Monica Delano

Evidence-Based Reading Instruction for Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Legislation mandates that all children, including children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), be taught to read in ways that are consistent with reading research and target the five components of evidence-based reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies. This review synthesized the literature on reading instruction for children with ASD that encompassed one or more of the five components of reading. The review included 11 studies with 61 participants ages 4 to 17 years. Results indicated that children with ASD can benefit from reading instruction consistent with reading research. Research in this area is still preliminary, and more research is needed to guide practice. Possible directions for future research are provided.

Access to the General Curriculum: The Mandate and Role of Context in Research-Based Practice for Students with Extensive Support Needs:

The reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act and the No Child Left Behind Act requires that students with extensive support needs have access to, participate in, and make progress on the general curriculum along with their grade-level general education peers. This article suggests that the terms used in this legislation have been interpreted differently across educational personnel, parents, advocates, and researchers, and that these differing interpretations have resulted in confusion and controversy related to services for this set of students. The purpose of this article was to initiate a discussion about the role of context when conceptualizing access to the general curriculum for students with extensive support needs related to communication, physical, and intellectual disabilities. It begins by discussing the federal mandate and regulations related to access to the general curriculum. It then presents differing interpretations of the concept of access to the general curriculum for students with extensive support needs, components that comprise access, and the impact of those interpretations on services. Next, it suggests an approach to conceptualizing educational services to guide policy makers, educators, and researchers as they develop, implement, and study effective practices that facilitate access to the general curriculum for students with extensive support needs. The article concludes with the suggestion that researchers, administrators, policy makers, and stakeholders must develop and hold a common understanding of the construct access to the general curriculum that is based on findings of the extant research; and that for all students, including students with extensive support needs, general education contexts are critical to accessing the general curriculum.

Use of Strategy Instruction to Improve the Story Writing Skills of a Student With Asperger Syndrome

More empirical studies are needed that evaluate interventions to improve the academic functioning of students with Asperger syndrome (AS). The purpose of this exploratory study was to evaluate the use of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) writing instruction (Graham, Harris, MacArthur, & Schwartz, 1991) with an adolescent with AS. A multiple baseline design across three responses was used to assess the effects of SRSD instruction. Strategy instruction sequentially targeted the students use of action words, describing words, and revisions. Following instruction, the student demonstrated gains in both the quantity and quality of his writing samples.

