Writing Strategies for High-Functioning

Students with AutismAileen Hower,

Ed.D.

What does an Autism Spectrum Disorder/Asperger look like in my classroom?

Mockingbird (mok’ing-bûrd), Kathryn Erskine – p. 26-31; p. 38-39

Basic FactsAutism in Your Classroom: A General Educator’s Guide to Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders, Deborah Fein & Michelle Dunn

Social Impairment

Eye Contact

Peer Relationships

Emotional Reciprocity

Impaired Conversation Skills

In Your Classroom

Phonology and Syntax

Prosody

Semantics

Discourse

Pragmatics

In Your Classroom (continued)

Memory

Attention

Executive Functions *

Empathy

Theory of Mind

Executive Functioning

• Crucial for keeping several tasks going at the same time and switching between them.

• Vital for high-level decisions to resolve conflicting response, for overriding automatic behavior, and for inhibiting inappropriate impulsive actions

Executive Functioning• Impaired working memory

• Inability to switch tasks, to plan ahead, and to search methodically

• Inability to generate novel ideas and initiate actions

• Excessively stimulus-driven behavior

• Impulsivity and lack of inhibition of predominant responses

• Repetitive actions and preoccupations

Executive Functioning

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efCq_vHUMqs

Executive Functioning• Not like Down syndrome – which is the cause

of a particular chromosome abnormality.

• Rather: hazard, followed by havoc, followed by harm.

• The hazard can be of many kinds, including faulty genes, chromosome abnormality, metabolic disorder, viral agents, immune intolerance, or anoxia from peri-natal problems.

Brain Studies in Students with ASD

• Any of these hazards has the potential to create havoc in neural development.

• The lasting harm that may be done to the development of specific brain systems concerned with higher mental processes.

• May be mild or severe, but always involves developmental arrest of one or more critical systems at a critical point in time.

Brain Studies in Students with ASD

• Nerve cells follow growth instructions laid down in the genes, so that abnormalities appear if a gene program is faulty.

• The immature brain has more densely packed cells and more synapses per cell than the mature brain.

• The autistic brain resembles a more immature brain.

• Developmental problems may be caused by a failure to switch off, rather than to switch on, growth of connections.

Brain Studies in Students with ASD

• The cerebellum

• An ancient and important structure at the back of the brain.

• Of vital importance for many different motor and cognitive functions.

• Bigger Brains (the cerebellum)

• After birth, can be due to overabundant growth connections between nerve cells and a lack of pruning (cutting back resulting in reorganizing).

• The cerebellum with the frontal lobe – control attention, especially shifts in attention.

Brain Studies in Students with ASD

• Temporal Lobes – social and emotional brain

• Amygdala

• Part of the ancient social brain that humans share with many animals.

• Autism shows cellular abnormalities in the amygdala.

• Other studies show less neuron connectivity or firing.

Central Coherence• In the normal cognitive system there is a

built-in propensity to form coherence over as wide a range of stimuli as possible, and to generalize over as wide a range of contexts as possible.

• Children with autism, however, are characterized by detachment – a technical terms referring to a quality of thought.

• It could be due to a lack of global coherence or to a resistance to such coherence.

Central Coherence

• Excellence in block design and embedded figures tests:

Central Coherence

• Ordinary conversation and the understanding and answering of questions as intended by the questioner implies striving for high-level global, not merely local, coherence of information.

• The normal operation of central coherence compels human beings to give priority to the understanding of meaning.

• Using binoculars all of the time when looking at the world around them

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsdrzVReyUw

Problems with Writing• The child may “consistently become

overwhelmed with anxiety every time she is asked to complete a writing assignment” (Fein & Dunn, 2007, p. 251).

• Assess the cause:

• Graphomotor?

• Formulating an answer?

• Use a reward system for positive, compliant behavior.

Scaffolding

• “There is every reason to believe that explicit learning works even when implicit learning fails” (Frith, 2003, p. 218).

• Provide prompts.

• Using technology to support a weakness in writing (graphomotor issues).

• Take or type notes for the student so they can “keep up” or “listen” during a lecture.

Scaffolding or “Front-loading” – Heart

Mapping• With a heart map, students place the

important events, people, things in their hearts, with the most important in the center. Have them fill the heart with all those moments that really matter.

• Obsessions may fill the outer borders or even things that scare them. Students can write anything that is in their heart: loves, hates, needs, comfort foods, recent or past memories, etc.

Scaffolding – Writing Territories

• If you’re unfamiliar with writing territories, here’s the skinny:

• In the words of Don Murray (paraphrased): Most of us have two or three topics that we write about over and over again.

• Writing territories should be listed in a broad way and can include names of people or places that are important to a person.

• Once a person knows their territories, they can create a web with the territory in the center and then create branches off of the center. Those branches will later become entries in the person’s writer’s notebook.

Graphic Organizers for Writing

• A concept map is a type of graphic organizer used to help students organize and represent knowledge of a subject. Concept maps begin with a main idea (or concept) and then branch out to show how that main idea can be broken down into specific topics.

• Concept mapping serves several purposes for learners:

• Helping students brainstorm and generate new ideas

• Encouraging students to discover new concepts and the propositions that connect them

• Allowing students to more clearly communicate ideas, thoughts and information

• Helping students integrate new concepts with older concepts

• Enabling students to gain enhanced knowledge of any topic and evaluate the information

Graphic Organizers for Writing

• A mind map is a visual representation of hierarchical information that includes a central idea surrounded by connected branches of associated topics.

• Benefits of Mind Maps

• Help students brainstorm and explore any idea, concept, or problem

• Facilitate better understanding of relationships and connections between ideas and concepts

• Make it easy to communicate new ideas and thought processes

• Allow students to easily recall information

• Help students take notes and plan tasks

• Make it easy to organize ideas and concepts

• Technology - http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/Organiser+Tools

Graphic Organizers for Writing

• A web is a visual map that shows how different categories of information relate to one another. Webs are typically used by students, teachers and professionals as brainstorming strategies for developing and connecting ideas.

• Benefits of Brainstorming Webs

• Help students develop and improve fluency with thinking

• Allow students to discover new ideas and relationships between concepts

• Get the mind going to generate and organize thought processes, new ideas and information

Graphic Organizers for Writing

Technology

• http://edtechideas.com/2012/02/21/8-sites-for-reluctant-writers/

• http://computingforkids.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/encourage-reluctant-writers-with-these-online-resources/

• Google Docs, Google Presentations 

• http://www.greatsource.com/iwrite/

• http://storybird.com/  

• http://kidblog.org/home.php

Technology

• http://educate.intel.com/en/thinkingtools/showingevidence/

• http://comiclife.com/education

• http://www.toondoo.com/

• http://www.edmodo.com/

Dialogue Journals• Dialogue journaling allows the student along with the teacher to

communicate back and forth with one another without having to talk one on one or disrupting the class to talk. 

• Dialogue journals are journals that are strictly for the student and for the teacher, no one else although the paraprofessional can see the journal if the student is ok with that.

• In the journal the student can write whatever they feel. They can ask questions to the teacher, talk about how they are doing in the areas of target, or any complaints that the student might have.

• By having this ongoing dialogue with the student it enables the teacher to encourage the student to communicate and learn how to communicate effectively as well as skills that the teacher may like to target (Krebs, 2006).

• Use technology to facilitate, if necessary.

Final Thoughts