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Autism means a developmental disability affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.

Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences.

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- Difficulties relating to others
- Early specific food preferences
- Bizarre repetitive behaviors
- Explosive temper tantrum

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Incorporate SIA into curriculum- fascinations  could be integrated easily into math, reading, writing, science, and social studies lessons.

Prompt students to use SIA in targeting skills

Involve student peers-Peer involvement gives the target student opportunities to practice social and language skills. A bonus may be that peers acquire interest in and useful knowledge about their classmate’s SIA.

Use the SIA to help the student improve skills with which he has experienced some success and then gradually add new skills

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In 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about 1 in 150 children in the United States had been identified with ASD
Autism is now the fourth largest and the fastest growing disability category in special education

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- Greater awareness of ASD
- changes in federal and state policy and law favoring better identification and reporting of autism
- improved screening and assessment procedures
- greater availability of services for the diagnostic category,
- greater acceptance of the label by parents and educators
- changes in the diagnostic criteria to a spectrum of related disorders that includes children with milder forms of autism who would not have been identified previously
- diagnosis shift; as the number of students with autism has increased, the numbers in the disability categories of learning disabilities, emotional and behavioral disorders, and intellectual disabilities have all decreased in recent years.

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During the 1950's and 1960's, Bruno Bettelheim perpetuated the notion that autism could be attributed to inadequate parenting. Bettelheim’s (1967) theory of psycho-genesis claimed that autism was an outcome of uninterested, cold parents who were unable to develop an emotional bond with their children. Mothers of children with autism were called “refrigerator mothers” and led to believe they had caused their children’s disability.

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Recent research shows a clear biological origin for autism in the form of abnormal prenatal and postnatal brain development, structure, or neurochemistry
Although the precise neurobiological mechanisms associated with autism have not been discovered, “it is clear that autism reflects the operation of factors in the developing brain”

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Early diagnosis enables early intervention, which correlates with dramatically better outcomes than are typically obtained when intervention begins later in the child’s life.

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ABA provides a scientific approach to designing, conducting, and evaluating instruction based on empirically verified principles describing functional relationships between events in the environment and behavior change

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Positive reinforcement- to teach skills in planned systematic manner
Repeated practice opportunities- allow students to practice in different settings, people, and situations
Visual activity schedule- visual prompt showing a sequence of activities within a daily routine

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Many treatments claimed to help children with autism are backed by little or no scientific evidence.