in the child’s emotional and physical tiredness, because if they do not, then they can not be useful to the child’s needs.
Conclusively, we may say that in order for the teachers and therapists to conceive the autistic child’s communicative and cognitional abilities, there must first be firmness in the way the educational programme works. Firmness should also be used in the educational and pedagogic method and if there are needs for changing the educational programme, these must be done in a systematic way. Finally, the family should always be aware of their child’s education programme in order to be homogeneity to the way parents and therapists behave to the child ( 1996). (24-25)
COMMENTS ON 4TH ASSIGNMENT
You include some interesting and practical suggestions within this assignment, which have been thought through. However, it has been difficult to get a sense of coherence and meaning from the text, mainly due to its organization and lack of reference to the title.
You need to think clearly about what the title of this assignment is asking for.
Introduction: give an overview of what your assignment will include- see point 6.
Theoretical background: discuss the first part of the title –autistic spectrum, the severe end- the characteristics of these children – reference to a theoretical model e.g. triad of impairments- particular reference to cognition/ learning/ style and communication skills.
Middle section:
· Assessing intellectual and communication skills –how may this be done? Tasks? Observation? Any tests? Formally/informally? Emphasize the teacher and therapist working together.
· Differentiate and realize –how do teaching methods need to vary for this group of children who (as you say) are very individual in their presenting characteristics. What approaches are relevant? Here put all your ideas, but under headings so they are organized (see point 29, but also include some of your own from pages 6,7 and 8). Include a section on the importance of everyone being consistent –and the involvement of parents (from your conclusion). Refer back to your theoretical underpinning in the background section. Make continual reference to teacher and therapists working together.
Conclusion: pull out the main points that you have made in a summary –emphasizing consistency as you do in the initial and final parts of your existing conclusion.
I think you nearly have enough information –you have clearly read widely and should be able to add to the theoretical section (which is currently your ‘introduction’). Better organization and clearer explanation of some of your ideas and approaches would greatly improve this work.
Where you have included examples from your experience, this enhances the work and shows your understanding. Relate them specifically to a theoretical back ground and understanding of austism.
I think right at the outset you need to be very clear about which group of children you are talking about. The title suggests children at the severe end of the Autistic spectrum 0 and you have to make this explicit too. Otherwise your first statement is confusing. ‘The autistic child’ could be a child with high functioning autism.
Although you reference this first paragraph at the end, you need to show where these thoughts come from earlier. Is the author talking about all autistic children? Again, making it clear that you are talking about children at the severe end of the autistic spectrum would be helpful. This comment is relevant throughout this introduction where you refer to the ‘autistic child’. A brief explanation showing your understanding of autistic spectrum would also be useful.
What about the triad of impairments?(cognition-learning style-communication skills)
Useful to relate your characteristics to the triad
Is this true? Only these elements? –It’s also the content and use of language which is disrupted- your reference to meaning demonstrates this
I do not consider this to be an introduction to your assignment. You have launched straight into a discussion about the communication skills of autistic children. Your introduction should give the reader an outline of the assignment you are going to write e.g. ‘I will fist briefly overview… and then go to describe…’ etc. Have you left a section out? This would give your assignment an organization, which at this point it lacks. The reader does not see where the assignment is going.
I am still unclear by this point how you are going to address the title of this assignment –which asks you to consider how a teacher and SLT can work together to assess, differentiate and realize the educational potential. You seem to be launching straight into the realizing section…. You need some sort of introduction to this next section – ‘I shall now consider how teachers and therapists can work together to meet the needs of children in the severe end of the autistic spectrum’. Be clear to the reader where you are going with your writing.
Not sure what you mean by this – speech exercises? You need to reference this to show where it has come from
Please reference your comments –who says this? Where have you read it?
So how can teachers and SLTs work together to create an environment where autistic children and develop more appropriate and useful communication skills? –you address this a little more appropriately in point 13
You have not described this in enough detail to give the reader a sense of your understanding of this approach
Should you call these ‘speech disorders’- when you are talking about communication
Good and you have given some useful examples of how this may be done
Yes, but please reference this –otherwise it looks like an idea that you have just thought up. Where have you read about this –make sure you demonstrate your reading and do not make too many unsubstantiated comments
Linking this to your understanding of the nature of Autism would be useful here. Explain why they attend to peripheral noises- central coherence etc.
Explain how visual methods can be helpful –will they do not also attend to peripheral detail within visual material? Tell us how would use visual material
They can be, but not always –especially this group of children at the severe end of the autistic spectrum. I think you need to be careful in making statements about all autistic children, use words like ‘can’, ‘may’
This section on ‘ways of teaching’ contains many useful, practical ideas. However, it is poorly organized and so we start reading about one aspects, flit to another and then give some more information later about the earlier point. It would be very helpful for you, and the reader, to use headings under which you could group your ideas. For example: ‘Communicative opportunities’, ‘The use of written language’, ‘visual support’- just a few ideas. As mentioned in the notes above, try also to support what you are saying with what you have read- having a more comprehensive initial theoretical section would have been useful to refer back to.
Why have you used these note-forms? Could this not be a paragraph –or at least introduce your lists to begin with. Your assignment needs to be a narrative and not a list of points
Again, this is very list-like and does not have to be –you have enough content here to write text instead of a list of points. Please at least give an introduction before starting these points, so that the reader knows why you are reporting them.
Reference- who says this? Where have you read it? Show your reading to support your comments
In order to address the third party of the title question ‘differentiation’ it would have been useful to discuss how it may be possible to meet the needs of both of these children within a classroom- but the use of individualized programmes. Good to have emphasized the very different nature of the two children with autism, this would also have been useful earlier
They will find it difficult to learn and then generalize
This needed to be stressed more clearly within the body of your assignment. Yew, this is important- to work with the child’s interests and follow their lead
The involvement of the child’s family is an important factor and should have been included in an earlier section. Your conclusion should be about drawing together the main points that you have made during the assignment, not about introducing more points
Grade 45% Fail
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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