Newsletter
Volume 30 | 2007 | Number 3
Effective School-Based Programs for Children with Autism
By Dr. Carol Davis, University of Washington, and Dr. Ilene Schwartz, University of Washington
Dr. Carol Davis, left, Dr. Ilene Schwartz, right
The numbers of individuals diagnosed with ASD is increasing at a dramatic rate. Much research has occurred in the last decade to suggest that young children who are diagnosed early and receive good early intervention services make good gains toward remediating some of the characteristics of autism (Dawson & Osterling, 1997; NRC, 2001). However, ASA indicates that 90% of costs to serve or provide supports for individuals with ASD occur in adult services. If we, as a field, are providing early intervention services through age five that are in fact remediating the characteristics of autism, one must ask, “Why does an individual’s trajectory change such that by the time an individual with autism reaches adulthood, they are still in need of such extensive services?” While we believe there are many answers to this question, this presentation addresses what seems to be the most logical next step in providing appropriate educational services to students with autism that will lead to increased positive outcomes and hopefully long term effects for students.
As a field we have direction from the National Research Council (2001) and the plethora of research on how to effectively serve young children with ASD, birth through five. Practitioners, parents, and educators know what effective programs should look like for young children (i.e., access to typically developing peers, extended learning opportunities, systematic instruction, functional approach to problem behaviors). Children who have participated in these effective programs often enter kindergarten ready to learn and participate in the general education environment. However, their parents face the transition to elementary school with some trepidation – excited about the gains their children have achieved and worried about the lack of validated models available for their children as they progress into elementary school. Moreover, school districts are beginning to realize that elementary schools present many challenges that are not present in preschools, thus, making preschool models for service delivery not feasible for elementary schools. In a survey of local directors of special education, the most pressing need in their district is to develop and implement an appropriate and effective program of services for students with autism who are school age. Currently, parents are asking school districts to hire private outside consultants to act as “experts” to assist in developing and monitoring their child’s educational program. While this may seem to be a “quick fix” to the problem for districts, the cost of hiring consultants on an ongoing basis is cost prohibitive. Further, it means that a series of “outsiders” are promoting strategies and fixes without considering issues of feasibility, sustainability or effectiveness for all children.
There is little, if any, research on effective models for elementary schools (Iovannone, Dunlap, Huber, & Kincaid, 2003). An urgent question facing the autism community is what evidence-based best practice looks like for children when they attend elementary school. We know what components must be present in an effective model (e.g., opportunities to interact successfully with typically developing peers, an appropriate curriculum, use of evidence-based instructional programs, a functional approach to behavior problems, and family participation and support); but there is no research suggesting how these components should be configured to provide adequate support for the range of students with ASD while providing them with maximum opportunities to interact meaningfully with their typically developing peers and participate in the general education curriculum. As the name suggests (ASD), autism is a spectrum disorder. That is, students who have this diagnosis can exhibit characteristics from mild language and social delays to students with severe cognitive delays, no formal language, and challenging behavior. Therefore, the support needs of these students are complex and diverse. The hectic environment of most elementary schools only exacerbates the difficulty putting the essential program characteristics in place. The field needs to identify what supports look like that are ecologically valid and acceptable in elementary school that will meet the needs of all of these students.
This presentation will provide: a) information on current public schools' programs and barriers schools face in implementing appropriate programs for students with ASD; b) a description of a service delivery model to assist schools in educating students with ASD; and c) assessments and screening tools developed as a part of this project.