Autism, Education, and Play

1. Autism, Education, and Play …things to think about as I enter the internship setting Dale Harvey

2. These guys are awesome! • Steven and Zack are two amazing little guys both are affected by autism, and both in very different ways... • Steven is the older of the two boys, and tends to be more quiet and industrious, while Zack is the wild child with an amazing imagination and even bigger heart. • Their mother is Steven's and her older daughter’s home school instructor. • In meeting and talking with her over the course of our study this semester, she has related her joys and challenges that have come from deciding to home school her children, and that in working with Steven over the course of the next school year that I will learn quite a bit as well.

3. Teaching Play Skills to Children with Autism Through Video Modeling: Small Group Arrangement and Observational Learning • In video modeling - where a model is provided on video, but there are no living models in front of the participants during the training sessions. (Grant & Evans, 1994) • Video modeling only requires the participants to look at the screen and model the skills they see on it. Thus, it is a one-way interaction, which may be beneficial for children with autism as they tend to be visual learners.

4. The impact of the Advancing Social-Communication And Play (ASAP) Intervention on Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder • Another challenging skill area for children with ASD is play, according to Casby. (1992) • Children with ASD exhibit differences in quality and quantity of play when compared to both typically developing children. • ASAP intervention had a positive impact on social-communication and play skills for three preschoolers with ASD. All participants showed either increases in frequency or more stability in targeted behaviors.

5. ASAP Continued… • ASAP intervention • The ASAP intervention (ASAP; Watson et al., 2009) was developed as part of an intervention development grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences. • Adapted from the interventions of Kasari and colleagues (2006, 2008), ASAP is designed to target social-communication and play of children with ASD in a preschool setting using developmental hierarchies. • ASAP instructional hierarchy • Provides 20 sequenced objectives across three categories of social-communication: social interaction, requesting, and joint attention. There are 21 sequenced objectives across the four categories of play: exploratory, relational, functional, and symbolic play.

6. From the Parents’ point of view… • With my next article I wanted to look at the situation from the side of the parents, even to go so far as to take a peek at what kind of stress levels parents that are dealing with even older children who suffer with autism. • In the article - Daily stress and cortisol patterns in parents of adult children with a serious mental illness. • The goal of the current study was to examine whether parenting an adult child with a serious mental illness (SMI) has a physiological impact on parents. • Method: Multiple samples of saliva were collected on 4 days from 61 parents. • What they found was that after particularly rough days with their children these parents show sustain levels of cortisol in their saliva, which was a indicator of sustain levels of stress.

7. Play Behaviours and Activities of Siblings of Childrenwith Developmental Disabilities. • In the first article we look at how the siblings play patterns are affected • What they found was that the play patterns were greater and more varied in the siblings that had affected brothers and sisters and that the affected siblings showed increased positive play patterns, and behaviors after increase positive play and socialization with their siblings.

8. Changes in the Administrative Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders: Contribution of Special Education and Health from 2002–2008. • This study examined changes in the administrative prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in Utah children from 2002 to 2008 by record source (school and health), age (four, six, and eight), and special education classification. • Prevalence increased 100% with 1 in 77 children aged eight identified with ASD by 2008. Across study years and age groups, rates were higher when health and school data were combined with a greater proportion of cases ascertained from health. • The proportion of children with both a health ASD diagnosis and a special education autism classification did not significantly change. Most children with an ASD health diagnosis did not have an autism special education classification. • Findings highlight the growing health and educational impact of ASD.

9. Making the Connection: Randomized Controlled Trial of Social Skills at School for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. • This study compared two interventions for improving the social skills of high functioning children with autism spectrum disorders in general education classrooms. • One intervention involved a peer-mediated approach and the other involved a child-assisted approach. Sixty children participated from 56 classrooms in 30 schools. • Interventions involved 12 sessions over 6weeks, with a 3-month follow-up. • Outcome measures included self, peer and teacher reports of social skills and independent weekly observations of children on their school playground over the course of the intervention. • What they found was significant improvements in social network salience, number of friendship nominations, teacher report of social skills in the classroom, and decreased isolation on the playground for children who received PEER interventions. • Changes obtained at the end of the treatment persisted to the 3-month follow-up.

10. Beyond Time Out and Table Time: Today's Applied Behavior Analysis for Students with Autism. • What this article does is provide a bit of training on what applied behavior analysis means for today's special needs students and how to work with that in the classroom settings. • Topics that are touched on and explained in this article are: • Behavior Analysis • Evidence Based Practice • Pervasive Developmental Disorders • Time Outs

11. Transition Planning for Students with Intellectual Disability, Autism, or other Disabilities • National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 - (a federally funded, national study of the secondary and post school experiences of students with disabilities). • What the National Longitudinal Transition Study found was that on a national level as special needs students try to transition out of the elementary school system is that although transition planning had been conducted for the majority of students, few of them took a leadership role in their transition planning. • Students with autism or intellectual disability were significantly less likely than students with other disabilities to take a leadership role. The majority of the active participants in transition planning were school-based personnel, the research also found limited participation from other agencies/support persons (e.g. vocational rehabilitation).

12. Closing…. And Questions That You May Not Get an Answer to… ?

13. References • Barker, E. T., Greenberg, J. S., Seltzer, M. M., & Almeida, D. M. (2012). Daily stress and cortisol patterns in parents of adult children with a serious mental illness. Health Psychology, 31(1), 130-134. • Boutot, E. A., & Hume, K. (2012). Beyond time out and table time: Todays applied behavior analysis for students with autism. Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 47(1), 23-38. • Dykstra, J. R., Boyd, B. A., Watson, L. R., Crais, E. R., & Baranek, G. T. (2012). The impact of the advancing social- communication and play (ASAP) intervention on preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder. Autism, 16(1), 27-44. • Kasari, C., Rotheram‐Fuller, E., Locke, J., & Gulsrud, A. (2012). Making the connection: Randomized controlled trial of social skills at school for children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 53(4), 431-439. • Ling, C. Y. M., & Mak, W. W. S. (2012). Coping with challenging behaviours of children with autism: Effectiveness of brief training workshop for frontline staff in special education settings. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 56(3), 258-269. • Ozen, A., Batu, S., & Birkan, B. (2012). Teaching play skills to children with autism through video modeling: Small group arrangement and observational learning. Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 47(1), 84-96.  • Pinborough-Zimmerman, J., Bakian, A. V., Fombonne, E., Bilder, D., Taylor, J., & McMahon, W. M. (2012). Changes in the administrative prevalence of autism spectrum disorders: Contribution of special education and health from 2002– 2008. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42(4), 521-530. • Shogren, K. A., & Plotner, A. J. (2012). Transition planning for students with intellectual disability, autism, or other disabilities: Data from the national longitudinal transition study-2. Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 50(1), 16-30. • Tzanakaki, P., Grindle, C., Hastings, R. P., Hughes, J. C., Kovshoff, H., & Remington, B. (2012). How and why do parents c hoose early intensive behavioral intervention for their young child with autism. Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 47(1), 58-71. • Venkatesan, S., & Ravindran, N. (2012). Play behaviours and activities of siblings of children with developmental disabilities. Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology, 38(1), 74-83.