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Question Library: Meeting the Needs of Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders
People have lots of questions about Autism Spectrum Disorders, individual student needs, teaching techniques, resources for whatever they need, managing behavior challenges and lots more. The answers to those questions will be posted in this department. All of the questions on this site are listed in the Question Library for your reference. They are also posted in the departments for their specific topic.
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Understanding and Decreasing Repeated Questions in Children with Autism
QUESTION: How can I use visual strategies to decrease the amount of repeated questions from students. ANSWER: This is a common question and a great one. Think of it like this. When a student is repeating a question over and over he is driving us nuts. But he is also expressing important information to us. So ask yourself. . ."What is his purpose? Why is he talking? Is he repeating because he is anxious about something? Is he asking about something that is going to happen? What is he trying to communicate?" . . .
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Tips for Working with Students Suffering from Severe Communication Problems
QUESTION: I have a new student age 13 who has no meaningful communication. She will repeat verbal information and she uses continuous unintelligible speech for self-stimulation. Help! I have never had a student this severe. ANSWER: I would need a lot more information to provide a complete answer, but I have a suspicion about this girl. Here is the question I would ask. What is her social connection like? How does she relate to people? I suspect she doesn't engage well with you or other people. . . .
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Using Visual Strategies in a Classroom with Both Regular and Special Education Students
QUESTION: I have a blended classroom consisting of ½ regular education students and ½ special education students. I realize that all children benefit, but I need some ideas how to effectively implement visual strategies with both populations. ANSWER: Well, this question has an easy answer. Start by changing the focus of your thinking. Instead of looking at the students, look at your classroom and yourself. Establish two goals. The first goal is to create a "communication friendly" environment. Think about the visual tools that you develop as tools to enrich the classroom, no matter what students are there. . . .
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Avoid Awkward Social Interactions: Using Visual Aids Effectively
QUESTION: When using visuals for improving social skills, at what point does the use of pictures become intrusive? Is it better to cue children immediately before a social situation rather than during, to avoid interruption and confusion? ANSWER: The first thing I think of is the goal. If the goal is to have the student learn to participate in social situations as naturally as possible, we need to make sure we are teaching in a way to accomplish that. We don't want to create weird or unusual or socially inappropriate situations. . . .
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Helping Parents Understand the Need for Visual Strategies in Children with ASD
QUESTION: How do we help parents understand that students with limited verbal skills still need visual strategies to prompt and extend their abilities? Parents are always concerned, saying that if they use visual strategies, the students won't use the limited speech that they do have. ANSWER: This is a common concern. . .that the use of visual strategies will prevent students from talking. It is so important to look at communication in a broader way. We want students to develop the ability to express themselves. But another significantly important part of communication is understanding. . . .
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Using Visual Cues to Overcome Negative Behaviors
QUESTION: How do you get the children to use the visual cues instead of acting out in a fit of rage? ANSWER: I will need to give a short answer to a question that deserves a much longer one. Here is the question for you. Why is he acting out in a fit of rage? What does he want? What does he not want? When does he do his protesting? Does the fit of rage work? Visual cues are not going to be very useful until you ask and answer a lot of questions. . . .
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Effective and Teacher-Friendly Ways to Incorprate Visual Strategies into Classrooms
QUESTION: What is the most effective and teacher friendly way to implement visual strategies within the classroom? I am a speech therapist working with preschool children who are non-verbal. I have implemented a daily schedule for 1 student with autism, but there are other students in the room who would benefit. ANSWER: Be bold about sharing with others what you are learning. Now please understand. . .if you go in and tell a teacher "You need to do this," you are not likely to get an enthusiastic response. That is not "teacher friendly." . . .
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Using Visual Strategies to Help Autistic Students with Social Problems
QUESTION: What are the best ways to use visuals to help social problems with middle schoolers? ANSWER: There has been some interesting research that demonstrates our students can watch behavior on video and then imitate that behavior. There have been a number of studies that have demonstrated students can learn a variety play behaviors and social behaviors after watching them repeatedly. The idea is to record someone doing the correct behavior for the student to watch. Or another approach is to record the student doing something that he does once in a while. . . .
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Using a Schedule as a Visual Aid for Both Verbal and Nonverbal Children
QUESTION: What do you suggest for those students who are verbal and don't really need a visual schedule but want to use it regardless. ANSWER: WOW! This question highlights some points that are often misunderstood about our students and visual strategies. First, remember some of the primary reasons we use visual strategies are to help students understand better, to help them organize their thinking, to help them remember what to do. So it does not matter if they can speak. Visual strategies help both students who are verbal and those who are non verbal. . . .
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How to Use Visual Strategies During Story Time with Children with Special Needs
QUESTION: I teach in a room of 13 students, ages 5-6, with many exceptionalities. What have you found is the best strategy for using with a large group during story time? ANSWER: That sounds like a challenging group to work with! Just off hand, I would guess that a group like that would not be really good at sitting passively, listening to a long story. Therefore, your first challenge is to structure the activity so the students can become actively engaged for the right length of time. . . .
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