Leave the Running Shoes at Home: Addressing Elopement in the Classroom

S tudents’ leaving a designated area without permission or supervision is referred to as elopement (Bodfish, 1992), and such behavior clearly presents a unique set of challenges for educational professionals. Elopement is seen in children and youth with a variety of developmental disabilities, including those with intellectual disabilities or autism, as well as those identified with or at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). In milder forms, elopement may be simply disruptive and annoying (e.g., students leaving their seats without permission, or students who do not wait, line up, or gather at the appropriate spots when transitioning from one location to another). In more serious forms, students may run, literally leaving their classrooms, school buildings, and even school grounds, which creates potentially serious safety concerns. Elopement often requires teachers to react immediately to prevent students from leaving instructional contexts and entering potentially dangerous situations (e.g., running into traffic, encountering strangers, becoming lost). This may result in teachers leaving other students unsupervised while moving to block or retrieve the eloping student, which ultimately interrupts instruction for all students in the classroom. Not surprisingly, elopement may have long-term consequences for students as they continually miss critical instruction and time in the classroom. Students who leave designated areas are likely to miss instructional stimuli and opportunities to practice valuable skills alongside their peers. The resulting skill deficits, coupled with the staff support required to address serious elopement, may result in students being moved to more restrictive educational placements (Garner, 1991). Though it appears logical that elopement may be associated with an escape function, researchers have demonstrated that elopement may be maintained by access to attention (Kodak, Grow, & Northup, 2004), tangibles (Gibson, Pennington, Stenhoff, & Hopper, 2009), and automatic reinforcement (Falcomata, Roane, Feeney, & Stephenson, 2010), as well as escape from aversive contexts (Rapp, Vollmer, & Hovanetz, 2006). This adds to the difficulty in treating elopement in that sometimes teachers’ responses may actually increase students’ elopement. For example, if a teacher uses physical assistance to guide a student back to the classroom and the function of the student’s behavior was to gain attention, the teacher may inadvertently reinforce the student’s problem behavior. Fortunately, researchers have demonstrated that the function of elopement can be determined through behavioral assessment, and that the use of function-based strategies can result in favorable outcomes. The majority of research teams have used function-based strategies to address elopement. That is, strategies are selected that teach conventional responses (e.g., asking for a break, following a directive) that help students access reinforcement more effectively while weakening students’ effect on the environment through elopement. Several research teams have evaluated functional communication training (FCT) to reduce elopement. Following functional behavior assessments, researchers taught students to make conventional requests for reinforcing stimuli in lieu of eloping (Falcomata, Roane, Feeny, & Stephenson; Gibson et al., 2009; Tarbox, Wallace, & Williams, 2003). Researchers also have applied a variety of other reinforcement strategies. For example, Piazza and colleagues (1997) conducted functional analyses to determine the function of three children’s elopement. For each child they implemented a different reinforcement procedure that resulted in decreases in elopement. These procedures included differential reinforcement of other behavior (i.e., reinforcement contingent on the nonoccurrence of elopement), noncontingent reinforcement (i.e., free access to a preferred item), and differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (i.e., access to running for appropriate walking). Lang and colleagues (2010) conducted separate functional analyses in two settings (i.e., classroom, resource room) for a child with Asperger’s syndrome (AS). They provided noncontingent access to preferred stimuli (i.e., attention, DVD) in each setting, which resulted in decreases in elopement across both instructional areas. Some researchers have combined reinforcement and punishment strategies. For example, Kodak, Grow, and Northup (2004) used noncontingent reinforcement, but also applied time-out procedures LEAVE THE RUNNING SHOES AT HOME

Writing Instruction for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Review of Literature.

Historically, learners with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have not had access to the general education curriculum. Current legislation mandates that all children, including children with ASD, have access to and make progress in the general education curriculum. This article contains a review of the literature on writing instruction for children with ASD. Investigation yielded 15 studies with 29 participants with ASD ages 4 to 21 years. Based on the studies reviewed, we concluded that students with ASD benefit from explicit writing instruction, but more research is needed to establish an evidence-based set of practices to guide educators in the development of effective writing programs for this population of students. Strategies that are particularly promising and suggestions for future research are given.

Improving Cover-Letter Writing Skills of Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities.

We evaluated a multicomponent intervention for improving the cover-letter writing skills of individuals with intellectual disabilities. An intervention that included modeling, self-monitoring, prompting, and feedback increased correct performance for all participants. In addition, the skill was demonstrated across audiences.

A Rationale and Strategy for Adapting Dialogic Reading for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: RECALL

As the number of children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) continues to rise, more children with ASD are accessing early childhood services. Early childhood educators need strategies that benefit a variety of learners served in these settings including those diagnosed with ASD. Shared reading is one routine that is typically used in early childhood settings. This article aims to provide a rationale for adapting an established shared reading intervention (dialogic reading) to enhance language/emergent literacy skills of children with ASD. The proposed shared reading intervention, Reading to Engage Children with Autism in Language and Learning (RECALL), combines dialogic reading and evidence-based strategies shown to support young learners with ASD to specifically target additional skills young children with ASD inherently have difficulty acquiring

Book Review: Seeing is Believing: Video Self-Modeling for People with Autism and other Developmental Disabilities Seeing is Believing: Video Self-Modeling for People with Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities . BuggeyTom. Bethesda, MD: Woodbine House Inc., 2009. 129 pages,

Video self-modeling is a versatile intervention that capitalizes on the effectiveness of observational learning. Participants watch themselves in videos in which they accurately perform a targeted skill (Dowrick, 1999). Video modeling may be an effective intervention for children with autism because it reduces attentional and language demands, does not require social interaction with a teacher, and presents information in a visual format (e.g., watching a video), which may already be reinforcing to many children (Sherer et al., 2001). In the introduction to his discussion of video selfmodeling, Tom Buggey quotes the first part of Temple Grandin’s (1996) book Thinking in Pictures: