Teaching Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Chapter Three Teaching Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Acceptable methods of providing choice for students who have
limited ability to communicate are developed on an individual basis.
Direct teaching of making choices may be helpful. A choice-board
may be beneficial for the student. Choice should be limited to one
or two preferred activities until the student grasps the concept of
choice. Open-ended choices will not enhance the student’s skill at
making choices, and may frustrate him.
Oral instructions into small steps
When providing instruction to students with ASD, teachers should
avoid long strings of verbal information and complex or vague
instruction. For example, when instructing a student to “get ready
for the bus”, numerous short instructions may be necessary (ie: “get
your book bag”, “go to your locker”, “get your coat”, etc). As discussed
above, supporting oral instruction with visual cues and representations
helps students to understand and leads to more independent
performance of skills.
Processing and pacing issues
Students with ASD may need more time to respond to directions
or questions than other students. This difficulty may be linked to
cognitive and/or motor difficulties. Students with ASD may need
to process each discrete piece of the message or request, and therefore
need extra time to respond. Providing extra time, and allowing for
ample time between giving instructions and student response are both
important tactics for supporting students with ASD.
Concrete examples and hands-on activities
Vary the examples so that the concept is not accidentally learned
as applying in only one way. For example, when teaching ‘emotions’,
use pictures of a number of different faces for a particular emotion
in a number of different scenarios and vary across settings and
instructors to ensure generalization of concepts.
Generalization of Concepts
As the child acquires new skills, it is important that the child learn
to generalize these skills to different environments, teachers, and
teaching materials. This should be an important component built
28 Teaching Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders