New Zealand Autism Spectrum Disorder Guideline - Ministry of Health

Part 3: Education for learners with ASD
for practitioners 223 225 231 . Observation allows
information to be gathered on unusual forms of
expression of needs and emotional states which
may be missed by other forms of assessment 225 .
Observations need to include the child’s actual
behaviours, including:
• initiations
• responses
• length of rounds
• interest in others
• proximity to others 96 .
Goals for school-aged children may include
communication, participating in classroom
routines, responding to adult directions and
expressing needs. Goals for peer interactions
might include what are sometimes called ‘play
organisers’ – suggesting play ideas, sharing
affection, assisting others and responding to
initiations from peers. These are based on the
characteristics of socially successful children 96
231
. Social understanding of routines and other
social events needs explicit teaching and should
be given equal importance to the teaching of the
skills themselves 232 .
Part 3
However, data on the behaviours of the child
alone are not sufficient. Observation should
also include the reciprocal nature of social
interactions, that is, who does what and
with whom and the effect of this on social
interactions. The degree of responsiveness
and the skill of peers are also important
aspects of the assessment and planning of the
intervention 231 .
Observations using the type of narrative
assessment with which early childhood teachers
in New Zealand are familiar (such as Learning
Stories) might be a useful tool for analysing social
learning repertoires and interactions with peers.
A range of settings should be used for assessment.
Social assessment should be carried out in a
variety of natural settings (such as classrooms,
community settings and homes) and should
include both children and adults as interactive
partners 96 208 (Recommendation 3.2.2.1).
Goal setting and outcome measures
Goals need to consider family preferences and
be functional in the present setting or in the
next environment which the child or young
person will enter 96 218 (Recommendation 3.2.2.2).
Functionality is defined as accessing control
of the child’s or young person’s environment,
increasing independence and quality of life and
increasing performance 218 .
Teaching strategies
Interventions to develop social skills in young
children tend to come from two broad approaches
to teaching: developmental and behavioural 96 .
Developmental approaches fit easily into early
childhood education settings. These approaches
tend to be child-centred in which the adult
follows the child’s lead and then attempts
to stimulate and continue interactions. An
example of such an approach is Greenspan’s
DIR/‘Floortime’ 233 . Many of these interventions
are carried out in natural settings and use
natural routines and activities.
Social goals need to be very carefully designed
and implemented and should form part of each
child’s overall education plan (Good Practice
Point 3.2.2.7). Early goals for interacting with
adults need to include joint attention, turn
taking, imitation, responding to gaze, initiating
social interactions and engagement with toys 96
229
. Encouragement to play in or nearby similar
activities as peers and share materials, as well as
to watch and imitate the gross motor actions of
other children, are also important goals 229 .
In traditional behavioural approaches, the
emphasis is on building skills by using oneto-one
instruction. These approaches are more
difficult to fit into child-centred early childhood
education settings. Teaching tends to be adultdirected
instruction of specific components,
such as responses to gestures, toy play skills
and social speech 96 . These techniques, with
their emphasis on compliance, often do not
acknowledge the child’s initiations and often do
not generalise to other settings 225 .
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New Zealand Autism Spectrum Disorder Guideline