In my work with AutismPro, I’ve had the opportunity to travel the globe and learn how different regions think about autism. In Europe, I was struck by a common thread that I believe could be of great value to North American educators struggling with including students with autism. Europeans have a long history of being philosophers and poets. In the field of autism, that translates into an elegant truth about the basic requirements needed to teach a student with autism successfully.
Here in North America, we both benefit and suffer from the struggle for normalcy. We want to make the child with autism as “normal” as possible, which results in a frenzy of intervention and a high degree of stress for everyone involved. The child benefits from intense intervention, which can lead to significant improvements in his ability to function normally with peers. However, the child can suffer when adults refuse to accept the idea of his autism and fail to understand that he learns and perceives things differently from others.
When we can accept these social and learning differences, then we can also accept that the student with autism may benefit from compensatory support strategies to help him learn and function.
For example, we can address the core social deficit with support strategies like Social Narratives and Video or Peer Modeling, which rely on the student’s need for clear explanations and visual models to understand what to do in different social situations. We can address the fundamental communication challenge with support strategies like Picture Exchange and Cue Cards, which visually cue the child about what to do and say to convey his message. We can address sensory issues that make it difficult for the child to stay calm and focused with support strategies like Adaptive Materials (e.g., a special cushion) and Calming Activities.
On the other hand, when we understand in depth the strengths inherent to autism — such as deep talents and interests (i.e., music, books, maps, etc.), visual associations (i.e., forming relationships between visual stimuli), gestalt and rote memory (i.e., memorizing strings and chunks of information), and concrete learning (i.e., learning from tangible experiences) — we can create all sorts of ideas on our own about how to support the student in the classroom.
For example, we can motivate the student to participate by ensuring that lessons include themes and materials that deeply interest him or appeal to his unique talents. We can teach him reading with word-picture matching tasks (i.e., visual associations). We can teach him what to do during transitions with concrete support strategies like Transition Objects associated with changing classes (e.g., squeeze ball).
Basically, here in North America we focus on methods and strategies and debate about whether they are “evidence-based.” In Europe, the focus is on understanding the individual student and autism. Their idea is that when you understand what it means for that student to have autism, all methods, strategies, and decisions follow naturally from there.
