At age 8, Joseph is the best reader and speller in his third-grade class. He is also a whiz at computers and often is able to figure out the problem when his teacher has trouble logging on or opening folders. His teacher, who is very fond of Joseph and continually amazed at his talents, asks him to help a classmate who has had little experience with computers. Joseph beams as he demonstrates how to use the mouse and navigate the Internet. In a recent talent show, Joseph showed his class how he can read The New York Times upside down in a mirror. Joseph struggles in many other areas, however. He sometimes misinterprets what he reads and often can’t answer simple questions about a paragraph that he has read aloud quickly and flawlessly. Joseph can subtract three-digit numbers in his head but can’t figure out how much money he needs for lunch or whether he gets the right amount of change back. His handwriting is very poor, and he resists using a pencil, so his teacher allows him to use a keyboard for writing assignments. His desk is a horrible mess, with papers that he has forgotten to hand in, assignments he has never finished, old food, and little trinkets spilling out. He often appears as if he isn’t listening or is absorbed in daydreams. When the teacher gives directions, Joseph sits quietly, lost in thought, while all around him his classmates get their workbooks out and turn to the page the teacher indicated. And Joseph often complains of boredom when the class studies topics that don’t interest him (basically anything unrelated to geography). His parents have asked the teacher to modify some of his assignments so that they somehow involve geography, but the teacher is not sure whether this will go too far in “coddling” Joseph or making him stand out even further from his classmates.
When Hans Asperger first described children like Joseph, he highlighted both their special cognitive strengths and their serious academic weaknesses, saying that “these exceptional human beings must be given exceptional educational treatment…. These children raise questions of central importance to psychology and education.” He and Leo Kanner, both of whom described what is now called ASD in the 1940s, recognized immediately that standard educational practices would not always work for children with ASD and that special measures would need to be taken to ensure that they achieved to their true potential. In this chapter, we outline a variety of different school services and accommodations that use the special strengths of the condition to help children and adolescents with high-functioning ASD succeed academically, despite the cognitive challenges that may also be present.
THE COGNITIVE AND ACADEMIC PROFILE OF HIGHER-FUNCTIONING INDIVIDUALS WITH ASD
Chapter 5 reviewed the cognitive talents that are often part of ASD, and Chapter 2 introduced the cognitive challenges that are often part of the profile for ASD. Joseph exemplifies a typical (although not universal) pattern, in which some of his academic skills are highly advanced, others are age-appropriate, and still others are truly deficient. Joseph can sound out almost any word he is shown, but he doesn’t always know what it means. This indicates a dissociation between his reading decoding and reading comprehension skills. Similarly, in math he understands the rules of addition and subtraction and is even beginning to memorize the multiplication tables, but he has trouble applying these skills to the real world and using them in a commonsense fashion. He often appears unmotivated to learn about things that other children are intrinsically interested in. Earning good grades and obtaining teacher and parent approval seem unimportant to Joseph.
One of Joseph’s greatest sources of difficulty is his trouble with organization, planning, and goal-directed activities (often called “executive function” skills). Joseph frequently daydreams, which causes him to miss what the teacher is saying or what he is supposed to be doing. He is not distracted by external stimuli, however, as in the case of individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but internally: he can get totally absorbed in his own thoughts and lose track of what is going on in the classroom. Joseph also has trouble managing time and works very slowly and methodically; consequently, he often falls behind during class, resulting in hours of homework in the evening. He can’t seem to get organized: when he sits down to do homework, he has invariably forgotten something he needs to complete the assignment. Either he’s left it at school or he goes off in search of it and gets distracted by something of higher interest and an hour elapses. Joseph’s backpack is such a jumble that he can’t find the homework he’s done to turn it in—or else he just plain forgets that this last step is essential. In mid-February, he gave his family a Christmas ornament he had made in school as a holiday gift after discovering it at the bottom of his desk. Joseph tends to get bogged down in details and has trouble distinguishing what is most relevant from minor issues. He is prone to go off on tangents or to get overly focused on something unimportant. For example, when writing a book report, he spent so much time trying to figure out the author’s date of birth that he wasn’t able to complete the assignment, even though his mother stayed up until midnight to help him with it.
This profile of strengths and weaknesses is quite distinct from the learning disabilities that teachers are most often aware of. For example, children with dyslexia (reading disability), the most common learning disorder, demonstrate essentially the opposite pattern from Joseph. They are unable to sound out words due to a profound deficit in hearing speech sounds in language and difficulty learning how letters correspond to sounds. When asked to read aloud, they read haltingly and with great difficulty, mispronouncing, skipping, or guessing at many words. Despite these problems, children with dyslexia can often answer questions about what they’ve read perfectly—an uncanny ability considering all the reading errors they have made and the poor correspondence between the printed page and what they say aloud.
This is the kind of pattern that teachers learn about during their training and know how to address. But many teachers have never been faced with a student who can read a passage perfectly but has trouble understanding what it means. Likewise, organizational and planning difficulties are not typical forms of learning disability. Teachers often have trouble believing that a child who is bright in so many ways can “forget” about a long-planned field trip or fail to anticipate what materials are needed to complete an assignment. Because of the relative rarity of these academic difficulties, children with high-functioning ASD can frustrate even the most understanding teachers and parents. Occasionally this leads to misinterpretation of the child’s behaviors and negative attributions about the student—for example, that he or she is lazy, stubborn, willfully disobedient, or defiant. Many teachers, and even some parents, have felt that the child “could do it if he [she] really wanted to.” This can be a harmful attitude for the child. It not only can set up an adversarial relationship between the child and the teacher, but, even worse, may prevent the child from getting the services or accommodations he might need to succeed in school and later in life. Finally, this attitude can also have a negative effect on your child’s self-esteem and feelings about school.
