support document

Education of people with autism should be based on the principle of globality which comprises two dimensions. On the one hand, education should focus on all areas and all spheres of development, chiefly those that we should compensate for the most as they constitute the aspects in which autistic people are mostly found wanting, such as, for example, communication and socialization. On the other hand, education should extend to all environments in which people with autism develop. Intervention does not begin and end at school; the teachings should cover all contexts of a person’s life.

Educational attention should be continual, covering all the stages of an individual’s vital cycle and, in so far as possible, should be specific to the programmes that are applied, and requires a team made up of differing professionals in differing areas.

Lastly, intervention must be flexible and take account of a person’s individuality, avoiding labelling and treating everybody the same, thus enabling each person to develop their own way of being.

Education emerges today as the best development tool. Ever since Leo Kanner described autism in 1943, three clearly differentiated stages have followed. In the first, in the 1960s, the emphasis was on psychoanalytical theories and interpretations which centred the cause of autism on the individual’s family and on possible traumatic relationships in childhood. In a second stage, around the 1970s, behavioural-type theories are put forward and intervention centred principally on the theme of therapy. Finally, from the 1980s onwards a new stage begins which heightens the importance of education which is viewed as an optimal instrument for the development of the autistic person.

1– GENERAL PRINCIPLES

We shall describe below a number of general principles to be born in mind with autistic people and easily generalisable to any educational situation.

Knowledge of autism
A certain knowledge of autism is necessary as a basis for our work, no only of specific deficits of a social communicative cognitive type, but also of a series of characteristics which, without being specific, affect most people and have a direct bearing on learning.

Knowledge of normal development
Directly related to the previous principle, we intend here to single out the importance of knowledge of a person’s normal development. Much of current research compares an autistic person’s development with normal development. Knowledge of the mechanisms underlying a normal evolutive development offers us quite appropriate guidelines on what we ought to promote and on which aspects we should centre our intervention.

Personalized Education
The great variability of cases of autism forces us into individualized adaptations, both access and curricular, as well as being constantly mindful of personal differences at the time of setting up classes. It can also thus be inferred  the importance of the individual work of students and the need to work with small-size classes

Physical structuring
Most of us understand and interpret perfectly the environment surrounding us because we have a series of indications and resources which help us to move about in the different contexts and to anticipate the forthcoming events. Such indications go constantly unnoticed by us and we process and interpret them unconsciously.

The environment is perceived by autistic people as a chaotic whole impossible to decipher without our help. Our role consists in clarifying and making comprehensible the environment that surrounds them.

The purpose of physical structuring is for the autistic person to understand his environment and thrive within it as autonomously as possible.

Time Structuring
As a consequence of what was set out above, it is necessary also to provide students with aid so that they may understand the different activities and moments of their day. It is convenient to offer autistic people a timetable which will allow them to keep track of time and anticipate what they are going to do and understand their differing activities.

In building this timetable, photos may be used which represent sequentially and temporally the activities to be performed.

With these aids we eliminate to a large extent the anguish caused in autistic people by their inability to understand what is around them. By providing them with some reassurance we make them more willing to establish a teaching-learning relationship.

Structuring the teaching situation
On particular occasions, and bearing in mind the principle of individuality, there is a need to adapt the teaching situations in such a specific way that it is necessary to adapt them to each individual case One of the possible forms of adaptation of a work situation is North Carolina’s TEACCH adaptation programme, particularly effective in students with lower development levels. This adaptation makes it possible to control to the utmost the stimuli that cause distraction and to present the tasks to be performed in a way that is clear and predictable. The student will be sitting in a place in the classroom, usually in front of a white wall so as to avoid irrelevant stimuli, and for a limited time. The required furniture is a work table, a bookcase to this left on which to place each box containing the different tasks to be performed and, on his right, a tray where he puts the completed tasks. On the wall in front of the student, photos are placed of the different tasks to be performed.

The activity consists in the student picking the first task to be performed and, once it has been completed, to place it on the tray to his right together with the photo he took from the wall.  And so on it goes until all the tasks have been completed. Once the child has finished, this is reinforced with something he likes.

The aim is for the student to make predictions about his work and to understand which tasks he must perform in the classroom, in which order, and how much time he has available in which to perform them.
The students increase their level of concentration in their work thus also increasing their motivation, autonomy and self-control in the completion of the different tasks.

Directivity and flexibility
The whole learning situation must be thoroughly controlled by performing considerably adapted tasks, structuring the space and the work situation, and achieving the type of response we expect from the student. All this directivity should also provide for moments which will enable the student to reveal how he is, and enable him to opt and solve situations on his own. In short, some degree of controlled flexibility will enable a person with autism to be more independent and autonomous.

Building a relationship
When starting to work with these students, the therapist should first devote some time to observing and getting to know the students. Before any intervention, it is necessary to know not only certain notions of autism but the very individuality of each person as well.  This period of adaptation and mutual knowledge is also very necessary with the students we are going to work with.

Consistency and coherency
By consistency we mean the behaviour of people who are in contact with a child with autism. These people should act in the same way at all times irrespective of their physical or emotional state.

Coherence entails extending this way of acting to all people who relate to children so that they all act in a consistent and coordinated fashion in all situations.

Coordination of human resources involved
It is understood from what has been previously said the importance of a good coordination between all those involved, not only in education but also outside it. One ought to single out the importance of the role of the child’s family who should be a participating element in the programmes devised for the child.

Functionality
The selection of the competences we want to work on must be preceded by an exhaustive analysis of the various contexts, present and future, in which the person with autism lives or is going to live. We must centre our intervention on those competences that will help the individual to live as autonomously as possible.

Harnessing individual preferences
When setting objectives and selecting reinforcements, knowing the student’s likes and preferences proves particularly useful. This harnessing of preferences is useful for selecting a work objective and attracting and motivating the student (for example, if the student enjoys construction games, one should use this activity to work on objectives concerning other areas of development).

Natural reinforcements – natural environments
Natural reinforcement is the logical result of the learnings we are working on.

Adaptation to age
When the time comes to make curricular adaptations, we must bear closely in mind the chronological age of the students that we work with. We may work on the same goal with students with a similar level of execution albeit of different chronological ages. However, the activities and the materials must always be adapted to the age of each of them. For example, if we want a child to be able to classify according to shape, with the youngest ones we use building materials and different games whereas with students from a professional training class we should use labour-type materials according to their age.

Normalization
We should make a continual effort to integrate students into environments which are as unrestrictive as possible. It is interesting to work in natural environments which make possible the generalization of the learnings that were conducted at school and which enable the students to perform functional activities which make absolute sense and are stripped of the artificiality which a context as structured as a school entails.

Colleagues without Special Educational Needs
A consequence of the principle of normalization is the holding of integration programmes which envisage the relationship with ‘so-called normal children’ and the contact with normalized patterns of behaviour.

Positive focus
Give positive focus to the student’s mistakes and rather than highlighting what the student has not done well, try to convey a positive feeling by saying that, with a little help, he will be able to do it well.

Active learning – nurturing autonomy
One of the deficits directly affecting learning by people with autism is the great difficulty they have with generalization.
Children with autism need a wide range of activities in a large number of contexts before they manage to generalize their learnings.

Error-free learning  – achievement of objectives
Control of the whole learning situation should have success as its intended objective, but one of the aspects to take into account is the need to fulfil the objectives laid down and be sure that the student succeeded in achieving the objectives envisaged.

On the other hand, we should target another objective in our work; that the student accepts his own mistakes and shows a gradual increase in tolerance to them.

Constant recording of observations
With the aim of recording behaviours and acquisitions we should constantly note down all the relevant observations on a record sheet.

Periodic review – formative evaluation
The recording of the relevant observations, as mentioned above, facilitates the performance of a formative evaluation which should be held periodically. It should enable us to understand the progress made by the student, to what extent the objectives laid down are being achieved, and provide clues for the next objectives to be defined.

Partial participation
Activities should be undertaken which are easily adaptable to all levels of development. All students should participate in most activities; some will be able to complete one activity autonomously, others, however, will need help, and others still will manage only a few steps. The important thing is to use the capacities of each student and adapt the activities to each of them.

ADAPTATIONS

Access adaptations
Are those that  ensure student access to an adapted curriculum and refer mainly to  personal issues (e.g. to study the criteria for grouping students in classes; participation of a multidisciplinary team and to deliver the most individualized teaching possible), materials (e.g., adapted to chronological age, variety, utilization of real objects and of certain specific aids in  each case, and adapted materials),  spatial (e.g. adequate structuring of space and of student location in spaces where they may achieve maximum compensation for their difficulties).

From a communication viewpoint, the communicative system to be used must be the one that the child already uses (e.g. symbols, photos, verbal). Whoever works with these children must always keep in mind that he or she will have to adjust the complexity of his or her language to the child’s level (e.g. how to talk and what to talk about), avoid talking too much, seek to get the child’s attention before communicating anything to the child, use gestures or other aids as language support, reinforce their communicative initiatives, use our own language to help and encourage the student to anticipate and use the language.

Methodological adaptations
Irrespective of the cognitive level and the diagnosis, these students reveal learning difficulties which affect their access to a curriculum and which require certain methodological strategies and specific learning foci which promote or compensate for their “learning islands”.

Among the difficulties that we must compensate for are perceptual problems which translate into a lack of consistency in reactions to stimulation. Mindful that they process visual stimuli better, one should by-pass the irrelevant stimuli and offer them the necessary information only.

Attention problems may be reduced by controlling the relevant stimuli, starting from what interests the student, fostering shared attention, using visual aids, taking frequent breaks, adjusting the length of the tasks.

Attention increases by identifying motivating reinforcers individually. For this reason, it becomes important to hand to the parents a questionnaire on their children’s preferences, intersperse favourite activities with less attractive ones and be aware of their scarce social motivation.

Lastly, their scarce capacity for generalization is offset by using the natural contexts to work the different learnings.

Curricular adaptations
The rationale for making curicular adaptations is that the National Standard Curriculum aims to ensure the homogeneity of the educational system while allowing adjustments to the various educational contexts.

Curricular adaptations may be based on a model called Ecological Model:

• Ecological in that it selects abilities necessary for today’s context but also for future life contexts;
• Normalizing in that it requires abilities which help in socializing with other people, which creates the greatest possible autonomy;
• Educational in that it selects activities and abilities suited to each age group.

SPECIFIC PROGRAMMES

The specific programmes should target the needs shown by the individual and by his family, as well as being appropriate to a child or a youth bearing in mind their real capacities. Individual Educational Programmes should be aimed at the most diverse areas of intervention:

1. Autonomy
2. Leisure and Sport
3. Social skills – Integration
4. Moving into adult life
5. Behaviour control techniques
6. Alternative communication systems
7. Family cooperation

Cuesta Gómez, J.L. (1994) - "Intervención Educativa en Alunos com Autismo" em El Autismo Hoy, Jornadas y Congresos

Burgos: Autismo Burgos