i worked on a research paper about Autistic children and how to teach them .. Hope this will help ..
regards,
Love is an abstract concept that is difficult to describe and define within boundaries. Yet the feeling is so real that one can surely feel it, see it, when others may not. If a little boy asked you what love is, you might tell him that it is a nice feeling that is reciprocated between people such as mothers and their daughters, or friends together. Your way in answering such question is totally dependent on what you think the little boy wants to know. Similarly, different answers can be given for the question "what is Autism?" none of the answers is the real answer, because each answer is appropriate for a different sense of the question.
While the question "what is Autism?" can be answered in a number of levels; the biological, the cognitive, and the behavioral level, there were a number of professionals who stated some statements concerning what Autism is not.
In Happâe (1994), noticed some of the professionals in the field who attempted to work backwards by defining what is not Autism, in an effort to understand what autism is. For instance, they said that Autism is not caused by "refrigerator parenting", they also assumed that Autism is not a "shell" within which a normal child is waiting to get out, but it is a severe disorder of socialization, communication and imagination.
Teaching children with autism is often a challenge for their parents and educators. In general education, it is always assumed that all children develop their cognitively and physically in a similar way. On the other hand, children with autism have different types of development that can be seen in different styles of communicative, social and interpersonal relationships. For this Reason, family, educators and society must understand these developmental differences in order to give them social acceptance, and to provide them some strategies that encourage their social and communication skills (Quill, 1995).
In this paper, I am going to discuss some the teaching strategies for children with autism.
Play is one of the most useful strategies that teachers often use with students with autism. 20 years ago, few of parents and teachers thought that playing is an activity that wastes time and energy, and they considered a child who like to play a naughty child, without recognizing the importance of play in building the child social skills which adversely affect his academic performance. Recently, people started to appreciate playing, and identify the importance of play as it relate to social and symbolic aspect of development, so they started to understand what Play is, in order to support their children play effectively.
It is commonly accepted that play has many different types which may need to be defined in different ways, according to the theatrical biases of a particular researcher. Thus, some theorists pulled their ideas together and came up with some features that help to distinguish play from nonplay, in order to be aware of the children's play behavior if they were considered typical or not . For example, they assumed that a child play must be pleasurable and commonly accompanied by signs of positive effects, as an example, a child usually smile, laugh, sing to himself as a sign of enjoyment and playful orientation. Moreover, flexibility is included in play by doing the unexpected, changing the rules of the game or practicing different ideas. Also, they admitted that play is intrinsically motivated, occurring without any rewards, because the aim of the play is self-imposed rather than externally imposed by others. Furthermore, they said that all types of play mostly involve active engagement in a free chosen activity. Thus play is different from passive situations such as lounging, aimless loafing and inactivity. Beside that, play has to be frequently nonliteral and this is obvious in pretending when children treat an object as if it was something else, or in other forms of play that do not involve pretending. For example, play fighting can be distinguished easily from aggressive fighting (Quill, 1995).
On the other hand, the play of children with autism is so uncommon in contrast with the richly imaginative and social nature of play in typical developing children because they have their own way in playing. Overall, they lack the impulsive qualities characteristic of play. In play activities, symbolic pretense and social engagement are clearly absent. When left to their own devices, they commonly imposed to stiff and preservative play routines. Some children stay for several hours in a single repetitive play sequence extending over months or over years. As compared to typical children, children with autism engage higher rates of scheming forms of play and in fewer distinctly different combined play acts involving objects.
Children with autism also commonly experience difficulties engaging in play activities that are supported by peers some children avoid peer interaction and are unresponsiveness to social overtures (Wing & attwood, 1987).
Through a carefully tailored system of social support, we can provide children with autism meaningful and successful peer play experiences. Moreover, guiding participation in play and designing supportive play environments are central to enhancing and refining social and imaginative play. Many of the strategies that teachers use to enhance the children with autism play are related to the integrated play group. This playing approach draws heavily on the work of the Russian psychologist Vygotsky, who accorded play a central place in his overall theory of development. He presumes that play is an inherently social and collective process. The integrated play groups' model conceives of play as naturalistic and meaningful activity in which children of all ages make sense of the world through shared experiences. Rather than being directive, the integrated play groups approach provides a support system for peer play. Children faced with the task of learning how to play gain expertise while playing with other, more competent players in small groups organized around pretend play activities.
Although play is important for students with autism especially those who are young to enhance their social skills that kindly affect their academic areas, it is essential also to concentrate on each child learning style because their way of gaining the information from the environments around them are certainly different.
People are different, thus they learn through diverse ways, they can learn through hearing an audiotape record of a book ( auditory), through looking at pictures on a book or watching a videotape (visually ), or through touching and manipulating the materials or the objects (kinesthetically). I believe what educators say that many of students usually use two or more ways of learning, besides they are the only ones who determine their learning style that they found it suitable for them (wood, 1998). For instance, when I am in a lecture, I can see the instructor and her movements in class by my vision, and I can hear what she is saying by my ears, I feel that I got some of the information that she tried to explain. Moreover, when I take notes with her I can feel that I got the information successfully. As far as kinesthetic learning, I am very good at taking apart objects to learn how an object works, such as a vacuum cleaner or a computer.
As a consequence, one's learning style may affect the way he performs in the educational settings. At schools, they usually use visual learning (looking pictures in their text books) and auditory learning (listening to a teacher or to an audiotape) and if the student was not satisfied with the learning style that his teacher uses, he will depend on his strengths. For instance, if he was a visual learner he will not concentrate in class on what the teacher is saying, because there was nothing stimulating him to listen, and then he might rely on memorizing the text book when he go back home without understanding the concepts of the lesson.
