978-1572305441

170 A MIND APART
the result of the deficits in executive function or in switching attention
among children with ASD referred to earlier.
Instructional strategies, therefore, need to take advantage of these
relative strengths in rote learning and apply them to situations where
learning requires more complex organizing principles. Since visual presentation
of learning materials is often simpler than verbal presentation,
picture symbols, photographs, drawings, and other graphics are effective
ways to teach children with ASD. These visual clues help organize
the child. They allow the teacher to break a complex task down into
component parts, deal with each part in isolation, then combine them
in a rote way to accomplish the more complex demands of learning. We
taped a “process” sheet to Harry’s desk to remind and cue him on how
to work independently: If it was a homework assignment, step 1 was to
underline each component of the assignment, step 2 to make notes for
each part, step 3 to type them together in one paragraph, and step 4 to
edit the paragraph to improve the flow. He needed reminders of this
process each time he did his homework and initially required a tutor to
take him step by step through the routine. Eventually, the tutor could
fade out at the end of the process and not prompt him. But Harry always
needed help to get started, to sit down, look at the sheet, and start to
beak down the homework assignment into its parts. The key difference
between Harry and his classmates was that in addition to needing to be
taught the content of his classes, he needed to be taught how to organize
his work, how to solve a problem. Every class assignment, whether
it was reading, writing, mathematics, history, or science, had to be reformulated
so that the learning could be initiated by rote and could bypass
his weaker organizing strategies.
An easier way to accomplish this is often through computer-assisted
instruction. Children with ASD love to use computers, and will
happily stay on them for hours. In fact, it is often so difficult to get them
off the computer that it almost seems like an addiction. Fortunately,
there are now many programs on the computer that can teach young
children with ASD to read and do simple math operations. Several studies
have shown that children with ASD learn faster by computer than
through verbal instruction, perhaps because the computer not only
holds their attention longer but also uses the principle of presentation
by visual means, which is less complex and requires less contextual
cuing to be understood. Computer-assisted instruction made a huge difference
to Zachary (Chapter 4) in his early school years. He learned to
read and do addition, subtraction, and basic multiplication all by com-