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Characteristics of Students with Autism (Turnbull 310-315)

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Characteristics of Students with Autism (Turnbull 310-315)

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1. Social-Communication Impairments

2. Repetitive, Restricted Behaviors and Interests

3. Atypical Language Development

4. Problem Behavior

5. Sensory and Movement Disorders

6. Differences in Intellectual Functioning

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Students with autism can be effectively included in general education classrooms, yet they have low rates of inclusion. (see Figure 12.1 below)

Also see inclusion tips for students with autism below.

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Amina Mucciolo is one of my favorite people to follow on Instagram. She shares openly about her autism and journey being diagnosed at 35.

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Amina Mucciolo is one of my favorite people to follow on Instagram. She shares openly about her autism and journey being diagnosed at 35.

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Inclusion Tips for Students with Autism (Turnbull 320)

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Inclusion Tips for Students with Autism (Turnbull 320)

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In 2015 about 9.1% of students 6 to 21 received special education services under the category of autism, up from only 5% in 2008. (U.S. Department of Education, 2018)

About 2.47% or 1 in every 45 children aged 3 to 17 have autism spectrum disorder. (Xu, Strathearn, Liu, & Bao, 2018)

Males are much more often diagnoses with autism than females, with 3 or 4 males to every 1 female. (Loomes, Hull, & Mandy, 2017)

There is an issue of gender bias in the area of autism. Because most beginning studies were on males, the criteria for diagnosis is male-oriented, leading less females to be diagnosed and provided with needed supports.

There is also an issue of racial bias in this area. White children are much more often diagnosed and provided with needed supports than Black and Brown children. (Christensen et al., 2016)

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Autism is defined as a developmental disability that significantly affects verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, is generally evident before the age of 3, and adversely affects a student’s educational performance. (Turnbull 307)
The definition of autism has especially evolved in recent years and went through a big change in the DSM-5. Instead of defining autism as a part of a broader group of disorders including autistic disorder, Rett syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, Asperger syndrome, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified; but now this wider group has been renamed autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ASD refers to a developmental disability (meaning it emerges from birth to 18 years) resulting in and characterized by persistent impairments in social interactions and communications, and stereotyped or repetitive movements, including inflexibility in routines or patterns. Some people may choose to refer to themselves as having autism, while others like to say they are on the spectrum—always remember to ask people how they prefer to be referred to and respect them by following their wishes.

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Why everything you know about autism is wrong | Jac den Houting | Tedx Talks

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Why everything you know about autism is wrong | Jac den Houting | Tedx Talks

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Why everything you know about autism is wrong | Jac den Houting | TEDxMacquarieUniversity

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Positive Behavior Supports in Early Childhood and Preschool Programs

Social Stories

Student-directed Learning Strategies

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Positive Behavior Supports in Early Childhood and Preschool Programs

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Positive Behavior Supports in Early Childhood and Preschool Programs

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The Pyramid Model is a great option to look into (linked below).

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The Pyramid Model Consortium - Supporting Early Childhood PBIS

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The Pyramid Model Consortium supports social emotional competence in infants and young children through systems-thinking and implementation.

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Students with autism are typically identified by a physician, psychologist, psychiatrist, and/or interdisciplinary evaluation team during early childhood years instead of by school programs.
For a child to be diagnosed two domains must occur during early childhood years and create challenges in everyday functioning: social-communication impairments and restrictive, repetitive behaviors and interests.
One standard diagnostic test is the Autism Diagnostic Interview, it consists of three domains: Language/Communication; Reciprocal Social Interactions; and Restricted, Repetitive, and Stereotypical Behaviors and Interests. This interview must be administered by a trained professional and it consists of 93 questions and takes about 1.5 to 2.5 hours to complete.

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Impairments occur in the following areas:

Social-emotional reciprocity: taking turns in communication and activities, interacting with others around shared interests, taking initiative in social situations, and sharing of affect with others

Nonverbal communication: body language, facial expression, gestures, eye contact, and the alignment of language and nonverbal behaviors

Maintaining relationships: adapting behavior to different contexts, making friends, and lacking interest and initiative in approaching peers

Adolescents with autism often struggle to make friends. One study found only 4% of adolescents with autism have a mutual friend. (DeWalt, Usher, Greenberg, & Mailick, 2017)

Young people with autism are at a high risk for social isolation.