Moreover, I believe that if one is poor at both visual and auditory learning, the student may have difficulty in his learning processes. Furthermore, one's learning style may be associated with one's occupation. For example, those students who are kinesthetic learners may tend to have occupations involving their hands, such as shelf stockers, mechanics, surgeons, or sculptors. Visual learners may tend to have occupations which involve processing visual information, such as data processors, artists, architects. Moreover, auditory learners may tend to have jobs which involve processing auditory information, such as sales people.
Based on some researches, it appears that autistic individuals are more likely to rely on only one style of learning. By observing the person, one may be able to determine his primary style of learning. For example, if an autistic child enjoys looking at books (e.g., picture books), watching television (with or without sound), and tends to look carefully at people and objects, then he may be a visual learner. If an autistic child talks excessively, enjoys people talking to him, and prefers listening to the radio or music, then he may be an auditory learner. And if an autistic child is constantly taking things apart, opening and closing drawers, and pushing buttons, this may indicate that the child is a kinesthetic or 'hands-on' learner (Wood, 1998).
When a person's learning style is modified, then relying on this teaching model can greatly increase the likelihood that the student will learn. If one is not sure which learning style a child has or is teaching to a group with different learning styles, then the best way to teach could be to use all three styles together. For example, when teaching the concept 'jelly,' one can display a package and bowl of jelly (visual); describe its features such as its color, texture, and use (auditory); and then let the person touch and taste it (kinesthetic). Another example, when teaching them the concept of the earth, a teacher can show the students a videotape showing the earth from outside the space.
To conclude, one of the serious problems evidenced by autistic children that happen usually is running around the classroom and not listening to the teacher. This child may not being interested or stimulated enough to pay attention to what his teacher is saying. For instance, he might be an auditory learner, and because of that he is not attending to the teacher's words. So, if the child is a kinesthetic learner, the teacher may choose to place his hands on the child's shoulders and then guide the student back to his chair, or go to the chair and move it towards the student. If the child learns visually, the teacher may need to show the child his chair or hand them a picture of the chair and gesture for the child to sit down. Another common problem is that a child may be able to use the toilet correctly at home but refuses to use it at school. This may be due to a failure to recognize the toilet. Professionals from Belgium discovered that an autistic child may use a small non-relevant detail to recognize an object such as a toilet. It takes detective work to find that detail. In one case a boy would only use the toilet at home that had a black seat. His parents and teacher were able to get him to use the toilet at school by covering its white seat with black tape. The tape was then gradually removed and toilets with white seats were now recognized as toilets.
Therefore, there are some techniques that a teacher must be aware of to use inside the classroom with students with autism in order to make the classroom environment the place of safety and learning.
First, a child with autism needs clear visual and physical boundaries inside the classroom to be able to identify each part of the class clearly through the arranged furniture, and to decrease the child's tendency to randomly run from area to area. An example of the physical structure in the classrooms, during group story time, a carpet square can provide the child with autism clear visual cues as to the physical boundaries of that activity. Floor tape can also be used in gym class to indicate to the child with autism the area in which he should stay to perform certain motor skills, like warm-up exercises. In addition, Color coded placements (according to each child's assigned color) can be used for snack or mealtimes. The placements will visually and physically define each child's "space" (and food items) on the table. These visual cues will help children with autism better understand their environment, as well as increase their ability to become more independent in their environment and less reliant on an adult for direction.
Another way to make the classroom environment suitable for an autistic child to learn is by minimizing visual and auditory distractions. The visual distraction can be minimized by painting the entire classroom a muted color, by limiting the amount of visual "clutter" which is typically present in most classrooms in the form of art projects, seasonal decorations and classroom materials, or by placing curtains to cover shelves of classroom materials, as well as other visually distracting equipment. So, in the play areas, for example, limit the number of appropriate toys which the children can use and then, on a weekly basis, rotate in "new" toys, while putting away the "old" ones. As well as the visual distractions, the auditory distraction can be reduced through the use of carpeting, lowered ceilings, and headphones for appropriate equipment, such as the computer or tape players.
Usually children with autism love to keep their everyday routine and they feel better to learn when everything is organized. A daily visual schedule is a critical component in a structured environment because it will tell the student with autism what activities will occur and in what sequence. For the student with autism, the consistent use of a visual schedule is an extremely important skill. It has the potential to increase independent functioning throughout his life. In general, schedules should be arranged from a "top-to-bottom" or "left-to-right" format, including a method for the student to manipulate the schedule to indicate that an activity is finished or "all done". Some students may need to transition to the next scheduled activity by taking their scheduled item (card or object) off their individual schedule and carrying this with them to the next activity. This may be due to the child's increased distractibility through the environment. The distractibility, or inability to sustain attention throughout the transition, is independent of the child's cognitive functioning level or verbal skills (Happâe, 1998).
In my point of view, a well structured classroom allows the student with autism to learn a process of focusing upon and following visual cues in various situations and environments, in order to increase his overall independent functioning. Also, teaching according to the learning style of the student may greatly influence the child's information processing of what was presented.
This, in turn, can affect the child's performance in school as well as his behavior through many different ways. Therefore, it is important that educators assess for learning style as soon as an autistic child enters the school system and that they adapt their teaching styles in rapport with the strengths of the student. This will ensure that the autistic child has the greatest chance for success in all of his life aspects.