Teaching individuals with learning disabilities such as autism is not any different than teaching any other person. Although teaching those with autism may challenge a teacher or parent to be more patient and creative, these individuals have unique characteristics and are often very intelligent. But for various neurological and environmental reasons, expressing, receiving, and interpreting information is difficult for those with autism.
Autistic individuals have the capacity and desire to excel in many aspects of their lives, but if there is difficulty processing everyday information effectively or appropriately, this can lead to weak social communicative skills, which can leave them feeling isolated, anxious, and low in confidence inside and outside of the classroom.
The limitations in social communicative skills and associated feelings commonly seen with individuals on the spectrum are particularly significant when put into the following context: Because of improved methods of testing, one out of every 100 people is diagnosed with autism. As a result, early childhood intervention is now a key step in managing autism and educating a new generation of parents and the public about the growing concern and social responsibility for this special needs population.
Constrained communication
However, the current focus on early childhood intervention has come at the expense of scant research and fully understanding the lives of adults with autism. Over the next decade, 500,000 to 1.5 million adults with autism will be leaving their respective public school systems across the country at age 22, and entering the real world.
When you couple this startling statistic with most public school systems not effectively incorporating social and communication skills instruction into special education classes, how will the majority of individuals with autism have future relational and/or professional success in life?
Specifically, individuals with autism typically show limited social and communication skills regarding joint attention and understanding the meaning of social interactions. It is difficult for autistic individuals to grasp the subjective “big picture” of everyday social interactions. Instead, most communication efforts are seen as a direct, imitated, and structured use of language within an explicit context, such as when requesting (“I want green ball”) or rejecting (“I don’t want milk”) something, or linked to desired or undesired items and reward-punishment types of consequences.
Consequently, clear, straightforward, situational cues or rules govern communication for autistic people. It is also because of these constrained communication rules that the absence of more flexible and cognitive social communication skills is not, as typically believed, an unwillingness to share information with others, but a difficulty in understanding or extracting deeper meaning of information from daily conversations and social interactions.
As a result of being unable to appreciate the finer details of social interactions, those with autism often develop a rigid style of social communication. Repetitive, scripted language and preoccupation with a narrow range of topics typify conversations and social interactions for them. The complexity (i.e., taking the perspective of another person), and adjustments (i.e., appropriate turn-taking) of a conversation and social interaction, constantly challenges the person with autism. Showing limited awareness in understanding the views of another person and speaker-listener roles, often results in the inability to maintain long conversations or deal effectively with interpersonal and group communication breakdowns or misunderstandings.
If we combine the lack of verbal skills with the limited understanding of reading nonverbal communication cues of another person — such as facial expressions, body posture, and rate, pitch, and tone — often witnessed with individuals with autism, the task for a parent (or instructor) teaching multiple meanings behind everyday social communicative interactions becomes daunting.
Daunting, for sure, but not impossible.
About activity routines
Parents can use a number of fundamental methods to promote social and communicative skills for their autistic children. Before instruction begins, however, consider and appreciate that although the average person finds autistic behavior puzzling, the individual with autism views typical behavior with equal puzzlement. Thus, instruction, or what I call, “empathic learning strategies,” should target the unique personality, interests, and cognitive and social abilities of your loved ones.
One effective empathic learning strategy that parents can develop is activity routines.
Activity routines are adult-modeled life situations of predictable and appropriate conversational scripts for autistic individuals. If one of the core challenges facing an individual on the spectrum is to understand what other people are saying, doing, and feeling, using activity routines can help assign meaning to various social and communication behaviors used within daily interactions.
When creating activity routines, you may wish to think of yourself as a director in a play, and you are instructing your lead actor on what to say, do, and feel in each of the scenes.
The primary goal of directing activity routines is to have the autistic child understand an appropriate life script and apply it to naturally-occurring social interactions he is familiar with in order to keep motivation high. For instance, an adult with autism may want to know how to ask a person out on a date or how to count exact change when paying for an item in a store. In turn, a young child with autism may want to know what it is like to get a first haircut or how to talk to a teacher in class.
As your activity routines evolve, repetition of appropriate physical and linguistic behavior is important, but also dependent on the complexity of the social situation, its communicative purpose, and the cognitive abilities of the child. Once the child can effectively participate in an established, predictable interaction, expansion and flexibility to change can be slowly introduced.
Emphasis on social and communicative skill instruction is vital for the present and future lives of thousands of autistic individuals. Effective instruction of social and communication skills can also lead people on the spectrum into stronger relational bonds socially and professionally, as well as develop a more independent and self-assured sense of self.
Mark Golubow has an MA in special education and interpersonal communication, and will receive an advanced degree in autism from Brooklyn College in June 2011. For more information, visit www.aspecialeducator.net.
