Educating Children with Autism:
What does the National Academy of Science's
report
actually say works?
Over the past several years, Dr. Montgomery has
presented day-long workshops to educators in the Southeast on what the NAS
report says and most importantly what its functional implications are for
their continued service of ASD students.
Educating Children with Autism was written at
the request of the U.S. Department of Education and published in 2001. The Department of Education asked the
NRC to consider "the state of the scientific evidence of the effects of
early educational intervention on young children with autistic spectrum
disorders" (p. vii).
The questions covered in the report range from epidemiology, family support,
diagnosis and screening, assistive technology, characteristics of autism, and
features of intervention programs, to how instructional strategies have been
put together in comprehensive programs. Additionally, the report addresses public policy, personnel preparation, and
future research. The NAS Report is sub-divided into three major sections:
-
Goals for Children with Autism and their Families
-
Characteristics of Effective Interventions
-
Policy, Legal, and Research Context
Major recommendations related to the Local Educational Authority’s
role include the specific areas of Assessment, Educational Services, Role of
Families, and Public Policy. From my perspective as a clinical
psychologist and behavior analyst who is frequently frustrated with
"reports" and "evaluations" on children that appear to
obviously meet all the criteria for a diagnosis of Autism or one of the ASDs
but who have any of a number of other diagnoses but NOT ASD the report's
statement that "Professionals experienced with ASDs can reliably diagnose
children by age 2" was immensely significant. What this means
functionally for parents is that when professionals say that they can't make
the ASD diagnosis the parent needs to figure out if it is a lack of adequate
information on the child or a lack of adequate experience and training on the
part of the "professional" making the statement and precludes the
diagnosis being made for the child. Additionally, the report states that there continue to be those who want to
only label as eligible for Autism those children with sub-normal intelligence
and that "regardless of severity, children with any Autistic Spectrum
Disorder belong within the ASD Category"
(emphasis added). What
does this mean functionally for parents? The ASD child who falls into the
Asperger's diagnostic category should qualify for an Autism
educational eligibility regardless of their "IQ".
These are fairly powerful and important statements on the part of the NRC
committee which are very frequently at odds with what passes for practice
today.
On the issue of what should be included in the IEP goals
for autistic students the Committee clearly stated that certain categories of
goals are not optional. Remember that all the recommendations of the
Committee are based on a process involving a review of the research by
professionals from a variety of professions including: educators,
psychologists, physicians, speech pathologists, and a variety of others not
members of the committee itself. The report states that goals should
include measurable objectives in the following areas:
-
Social Skills
-
Communication
-
Increased engagement and
flexibility
On the issue of the role of the family within the
educational process the report indicates that nearly all empirically supported treatments
for ASDs included a parent component, with most using a Parent-Training
approach. LEA’s should, when an ASD is suspected, provide to the family at the
beginning of the evaluation process the following:
-
Written information on the nature of ASD and educational eligibility categories
-
The range of alternatives with best practices in the early education of students with ASDs
-
Sources of funding and support, and
-
Their child's rights
The committee also reviewed a vast array of research on
autism, education issues, and its treatment. They offered a summary of
the characteristics of effective interventions. Essentially what the
committee did was review what worked and what didn't in improving the lives of
ASD students and then looked at what the effective interventions have in
common. The essential characteristics of those programs that have
empirical research support of their efficacy include:
-
Entry into ASD programs occurs as soon as an ASD
diagnosis is considered
-
Inclusion of a family component, including Parent-Training
-
Low student/teacher ratio of no more than 2:1
-
Ongoing formal program evaluation, and
-
Frequent evaluation of individual progress
Additionally, such programs provide active
engagement in intensive educational programming. Such programming occurs
for a minimum of the equivalent of a full school day, 5 days a week.
This includes full year programming varied according to the child’s
chronological age and developmental level. The committee also
acknowledged that inclusion is important "Where it leads to meeting
educational goals, children should receive specialized instruction in settings
in which ongoing interactions with typically developing children occur."
This is just a brief overview of
some of the initial materials included in the NAS report. Additional
content and material are reviewed in the multimedia presentation on this topic
prepared by Dr. Montgomery.
Reinforcement Unlimited . All Rights Reserved.