When students with autism are included in the general education classroom, teachers face a significant challenge in learning to adapt the curriculum. This is especially true when there is a large discrepancy between the student’s skills and curriculum expectations. First, the teacher needs to examine the curriculum and see what expectations the student might be able to meet — this includes determining which tasks can be made more concrete, more structured, and more visual in order to help the student learn through experience and by appealing to his/her areas of strength.
Let’s take a look at an example. Jessica is a high needs student who needs to be integrated as much as possible into the regular Grade 10 classroom activities. She is 15 years old and diagnosed with moderate autism. She reads, speaks, and comprehends at a grade one level. The class is comparing the Depression of the 1930’s and the World Recession of the 1990’s. What will Jessica do?
The teacher must first ask: “Can I transform this expectation into a highly structured task that is appropriate for Jessica’s existing skill level?” Examples of highly structured tasks include responding to directives, matching, identification, naming, sorting, multiple choice, and sequencing.
When teaching historical events, one approach is to create a visual timeline and do a sequencing activity with the student. The adapted objective then becomes to learn the sequence of important events in the Depression of the 1930’s and in the World Recession of the 1990’s.
In these highly structured tasks you can use repetition, prompting, and support strategies to ensure Jessica is successful with the activity and learns the objective. Even though the task may be different for the rest of the class, the objective is related, and the teacher can even use the same visual timeline in her discussions with the class.