LEARNING DISABILITIES AND ASD
The fact that there are major distinctions between the cognitive challenges posed by ASD and those posed by learning disabilities does not preclude the possibility that a child will have both. While it is relatively uncommon for children with ASD to have dyslexia too, it does occasionally happen. If your child is experiencing trouble with phonics (sounding out words), by all means have her evaluated for dyslexia. Most school psychologists and many clinical psychologists in the community are trained to perform these specialized evaluations.
A learning disability that occurs with more frequency among children with high-functioning ASD is known as nonverbal learning disability, or NLD. Children with NLD experience selective difficulty with mathematics, visual–spatial skills (for example, completing puzzles, mazes, drawing), and handwriting, but function fine when the activity relies primarily on language skills (for example, reading, spelling, answering questions). They are often clumsy and late to walk or to develop other motor skills, such as riding a bike. Many children with NLD have trouble reading the emotions of others and may have other social difficulties, such as shyness or trouble making friends. Some of these difficulties overlap with ASD (social problems and delayed motor skills, for example), while others are relatively rare in ASD (such as poor visual–spatial skills). To be diagnosed with NLD, a child must experience the hallmark cognitive and academic symptoms of the syndrome, including poor math and visual–spatial skills and lowered nonverbal intelligence; the social and motor symptoms alone are not enough for a diagnosis. If your child exhibits several of these difficulties, it is worth requesting an evaluation from your school to see if he would benefit from extra assistance in learning math or qualify for occupational therapy services.
EDUCATIONAL SERVICES
Most children with ASD, even those who are high functioning, will need special educational services and accommodations at some point, if not throughout their schooling. One of the first questions raised by parents about educational services involves school placement. Would their child be better off in a regular or a special education classroom, in a public or a private school? The answers to these questions depend on the individual child: no placement or set of services is universally successful for all children with ASD. It is important for parents to know that special education is not a place or a setting; it is a group of services, individualized for their child, to support her learning needs in any context (within the regular curriculum or a special classroom). When a special education plan is set up for a child, it will specify the number of hours, the types of services, the adult-to-child ratio, and where the services will be delivered (in the regular classroom, in a special setting, and so on). In most parts of the United States, and in many other countries, a child who is performing at or close to grade level and displays relatively few challenging behaviors (for example, outbursts, aggression, interrupting) will be served in the general education setting, with appropriate supports. Special education services are delivered in the regular classroom, by the teacher and perhaps an aide, in consultation with a member of the school’s special education staff. Regular classrooms, however, have a high student-to-teacher ratio, and busy teachers may not notice when the child doesn’t understand something or needs help or clarification. Problems in comprehension, abstract reasoning, and organization may go unrecognized if the child has good reading and calculation skills. Teasing may not be monitored, and development of social skills may not be a focus of remediation as it might be in a special education classroom. So even children with milder or higher-functioning ASD will usually still need some special accommodations in the regular classroom to help them be successful.
To reiterate a theme from Chapter 4, your active participation in your child’s educational program is essential. You are an expert on your child. You understand his strengths, interests, routines, triggers, and what has and has not worked for him in the past. School personnel, on the other hand, are specialists in academic policies, classroom settings and options, educational principles, and grade-appropriate curricula. The old adage “two heads are better than one” is particularly apt in this situation, so actively collaborate with your child’s teachers and principal in setting up educational goals and a curriculum. Your job is a tough one, because you must walk a fine line between advocating for your child’s special needs (which may be more obvious to you than to his or her teachers and the school administrators) and working with the school in a collegial and professional fashion. Choose your battles and be willing to compromise. This is easier said than done, we know, but it is very important to try to prevent the development of an adversarial relationship with your child’s school since, in our experience, this never helps your child.
Special Education Options—and What Is an IEP?
Since the 1970s, federal legislation has required states to provide equal educational opportunities to all children with disabilities. In 1975, the U.S. Congress passed Public Law 94-142, which established the basic right to a “free and appropriate public education” for children with disabilities. In addition, this congressional bill mandated that schools provide a fair and unbiased evaluation to determine eligibility for services and place children in the “least restrictive” setting that could meet their educational needs. Specific special education services and goals for the child were to be listed formally in an Individualized Education Program, or IEP. Parents were strongly encouraged to participate in decision making about their child’s education by being part of the team that set up the IEP. Although this legislation is almost 40 years old and has undergone a number of amendments (and new names), its spirit remains strong and continues to regulate special education eligibility and delivery of services today. The current law that governs special education, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (or IDEA), was reauthorized by the U.S. Senate in 2004.
Steps in Finding the Right Program for Your Child
1.As soon as you receive the diagnosis, contact the principal of your child’s school.
•Explain the test results.
•Ask for a referral to the school personnel who conduct eligibility determinations for special education.
2.After determining whether your child is eligible for special education, find out about different classroom options in your district.
