Artful Adaptations: Reworking the Classroom for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders Krista Renee Allen Professor Robert Carpenter

Issue Autism is a spectrum disorder- it affects individuals differently. Autism affects the ability to communicate and interact. Prevalence: 1 in every 110 births (Autism Society, 2008)

Research Questions What does the literature recommend for working with students who are on the autism spectrum? What strategies are general education teachers using in their classrooms? How do classroom practices align with the literature?

What does the literature recommend? Visual supports (Prizant & Rubin, 1999) Predictability (MacDuff, Krantz, & McClannahan, 1993) Boundaries to clearly separate areas (Heflin & Alberto, 2001) Movement (Lang et al., 2010) Reduce personally aversive stimuli (Jazen, 1996; Kientz & Dunn, 1997) Family/Parent-enhanced instruction (Gabovitch & Curtin, 2009)

What strategies are teachers using? Interviews with elementary classroom teachers: Taught a child with autism within the last year 30 minutes General classroom practices- the environment Practices specific to students with ASD’s

Visual reward system “We do a daily choice, green or red. We have it split into every part of the day and she’ll color green if she makes good choices and red if she makes bad choices. Then she’ll get a reward. She has a reward menu of things she can earn.” -1 st grade

Movement needs “I put the kids that need to move in the back so they are allowed to stand, move their feet, do things like that while I’m talking.” -2 nd grade

Brain Gym “We take Brain Gym breaks generally after math because they are physical in the morning and then in the afternoon they do about a solid hour of math. This is our 115 th day of school. [We count and] for every 10 days of class we do a different exercise. ” -2 nd grade

The writing process “He just hated writing and his anxiety would go up so I said to the special ed. teacher, ‘just give him an AlphaSmart.’ Now he loves to write and he’s all excited about it. A lot of times kids with autism don’t like the actual physical process of writing. ” -4 th grade

Using fascinations to foster social development “He would love to make a friend. He loves to build with LEGO. So sometimes [the paraprofessional] will take him out with a friend and they’ll build for a while.” -5 th grade

Misalignments Very little parent involvement “They don’t come in…. Probably because they are working… because autism is very expensive. Insurance companies don’t pay for treatments that [children with autism] need [such as] speech therapies and sensory activities.” Behavior after “specials” due to broken routine

Recommendations Accommodations in communication for low- income families More support to and from “specials”- enhance visual schedule Professional development Frequent communication with resource room teachers, specialists, paraprofessionals, and families