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Repetitive, Restricted Behaviors and Interests

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Repetitive, Restricted Behaviors and Interests

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Impairments occur in the following areas:

Repetitive speech (echolalia, repeating of other people's words or phrases), motor movements (finger flicking, hand flapping), and/or interaction with objects (lining objects up)

Excessive reliance on routines, use of verbal and non-verbal rituals, or insistence on sameness

Highly circumscribed and fixated interests that are atypical in terms of intensity or focus (preoccupation with objects such as door locks, lights, bus schedules, or particular movies)

Unusually excessive or limited reaction to sensory input, excessive touching or smelling of objects, fascination with spinning objects or lights, aversive response to environmental sounds

The reasons for and causes of these behaviors are varied and often complex. So although these behaviors are identified under an overall heading, they are diverse behaviors that occur for and are caused by many reasons.

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Social Stories are written by educators, parents, or students and describe social situations, social cues, and appropriate responses to those cues.

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Carol Gray: What are Social Stories(TM)?

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Impairments in social-communication behaviors often involve these communication patterns or irregularities:

Interrupting when others are communicating and experiencing difficulty in knowing when it is appropriate to speak

Focusing attention on one topic only

Limiting a communication topic to fewer than a couple of interactions

Reversing pronouns ("you" when they mean "I")

Repeating or echoing other people's language (echolalia)

It is important to note that students with autism display a broad range of language abilities from no verbal communication to quite sophisticated communication abilities.
Students who do not speak or speak minimally could benefit from alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) to facilitate their communication opportunities.

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These strategies teach students with and without disabilities to modify and regulate their own learning.

Strategies:

Self-Instruction

These involve teaching students to use their verbal or other communication skills to direct their learning.

Self-Scheduling

This involves the self-regulation of one's schedule, rather than relying on someone else to regulate the activities of the day.

As a teacher, you can provide a visual daily schedule to a student with autism so they are aware of what will happen throughout the day.

Self-Modeling

It is observing pictures or videos of oneself doing an activity that is targeted for improvement or that the person is trying to learn.

The most popular form is video self-modeling (VSM).

Self-Monitoring

Students learn to collect data on their progress toward educational goals.

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Students with autism may exhibit any of four categories of problem behavior: self-injurious behavior, aggression, tantrums, and property destruction.

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Environmental stimuli trigger alternative sensory and movement responses due to differences in how individuals with autism experience intensity, rhythm, frequency, duration, and timing of movement.

Students with autism have significant difficulty in using visual information to guide the nature and timing of their movements

Nonverbal communication involves motor movements such as gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact.Children with autism tend to experience delays in motor development from the earliest years of their lives that contribute to social-communication challenges.

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Autism occurs in children with all levels of intelligence, ranging from students who are gifted to students with an intellectual disability. About 2/3 of students with autism will have some cognitive challenges that may affect their learning. One of the strongest predictors of autism symptoms is IQ, they tend to be more severe when students have lower IQs.
Some people with autism display the unusual savant syndrome and they have extraordinary talents, typically in music, art, calendar calculating, mathematics, and mechanical/visual-spatial skills.

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Autism is causes by brain or biochemical dysfunction that occurs before, during, or after birth.

Autism is primarily biological in origin and multiple biological factors are implicated, including: genes, brain structure, and neural pathways.

Some believe there is a genetic explanation for autism.

The brains of children with autism grow at an accelerated rate during the first few years of life. There have also been differences in the connectivity between different parts of the brain in people with autism.

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Some possible environmental contributors to autism are toxic exposure to chemicals and radiation, exposure in early pregnancy to maternal medications (thalidomide, valproic acid), and maternal infection (rubella).

There is NO credible evidence supporting the alleged link between childhood immunization and autism.

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Early Signs of Autism Video Tutorial | Kennedy Krieger Institute

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What is Autism (Part 1)? | Written by Autistic Person

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What is Autism? (Part 2) | Written by Autistic Person

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Autism Spectrum Disorder in the Inclusive Classroom by Barbara Boroson

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Autism Spectrum Disorder in the Inclusive Classroom by Barbara Boroson

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Determining the Nature of Specially Designed Instruction and Services

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Determining the Nature of Specially Designed Instruction and Services

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Someone must conduct a functional behavioral assessment (FBA) to determine what supports a student needs. An FBA identifies specific relationships between a student's behaviors and the circumstances that trigger those behaviors, especially those that impede the student's or others' ability to learn. (Example of an FBA on Turnbull pages 317-318)

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Autism

Some of these files may require Adobe Reader for PDF files. These files are noted as PDF at the end of the site explanation. If you do not have Adobe Reader you can download it for free.

ASAN Autistic Self Advocacy Network - Looking for ways to meet the access needs of Autistic individuals? Do you wish to avoid dropping the ball at your function, get-together, or meeting? The autistic spectrum includes a wide variety of persons with a wide variety of support needs. Planning ahead for your Autistic guests will help establish equal participation.