•Visit the different classrooms and interview the teachers.
•Ask about the availability of certain accommodations or the willingness to provide them.
3.If your child is not eligible for special education, request an appointment with the district’s “504 Coordinator.”
•Request a 504 evaluation.
•Ask about the availability of certain accommodations or the willingness to provide them.
While these statutes grant specific educational rights to your child, it is important to understand that obtaining these rights involves a very intense process. Many stages and layers of development must be passed through on the way to putting a program into place for an individual child. Through these stages and layers, you may find that your local school is cooperative and open to new ideas, or you may find that the school has a preset agenda and is less willing to compromise. If you reach the latter point, you should be prepared to advocate for your child. It is paramount that you know your rights and responsibilities. Contact your state’s department of education to get information about the special education process in your state.
In the meantime, also be aware that an ASD diagnosis (or indeed any psychological or psychiatric diagnosis) does not guarantee that your child will qualify for special education services. Eligibility is determined by examining the impact of the condition on your child’s academic skills and other areas of functioning in the school setting. Different states implement the federal guidelines in different manners. After obtaining a diagnosis, parents should take the diagnostic report (or ask that it be sent) to their child’s school and request an evaluation to assess her educational needs. It is possible that the results of this evaluation will indicate that your child does not qualify for special education services. If so, don’t lose heart—there are other options for receiving support in the school, which are discussed in a later section on classroom accommodations and 504 Plans.
If your child does prove eligible for special education, then an IEP will be prepared, with much input from you. The IEP is best thought of as a contract between parents and schools that outlines what the team agrees is an appropriate education for the child, how and where the services will be delivered, and how it will be evaluated to see if it is working. The IDEA law mandates that a “team” develop, review, and revise the IEP. The IEP team consists of:
1.A school representative (other than teachers) qualified to offer or supervise special education services (if your district has an autism specialist, she may serve in this role; alternate possibilities include the director of special education or another school administrator).
2.The child’s regular and special education teachers.
3.Other school personnel providing services to the child (for example, occupational and/or speech therapists).
5.The child, when possible and if age-appropriate.
As a member of the IEP team, you have some choices and some power in the decision-making process, more so than you may be accustomed to with your children without ASD. If there is something you think your child needs at school (such as language services, social skills training, help with goal setting and organization, reading comprehension tutoring, an aide), your best recourse is to get it put in the IEP. Keep in mind, too, that you can ask to include on the team anyone with special knowledge or expertise concerning the needs of your child.
Know your legal rights. For example, you do not need to sign the IEP until you agree that it provides what you think your child needs and the law promises you. Equally important, however, is understanding that the law says your child is entitled to an appropriate education, not the best education. Just as with regular education, parents may choose to “purchase” what they perceive to be the best education for their child through a private school. That said, keep in mind that the educational plan must be individualized—that is, specifically tailored to meet the unique needs of your child. This means that the school must develop a unique plan for each student, regardless of what the school offers other children.
What happens if you disagree with your school over the appropriate/best distinction? For example, sometimes parents think that a particular service is appropriate for their child with ASD and therefore should be funded by the school system, but school personnel see this service as the best technique, and therefore not something the school is obligated to provide. In our experience, a combination of persistence and willingness to negotiate will often get parents fairly close to what they desire in the IEP. If, however, after a series of negotiations with the school, you still feel the program being offered by the school is not appropriate, you can contact your state education department to find out what alternatives are available. The federal government has mandated that every state have an agency designated to help parents get through the special education process.
IEPs contain specific goals and objectives for your child’s education. A goal is a general desired change in your child’s learning, skills, or behaviors, while an objective is the specific definition of that change and how it will be measured. Goals are usually broader and longer term (perhaps set annually), while objectives are shorter-term benchmarks for determining whether appropriate progress toward the goal is being made. For example, an IEP goal might be “to increase reading comprehension,” while a corresponding objective would be “to answer questions about a paragraph accurately 75% of the time.” It is important to choose IEP goals and objectives that are both meaningful and realistic. You want the skills specified to be ones that are important to your child’s functionality, independence, and later success, while also being attainable. If IEP objectives are set too high, it will appear that your child is “failing” when in fact she is really straining to meet an inappropriate skill level. If the objective is set too low, your child may not be challenged appropriately and therefore not receive the level of intervention that she could benefit from. And remember that an IEP is not immutable: at any time, any member of the IEP team (including you as parents) can ask that the IEP be reviewed and revised. This is typically done at least annually and more often if necessary. If objectives are being met at an unanticipated pace or not met at all or if new diagnostic or evaluation results are obtained, then a meeting of the IEP team is warranted.
In addition to specific goals and objectives, IEPs contain a list of related services that will be provided to your child in the school setting, such as speech–language therapy, occupational therapy, adaptive physical education, or social skills training. Some children with ASD need one-on-one instruction for certain academic tasks or during certain activities (for example, groups) when their behavior or understanding may limit their ability to benefit otherwise from the instruction. In such cases, a request for an aide can be made in the IEP. An aide can be full- or part-time and can be assigned to an individual student or shared among a few students who would all benefit from smaller group learning. Aides can be extremely valuable, but they are usually paraprofessionals without any advanced degrees (or perhaps even formal training). Therefore, it is important to request that your aide either have prior experience or receive specific training in both standard educational principles and best practices for students with ASD. It is also important to ensure that your child’s aide gives him chances to “practice” the skills without always jumping in to help. Too much one-to-one assistance can be as bad as too little. Specifically, it may make your child overly dependent on prompts from an adult and therefore may reduce the child’s initiative and ability to function independently. Aides need to know how to provide subtle structure without eliminating chances for the child to interact, practice, and try, before offering more help.
