Part 1

Autism: Strategies and Techniques

Class 2: January 23, 2002

Major Characteristics and Unique Learning Characteristics

John C. Burke, Ph.D. & Shawn Henry

Kentucky Autism Training Center

Unique Characteristics Intro

Hello, and welcome back. We have begun to look at autism, in terms of the major characteristics and the formal diagnostic criteria. What we also want to be very concerned with are their unique learning, sensory, & behavioral characteristics implications for strategies.

As we know, the official Diagnostic Criteria for Autism pertains to three key areas.

• Qualitative impairments of communication

• Qualitative impairments of social skills

• Restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities

We can also look at their behaviors using a very traditional (Behavioral) Perspective

• In that they have Behavioral Excesses and Deficits with deficits in – Communication Skills– Social/pragmatic Skills– Appropriate Play Skills;– AcademicsAnd excess commonly in:– Stereotopies– Disruptive behaviors– “Not focusing”

• From a historical perspective, many people have thought if we can teach a child with autism enough individual behaviors, then the child would overcome the disorder.

• But, even after teaching many if not hundreds of behaviors and skills to children such as shown in this figure, they typically still show the key deficits.

Historically…we target individual behaviors or skills

Teaching Individual Behaviors

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What we need to do is to reflect and decide if Targeting Individual Behaviors or skills the most efficient approach for preparing a child with autism to become an adult?

If we look at the early identification literature, as was discussed in a previous session, there are some specific behaviors that are often missing in young children who will later receive the diagnosis of autism.

In particular, using the Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (CHAT) the three behaviors

– Joint Attention

– Proto-declarative Pointing– Symbolic Play (Imaginative)

Are often missing in young children who later get the diagnosis of autism.

Researchers have also begun to identify other unique characteristics of autism that pertain to their learning style, behavior, and sensory needs.

• When we target these unique characteristics, we often say we are teaching Pivotal Behaviors/Skills -Behaviors/skills which influence a wide array of other areas of development

Stimulus Overselectivity?

Responding on the basis of a limited number of cues or a subset of cues contained within a complex stimulus array…..

Lovaas, Schreibman, Koegel, and Rehm (1971)

Lovaas, Schreibman, Koegel, and Rehm (1971)

Involved three groups of children– Autism

– Mental Retardation

– Typically Developing Children

Children were first taught to respond in the presence of a

complex stimulus that included:

– An auditory component

– A visual component

– A tactile component

– Typically developing children responded on the basis of all three components

– Children with mental retardation ...two components

– Children with autism …one component

Their Results Demonstrated that:

• It was said that children with autism have difficulties responding to complex multiple-cue stimuli.

• Another study was conducted by Burke and Cerniglia, yes, me.

In our study, we first assessed the children’s responses using four sets of materials including

• “teacher constructed materials”

• Assessment of Children’s Language Comprehension Test (ACLC)

• The Token Test for Children

• Measure of responding in a social situation

Our results indicated, that as the number of cues increased, the children’s correct responding went down. Even though they could respond to the individual components, they had increased difficulty when the same components were presented together.

Thus, it was a “problem” in content versus a “problem” in responding to complexity?

Results

How do your children demonstrate this problem?

Can it be influenced by the approach being used?

In the old days, we increased the structure and thought that would help learning, but

it also limited generalization.

We use to think…

• Highly structured settings would reduce this problem. But is it “structure” or being “systematic”? It is more important to be systematic.

For instance, in our field, we used to use highly structured prompts to cue

children to write letters such as in this example. The Type of Cueing

Techniques can Influence the Impact of this Problem.