General article including causes: It has been over 50 years since Dr. Leo Kanner, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University, wrote the first paper applying the term 'autism' to a group of children who were self-absorbed and who had severe social, communication, and behavioral problems.

General article including causes from the National Institute of Mental Health: All these disorders are characterized by varying degrees of impairment in communication skills, social interactions, and restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior.

Excellent overview: everything you ever wanted to know about Autism.

Theories and causes: There is no theory of the cause of autism which everyone has found convincing. There may be multiple causes. Thus we will review some of the proposed causes.

Autistic disorder from DSM V: the diagnostic criteria used by DSM for Autism is listed.

Definition of PDD: Over the past few years, PDD has become a subject of increased attention among parents, professionals, and policymakers across the country.

PDD-NOS: Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder NOS (not otherwise specified) are developmental disabilities that share many of the same characteristics.

Diagnostic criteria for Asperger's Syndrome: The following criterion for Asperger's Syndrome are from the 2000 Revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition-Text (DSM V TM).

Tests used in diagnosing PDDs: Hundreds of standardized tests, questionnaires, and observation plans are available for rating behaviors, abilities, and other factors that could be related to pervasive developmental disorders. The lists in the next sections provide a little information about some of the most commonly encountered tests, but they are by no means complete.

Case studies: written by professionals working in autism.

12 questions and answers: an Autism Primer containing 12 frequently asked questions about Autism.

More FAQ's: quick answers to commonly asked questions about Autism.

Autism through the ages: Autism is not a modern problem, even though it has only recently gained vast recognition. It is difficult to discuss the history of autism treatment without paying particular attention to the history of "autism" as a concept and the ways in which autism has been conceptualized and theorized about over the past 100 years.

Functional assessment refers to a variety of approaches used to gather information about the cause of problematic behaviors to enable the design of effective treatment. Functional assessment approaches include descriptive methods (e.g., interviews, rating scales), direct observations (e.g., ABC, time charts) and functional analysis.

Your Child's Rights: a basic overview from the Autism Speaks Organization.

A summary of special education law specific to autism. Scroll down to see the following subjects covered: Assessments, IEP, Stay Put, Least Restrictive Environment, Autism Services Parent Attachment to IEP, What is a Free Appropriate Education - FAPE, Extended School Year - ESY, Stay Put, Compensatory Education, Damages, Mediation and Due Process

Autism interventions as rated by Research Autism Organization: A visual presentation for different autism therapies.

Autism spectrum medical issues: a family's personal journey in dealing with thetreatment of Autism.

Treatment Options - There is no single best treatment package for all children with ASD. One point that most professionals agree on is that early intervention is important; another is that most individuals with ASD respond well to highly structured, specialized programs.

Allergies and food sensitivities: People with autism are more susceptible to allergies and food sensitivities than the average person.

Concerns about thimerosol: From the CDC: "Research does not show any link between thimerosal in vaccines and autism, a neurodevelopmental disorder. Many well conducted studies have concluded that thimerosal in vaccines does not contribute to the development of autism. Even after thimerosal was removed from almost all childhood vaccines, autism rates continued to increase, which is the opposite of what would be expected if thimerosal caused autism." Although the use of thimerosol has been reduced, it was never a part of the MMR vaccines.

Autism and element imbalances: Much concern has been raised over the link between exposure to heavy metal toxins and neurological brain damage associated with learning and behavioral disorders in children. Indeed, research shows that exposure to heavy metals such as lead and mercury can impair brain development at very early ages-even at low doses previously deemed "harmless."1-3.

Gluten and casein-free autism treatment- There is only minimal evidence to suggest that autism may be aided by a gluten-free, casein-free diet; however, it may be worth considering if your child has GI difficulties.

Autism Spectrum Disorder: A very comprehensive and complete overview of spectrum disorders associated with Autism. Includes a detailed summary that describes symptoms, causes, and treatments, with information on getting help and coping.

Autism information page - Brief description with some resources and links, compiled by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified - A brief overview specific to PDD-NOS

PDD guide- Pervasive Developmental Disorder guide written by Dr. Rami Grossmann.

PDD Overview- Provides introduction, and information related to: clinical, differentials, workup, treatment, medication, follow-up, etc.

PDD and your child- Find out all about PDD and autistic spectrum disorders. University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) can help you find all kinds of resources, including local support groups.

Getting a diagnosis: - Pediatricians should be quick to see the early signs of ASDs and guide parents toward the best medical resources available. If your pediatrician does not routinely do this, as that a screening be done.

The National Autism Center - "Helping individuals and families pursure a better quality of life."