Classroom Options
Children can receive special education services in a self-contained classroom—one whose members all have difficulties of some type and who are all receiving special education—or in regular classrooms, partially or even primarily. Over the last few decades, across the United States and many other parts of the world, there has been a strong movement toward “inclusion” of children with ASD, at all levels of functioning, in regular education. This means that, whenever possible, the child’s education, including services specified in her IEP, are provided in regular classrooms, by a regular education teacher, in collaboration with special education staff. This has the benefit of surrounding the child with typically developing peers and exposing the child to appropriate behavior and good models of age-typical communication and interpersonal relationships. In fact, one basic principle within special education legislation is that all children with disabilities should be educated in the “least restrictive environment” (this principle is often nicknamed “LRE” by school staff), alongside children who are not disabled, and that putting children in self-contained classes should be minimized. The child may be “pulled out” of the regular classroom only for special services like occupational therapy, and even then these may be delivered in a small-group format, with other children. “LRE” is part of federal law, so school personnel will always start by offering your child the least restrictive educational setting, with appropriate supports. If there is evidence that her needs are not being met in such a setting, then the IEP team can meet and add more services or change the setting in which the services are delivered, as needed.
Public or Private School?
Parents sometimes turn to private schools when they feel that their child’s unique needs can’t be met by the public school options in their region. Private schools may seem to have a clear advantage since most offer substantially smaller class sizes and more individualized instruction than public schools. But there are other factors to consider. Perhaps the most important is that private schools are not governed by the federal laws that mandate a “free and appropriate” public education. Obviously, private schooling is not free, and private schools are not required to provide “appropriate” services. So keep in mind that a move to a private school will involve relinquishing your legal right to these services.
Another consideration, however, is the uniformity and homogeneity of the school. In some private schools there is so little diversity and the student body is so geared toward high achievement that the child with ASD stands out far more than in a public school. In some private schools, it can be so much harder to fit in that it is not worth the other benefits the setting might offer.
Finally, money is often an issue. Many families need to choose among a variety of therapeutic options and must constantly weigh the costs against the benefits. Will this money be better spent elsewhere? If we choose this private school, will we need to give up speech therapy or social skills training? This is another example of the need to “choose your battles.”
There are private schools that will agree to provide educational accommodations appropriate for children with ASD and some that even specialize in such accommodations. In this case such a school may be a good setting for your child. If you do find a special school of this type, be sure that it provides opportunities for inclusion and education with nondisabled students as well. The principle of the “least restrictive environment” is not just legal policy but is also good for your child’s social development.
Classroom Accommodations—and What Is a 504 Plan?
As mentioned above, all is not lost if your child does not qualify for special education and an IEP. The Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is a law that protects the civil and constitutional rights of people with disabilities. Section 504 of this law (since renamed the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA) mandates access to a free and appropriate public education for all people with disabilities. Disabilities are broadly defined in this legislation (more broadly than in IDEA, the special education law) as any limit in any major life activity, including “learning.” At first, this law was interpreted as an obligation to provide physical access to education for people with disabilities (for example, curb cuts and elevators for students in wheelchairs, sign language interpreters for deaf students, and the like). More recently, however, the meaning of “access” to an appropriate education has been expanded. Section 504 has increasingly been used to secure services for children with disabilities who don’t qualify for special education but still have educational needs (or, in the language of the law, “limits in learning”). All school districts have a designated “504 coordinator” who helps put together services for children qualified under Section 504. In brief, a “504 Plan” is a written document that lays out a variety of modifications that a child needs to be successful in a regular education environment. Usually these accommodations are somewhat less time-consuming and require less intensive intervention and fewer trained staff to implement them than those provided via an IEP. The downside to 504 Plans (relative to IEPs) is that there is no federal funding to implement them; thus, whatever you ask your school to provide in a 504 Plan must be done with the school’s existing funds or at no additional cost. In the following sections, we outline a variety of interventions and accommodations that can be added to a 504 Plan to help your child succeed (not just survive) in school, despite the learning and/or behavioral difficulties of ASD. It is also worth mentioning that these very same accommodations can be part of an IEP (in other words, 504 goals are not mutually exclusive of IEP goals) if your child qualifies for special education under IDEA.
Teacher and Classroom Characteristics
One of the most important ingredients in a successful school program is the teacher—specifically, the teacher’s level of flexibility, open-mindedness, positive attitude, sense of humor, and willingness to try new things. Teachers who appreciate diversity, accept students as they are, and enjoy the uniqueness of those with ASD are particularly valuable. You may find these qualities in teachers in regular classrooms, self-contained special education classrooms, or private schools. The following characteristics are often seen in the classrooms of teachers who have successfully served children with high-functioning ASD (and with other special needs):
•Consistent routines and rules
•Consistent places that assignment materials are kept and assignments are collected
•A posted classroom schedule
•Use of clear, simple, unambiguous language
•Provision of written instructions (such as directions written on the chalkboard)
•Preferential desk placement near the teacher and away from distractions, such as windows or corridors
•A special work station when noise or other distractions disrupt work
•Allocation of sufficient time for instructions, repetition of instructions, and individual student assistance
•Frequent monitoring of student work pace and work product
•Directing of questions toward the students to see that they understand the work and are attending
•Immediate feedback on performance, including reinforcement for both effort and productivity
Some school districts will allow parents to visit several classrooms and hand-pick a teacher and classroom that possess these qualities, whether it is in the child’s neighborhood school or not. And many teachers who do not already do these things will be willing to if asked. Many of these things will benefit all students in the class and are not particularly time-consuming for the teacher. They are prime examples of the kinds of modifications that can be listed in your child’s 504 Plan or IEP.
A wide variety of additional accommodations that may help your child can be added to a 504 Plan or an IEP. Some of these are, in contrast to the preceding list, more work for a teacher who may already be juggling a large class and be terribly overworked. Some of these accommodations may draw unwanted attention to your child and make him stand out in a way that turns out to be unacceptable to you or the teachers. Sometimes school personnel worry that providing a service to one child will open the floodgates to similar requests for other children, so they resist your request for the accommodation. Also remember that there is no extra funding coming to your school to pay for the modifications listed in a 504 Plan. For all these reasons, it is important to choose judiciously from the ideas presented below and ask specifically for those that you feel will truly be helpful for your child.
You may find that your child has hours of homework each evening, perhaps much more than other students in the class. This may be due to her working slowly and inefficiently as a result of being preoccupied by special interests or distracted by details, as well as to the poorly developed concept of time so often seen in children with ASD. This often places a large burden on parents, because your child will likely need a great deal of structure and supervision from you to finish this homework. We saw a couple in our clinic who were so stressed by their son’s hours of homework and his resistance to completing it that it created terrible friction between them and eventually (combined with other stresses) led to their divorce. If your situation is in any way similar, even if not quite so extreme, you may want to ask your child’s teacher to consider some of the following options for managing time.
If your child seems unaware of passing time, then an intervention as simple as providing a kitchen timer or watch with an alarm can be used to help your child monitor her work pace. These devices provide concrete cues for the beginning and end of each work activity, as well as advance warnings of deadlines. Another option that may be necessary is decreasing your child’s workload. Perhaps the number of problems required could be reduced (for example, your child must complete 10 math problems instead of the 20 that classmates must finish) or the assignment shortened (writing one versus four paragraphs on a particular topic). If your child can still learn a concept without doing quite so many problems, this may be a possibility. Another option is to have less information on a page so that the amount of work appears less, even if it truly is not. A child faced with one page of 10 math problems may be overwhelmed, but the same child who faces a few pages of less dense problems (perhaps three per page) may find the work manageable. When your child reaches junior and senior high school and perhaps college, an additional version of this principle is to limit the number of courses taken. It may be best for the student to enroll in two to three classes per semester, instead of the usual four or five, especially when the classes are time-consuming or difficult. We also recommend enrolling in small classes, where the amount of attention from the professor may be greater. Or your child may want to choose less popular classes (we know a college student with ASD who chose to take Russian instead of Spanish), where class size may be smaller and professors may be highly motivated to retain students. It is more important for your child to have a successful experience than to follow a typical schedule. You may also want to ask that certain curriculum requirements be waived, especially those that prove difficult for many people with ASD, like foreign language classes.
Visual Strategies
As we’ve highlighted throughout this book, children and adolescents with ASD are often visual learners. Thus, providing as much visual input and structure as possible will help most students with ASD. For example, teachers could be asked to write instructions they give to the whole class on the chalkboard, so that if your child is not paying attention for a moment or cannot process the verbal instructions quickly, he has a record and reminder of what to do. The teacher might also provide your child with individual instructions, in the form of a written prompt or reminder on an index card that can be taped to his desk. Another example of providing visual structure is to show your child a model of the final goal or completed product. It is often easier to work toward the conclusion when the child can see what he is supposed to be doing than if the end product is abstract or otherwise intangible.
Executive Function Help
Several strategies can be used to compensate for organization and planning difficulties, also called executive function problems, that your child may demonstrate. One is a weekly homework log that is sent from school to home and back, keeping all parties informed of work due and progress on it. A description of the homework and the due date are entered in the log by your child, often with the teacher’s help. Teachers may need to check that your child has all homework and associated materials before leaving school. Parents can then enter their initials in the log to indicate that their child has worked on the assignment at home, and teachers can sign off when it has been turned in. Teachers can indicate grades received as well as the number of times that homework was not completed on time. You may also want to request that teachers give your child advance warning of upcoming due dates, even before other students in the class, so that she has extra time to complete the assignment.
Assignment checklists can be used to help break large, often overwhelming, tasks into manageable units. For example, an assignment checklist might contain information about how to get started (“Begin with question 7 on page 4”), what to do (every other item, for example), how to recognize when the task is complete (“Finish 10 problems”), where to store or hand in the completed product (for example, a backpack near the door), and a reminder to clean up. For larger assignments, timelines might be supplied along with a list of subgoals. For example, if your child has a book report due at the end of the month, you or the teacher could not only break this large goal into its smaller objectives (visit library, choose book, read book, outline main ideas, and so on), but assign due dates for each of these subgoals. Otherwise, your child may start the process only a day or two in advance since he hasn’t realized the length of time that each of the smaller goals will require. It is also helpful to provide a list of materials needed for each assignment (perhaps a calculator, specific assignment sheet, the correct book, a writing implement). While this may seem obvious, one of the most common reasons that students with ASD fail to complete work is that they don’t have the appropriate materials ready when they sit down to work.
Day planners, simplified versions of the kind that many adults use, can also help organize your child. All events with a designated time should be entered in the planner, including, for example, time to wake up, eat breakfast, and get to the bus stop; time for major school activities and after-school appointments; and times for dinner, homework, relaxation, and bed. Children enjoy it when an empty box is placed next to each item, to be filled with a check mark or sticker once the activity has been completed. This provides a visual concrete cue identifying completed and upcoming events. Since day planners are widely used and do not make the child stand out from peers, they tend to be well accepted. It may also be helpful for parents to adopt a day planner themselves, modeling its use for their child. Also, including things your child likes or considers special, such as calculators, favorite writing implements, money, or trading cards, in a pouch in the day planner can increase its relevance and worth, reducing the likelihood that it will be “forgotten” at home or school. Once your child is older, and perhaps has access to her own electronics (phone or tablet), she will have the skills necessary to begin using the calendar provided on such devices.
“To do” lists can be included in the day planner for tasks that need to get done but do not have specific designated times (errands, telephone calls, chores, and so on). You’ll need to teach your child to cross out items as they are completed, and then each evening to transfer items that have yet to be finished to the next day’s list. Items on the list can be prioritized with a numbering or color-coding system.
Help-Seeking Routines
Because of their social challenges and their difficulty initiating interactions, students with ASD often do not ask for help when they need it. Therefore, it is important for teachers to be on the lookout for the need for help, to check in with your child periodically to monitor work, and to create signals or other routines that your child can use to indicate the need for help. Sometimes this can be as simple as teaching the child to raise his hand. If a child is particularly self-conscious and unlikely to call attention to himself in this way, however, the teacher could supply a specific but unobtrusive behavior that the child could use to signal the need for help—perhaps turning sideways, with feet toward the aisle rather than directly under the desk, or placing a special object on the desktop.
Group Learning
Social difficulties can also present an obstacle to group work for the child with ASD. Since the 1990s, the educational principle of collaborative learning has been prominent in American schools. Children work in groups to complete a common product. The goal of this type of instruction is learning to work together, to negotiate, and to help one another. It is not sufficient for each child to focus on her individual goal or part of the task; one weak link, and the whole project will receive a lower grade. This practice appears to have many obvious educational and less tangible social benefits. However, as you might imagine, this kind of work is very hard for the child with ASD. At the worst, it can mean that your child does not learn particular concepts because the learning process so much depends on social skills. If so, you may find it necessary to request another learning format (such as individual assignments) for your child. On the other hand, if your child shows some ability to participate in group exercises, they can be great social opportunities.
Difficulties can also arise when students are expected to work in self-chosen pairs or teams. It can be exceedingly painful to be the only one “not picked,” a not uncommon situation for students with ASD. In such circumstances, parents can encourage teachers to draw numbers or use some other means of pairing off in classes.
Handwriting Alternatives
Many people with ASD have poor handwriting. It can be very difficult to read, as well as slow and laborious to produce. This often results in anxiety, resistance to activities that involve handwriting, and even some of the challenging behaviors we described in the last chapter. To alleviate some of these problems, you can ask that your child’s teacher provide extra time for and/or shorten written assignments. Also, it’s important that your child be graded on content, not the neatness or legibility of his or her handwriting. You can also ask your child’s teacher to allow him or her to submit work in an alternative form (typed on a computer, audio-recorded, dictated to a peer or parent), with the exception of those tasks that were designed specifically to promote and develop handwriting. Many schools now provide access to laptop computers or to keyboards that are connected to a central classroom computer and printer.
Labored handwriting makes note taking difficult for students with ASD (as does their slower auditory processing and their tendency to become preoccupied with details and special interests). It is very helpful if teachers give a copy of their notes or an outline of the class discussion to students with ASD (preferably beforehand), so that they can listen to lectures and concentrate on what the teacher adds while speaking, without the frustration of taking notes. Another possibility is asking that a peer provide copies of his notes to the child or teen with ASD. Permitting audio recording of lectures is another method to assist with note taking. Similarly, copying from the chalkboard can be a challenge (due not only to writing problems but also to the child’s need to constantly switch back and forth between two tasks: reading and writing). Access to teacher or classmate notes will significantly reduce this problem too. Some parents worry that these accommodations will place an unnecessary spotlight on their child. In our experience, however, these academic modifications can make your child fit in better and in the long run actually reduce the spotlight on your child. At the college level, it is the rule rather than the exception that teachers provide lecture outlines to students, so you might encourage your child’s teachers to provide the notes to everyone in the class, not just the student with ASD.
Test taking is another academic activity that often presents special challenges to the child with ASD, even the most high-functioning among them, due to the combination of time management, handwriting, anxiety, and executive function problems. The student could be permitted to take exams in an alternative format (for example, orally, or by using a fill-in-the-blanks written format), to have extra time for tests, and to take them in a quiet room, alone, or with a teacher or aide present to provide structure and motivation, interpret questions, and manage time.
Alberto is an 11-year-old diagnosed with ASD. He is educated within regular classrooms. In science class they were learning about species’ classification, a topic that Alberto particularly enjoyed and was good at—his excellent memory helped him learn the Latin names and categories easily. His mother was therefore quite surprised when he brought home a test on animal classification with a large red F on the top. When she went in to talk to the science teacher, she found that the format of the test was very different from other tests, as well as from how Alberto and his classmates had learned and studied the material. Specifically, the teacher had given students a page of animal names that they were supposed to cut out and then arrange on a chart according to their species. While Alberto knew every name and classification by heart, he was not able to flexibly apply this knowledge to this new format. His mother demonstrated for the teacher how Alberto could fill in the blanks or answer short questions about every animal on the chart and how, in fact, he could even complete the chart once his mother explained the task to him and provided one example. She then requested a new IEP meeting and had it written formally into Alberto’s IEP that he be allowed to take tests for all his classes in the resource room, where the resource teacher could monitor his work and provide assistance and clarification when necessary. In addition, it was included in Alberto’s IEP that his tests follow a standard format (specifically, fill-in-the-blank and short-answer questions). His mother and the resource teacher were also promised that they would be given advance notice of any test that would, of necessity, follow a different format so that they could teach Alberto how to respond in a different way and be sure he understood what was asked of him.
Comprehension and Abstraction Skills
Some high-functioning children with ASD will not exhibit any academic problems in their first few years of school. Parents may be told that the child is academically on a par with the other children or perhaps even more advanced than classmates in some areas. For some children, this advantage dwindles with time and they begin to fall behind classmates as the grades advance. This usually occurs because the concepts taught in school become progressively more abstract and require more interpretation, integration, and generalization than they did in lower grades. Thus, the strengths of most children with ASD described in Chapter 5, such as memory and visualization, are highlighted in early grades but are progressively less required as the years go by. Conversely, the comprehension and abstraction skills that seem to be integral parts of the cognitive deficit profile of ASD are increasingly required. What can be done to help your child with these kinds of skills?
Most of the answers to this question have already been provided somewhere in this chapter: make concepts as concrete and visual as possible, organize the work in advance, and use special interests or skills when you can. At the risk of some redundancy, we will provide some specific examples of how to use these principles to compensate for weaknesses in reading comprehension and math concepts.
Reading Comprehension. Capitalizing on the rule-following strength of ASD, teachers and parents can teach rules for understanding stories. Especially in elementary grades, most stories have a common structure that includes four typical elements: (1) who, (2) did what, (3) and then, (4) the end. That is, someone (the “who” of the story) does or is involved in something (the “what”), which is followed by some resolution of the situation, and then an ending. Teachers can underline these elements in a story or highlight them in color-coded ink in advance. They can provide a list of questions in the same color ink, thus tapping into visual strengths to improve comprehension. Or they can ask students to generate alternate but plausible endings to the story or paraphrase the main points by retelling the story in their own words (pictures or a visual flowchart can be used to make this exercise as concrete as possible). Teachers need to be alert for rote or memorized responses that come straight from the story without true understanding (such as echoing sentences rather than restating ideas in the child’s own words). Additional elements of story grammar, such as the location or setting (“where”) and the reasons, intentions, or motives of characters (“why”), can be added as the child is able to handle them. But add the last item with care. It is often difficult for children with ASD to judge the underlying human motives and interpersonal dynamics of a situation, so they may be able to get a reasonable handle on the rest of the story’s structure, only to be stymied by this one element.
Alex, a 16-year-old with ASD, explained why he was failing 11th-grade English. “My teachers,” he said, “are always asking me questions that they know the answers to, but I don’t. Even when I try to figure out why someone did something in The Scarlet Letter, it’s never the reason the teacher thinks they did it. I just have different ideas about things than they do. I especially hate to speculate why someone else did something. I can only say why I did something.” Alex was fascinated with animals, especially endangered species, and was much better able to answer “why” questions about these topics than about Hester Prynne.
Math. As with reading (and much else in this chapter), improving comprehension of math concepts boils down to making the abstract concrete and visual. Whenever possible, students with ASD should be allowed to use manipulative materials (rods, tokens, beans, and the like) to stand in for abstract concepts like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They can be allowed to act out or draw pictures to represent the components in word problems. Critical aspects of word problems can be highlighted or color-coded in advance by teachers so that the student will recognize information pertaining to which mathematical operation should be performed or which variables should be attended to. To see how word problems correspond to mathematical calculations, students can make up their own word problems revolving around their special interests. For example, “7–5” becomes “If you had seven trains and lost five of them, how many would you have left?” There should be explicit practice generalizing math skills to real-life situations, as this often does not happen naturally. Toward that end, fractions can be practiced by learning to follow recipes, subtraction can be illustrated by calculating whether the appropriate amount of change has been received back from a fast-food purchase, and money concepts can be taught using catalogs of favorite items and menus from favorite restaurants.
Behavioral Issues
It may also be necessary for your school to set up a behavior plan or contract to deal with nonacademic challenging behaviors your child may demonstrate in school (such as interrupting, distracting others, constantly talking about topics of special interest, and aggression) that influence her education. Many of the behavioral interventions discussed in Chapters 4 and 6 can be helpful in the school setting, including frequently reinforcing desired behavior (perhaps using tokens or other systems), ignoring minor misbehavior, teaching the child self-management techniques, performing a thorough analysis of the function of the problem behavior, and supplying the child with alternative, more acceptable behaviors to achieve the same goals. Many teachers are trained in these techniques and use them with all their students, not just those with ASD.
Transitions
Each new school year brings anxiety for both parent and child. The transition between elementary and middle school is often a particularly scary time, because your child will now have to negotiate multiple teachers and classrooms. You may be able to alleviate some of this anxiety by planning a visit to the new school at the end of the summer to explore the building and begin to learn the locations of classrooms, locker, lunchroom, and bus stop. Your child may also need to practice his locker combination. You can ask the school to provide this in advance and then buy an inexpensive lock for home practice (it won’t open, of course, to the same combination as the one at school, but your child can memorize the numbers and practice turning the dial in the appropriate directions). It may also be useful to ask school personnel to consider the physical layout of the building when scheduling your child’s classes. They may be able to assign a locker that is relatively close to the different rooms or choose classes that happen to meet near each other, thus minimizing your child’s travel time and the chance for confusion or tardiness. Provision of a school map with classrooms highlighted and numbered in the order in which the courses are scheduled can also be a useful visual tool.
Making transitions between teachers and negotiating their individual expectations and standards can also be difficult for the student with ASD. One way to minimize this problem is to designate a supportive, central contact person such as a school counselor or resource teacher, who helps coordinate services, monitor progress, schedule meetings, and provide comfort and support to the child when needed. Ask to have such a coordinator designated as part of the IEP or 504 Plan. If your school has an autism team, choose someone from this team. It is often best if this “go-to” person is someone other than a classroom teacher, because negotiating among the needs of the child, the desires of parents, the style of the teacher, and the constraints of the educational system can be very tricky.
SOME CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Some of the problems described in this chapter could be eliminated if school personnel were educated regarding the learning style of students with ASD. This education may start when you alert the school about your child’s diagnosis. Some parents fear that sharing diagnostic information with educators will negatively “label” their son or daughter, resulting in substandard education or inappropriate reduction of academic and behavioral expectations. In our experience, this is rarely the case. In fact, as this chapter should make clear, a wide variety of special services, therapies, and accommodations can be provided in the school, at no cost to you or your family, that will help your child succeed in school. To access such services, however, you must make the specific nature of your child’s educational needs known. This includes sharing diagnostic information and other test results that may be relevant. It may also mean steering interested educators and administrators to resources and information about ASD. The Resources at the back of this book include sources specific to the educational needs of students with ASD that may be helpful to share with school personnel.
An important consideration is that your child’s academic curriculum address functional and adaptive skills that she will need to be successful in later life. One of the most important outcomes of school for children and adolescents with mild ASD is establishing good work habits, a positive self-concept, and independent living skills. This may mean that there will need to be considerable flexibility in designing your child’s curriculum and an understanding that it may not follow the standard curriculum. Parents and teachers need to constantly ask, “Does this contribute to this child’s long-term goals?” This is vastly more important than following a typical curriculum outline or worrying about the number of credits needed to graduate.
Finally, in keeping with a central theme of this book, it is always important to capitalize on your child’s strengths to compensate for academic difficulties or areas of weakness in school. Many examples are already woven throughout this chapter. For example, supplementing oral directions with visual aids is a way to use your child’s well-developed visualization skills to make up for one of his weaker skills. Similarly, giving your child written directions or written rules is a way to use his reading skills to maintain focus and teach more appropriate behavior. Your child’s special interests can be used to motivate him in the classroom.
Joseph’s teacher was considering using his interest in geography to counteract his growing boredom and disinterest in other academic subjects. His parents proposed that subjects and skills taught to Joseph incorporate something related to geography whenever possible. For example, when the class was learning to make timelines in history, his parents asked the teacher to allow Joseph to make a timeline of explorers and their discoveries of different parts of the world. In science, when the rest of the class learned about the geology of California, Joseph was allowed to learn about the geology of his favorite country at the time, Brazil. In math, Joseph’s teacher devised simple problems involving the mileage between different cities in California. And during reading, he let Joseph read any book he chose, rather than the one the class was reading together. In this way, his teachers and parents made positive use of his intense focus on geography, motivating him to work and rescuing his plummeting grades in all academic subjects. After seeing the success of this relatively simple intervention, Joseph’s teacher added a geography unit for the whole class, even though it was not typically part of the third grade curriculum, and allowed Joseph to act as the “assistant teacher” during the module. He also asked Joseph to go to younger classrooms to read to children. This “special job” made Joseph feel important and good about some of his abilities, despite the teasing and other failures he was also experiencing at school. Helping others is often a very successful way to build self-esteem and self-efficacy.
Another way to use your child’s talents to promote school success is to involve her in any school clubs or activities that use those talents or involve those special interests. Enroll your daughter in the computer club or the reading club. If your school doesn’t have one already, volunteer to organize and run it. If your child has a natural talent for spelling, encourage her to participate in spelling bees. These activities will help integrate your child into the life of the school and help her feel like part of the school community rather than a peripheral member. Many other social issues raise their heads in the school setting as well—one of the most painful for parents is the teasing or bullying of their beloved son or daughter. It is to these tender issues that we turn our attention next, in Chapter 8.