A Parent's Guide to Autism - A guide to the diagnosis, treatment and education of children with autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder.

Growing Minds Autism Programs - Specializes in training parents whose children have autism, PDD, and other autism spectrum disorders. Offers 5-day programs with continuing distance support.

A Guide to Keeping Your Children with Autism Safe - Most parents place their children's safety as a top priority as a rule. But for parents of autistic kids, the reality is that it can be even more difficult to keep your children safe from themselves and others simply because of the nature of their disorder.

Researchers to Create Autism Databank - Scientists at the University of Michigan and 10 other universities will use a $10 million gift from a New York-based foundation to create a databank of DNA samples from 3,000 autism patients that they hope will help them identify different kinds of autism and develop treatments.

Largest-Ever Search for Autism Genes Reveals New Clues - The largest search for autism genes to date, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has implicated components of the brain's glutamate chemical messenger system and a previously overlooked site on chromosome 11. Based on 1,168 families with at least two affected members, the genome scan also adds to evidence that tiny, rare variations in genes may heighten risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

Autism: It's Not Just in the Head - The devastating derangements of autism also show up in the gut and in the immune system. That unexpected discovery is sparking new treatments that target the body in addition to the brain.

Autism and Sensory Processing Disorder: Sensory dysfunction is one of the core symptom of autism.

Interview with LornaJean King, OTR, FAOTA : One of the pioneers of sensory integration therapy, international lecturer on this topic, and founder and director of the Center for Neurodevelopmental Studies, Inc. in Phoenix, Arizona. Interview was conducted by Stephen M. Edelson (SE).

Sensory integration dysfunction articles: A series of articles written by parents and professionals on some of the most pressing issues for these children. Links to additional resource sites included.

Sensory Integration Resource Center: Provides a broad range of information and services on sensory integration. Includes sections for parents, children, physicians, educators, therapists, families, and frequently asked questions. Resource, research, and donations links are also included.

Sensory integration and parenting-: Approaches sensory defensiveness (and its treatment, sensory integration) through a variety of articles aimed at helping parents raise and treat sensory defensive children

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National Association of Special Education Teachers: Autism

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Some of these files may require Adobe Reader for PDF files. These files are noted as PDF at the end of the site explanation. If you do not have Adobe Reader you can download it for free. ASAN Autistic Self Advocacy Network - Looking for ways to meet the access needs of Autistic individuals?

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The National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder (NPDC) was funded by the Office of Special Education Programs in the US Department of Education from 2007-2014. The NPDC developed free professional resources for teachers, therapists, and technical assistance providers who work with individuals with ASD. Resources include detailed information on how to plan, implement, and monitor specific evidence-based practices.

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The National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder (NPDC) was funded by the Office of Special Education Programs in the US Department of Education from 2007-2014. The NPDC developed free professional resources for teachers, therapists, and technical assistance providers who work with individuals with ASD.

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The Center on Secondary Education for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (CSESA) is excited to announce the availability of its newest resource, the Understanding Autism Professional Development Curriculum. Created in collaboration with the Organization for Autism Research (OAR), this comprehensive professional development tool is designed to provide middle and high school teachers with the knowledge and evidence-based strategies needed to support their students with autism in the general education classroom.

The resources can be used to support various forms of professional development - large group, such as staff meetings or in-services, small teams, such as professional learning communities and department meetings, self-study, and/or one-on-one coaching.

The materials include two 75-minute training presentations, to be used together or separately, with video clips, participant handouts, activity worksheets, and facilitator notes:

Presentation 1:
Please review this notification of a video change made for Presentation 1, Repetitive Behaviors and Restricted Interests video clip (slide 17).
Presentation 2:

Technical Requirements for the DVD Version
View ReadMe file

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The Center on Secondary Education for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (CSESA) is excited to announce the availability of its newest resource, the Understanding Autism Professional Development Curriculum. Created in collaboration with the Organization for Autism Research (OAR), this comprehensive professional development tool is designed to provide middle and high school teachers with the knowledge and evidence-based strategies needed to support their students with autism in the general education classroom.

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Explore professional development resources addressing autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and other complex disabilities. Gain knowledge through face-to-face training, training-on-demand, professional learning communities, and online modules

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ohio center for autism and low incidence

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Ohio Center for Autism and Low Incidence

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ASD Training and Professional Development

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Explore professional development resources addressing autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and other complex disabilities. Gain knowledge through face-to-face training, training-on-demand, professional learning communities, and online modules

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Teachers: Strategies for Success | Autism Speaks

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This excerpt from the School Community Tool Kit offers strategies for teachers to help support students with autism so they get the best education possible.