2. What does an Autism Spectrum
Disorder/Asperger look like in my
classroom?
Mockingbird (mok’ing-bûrd), Kathryn
Erskine – p. 26-31; p. 38-39
3. Basic Facts
Autism 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
6. 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
7. 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
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13.
14. 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.
15. 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.
17. 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
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. 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.
22. 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
23. 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
24. 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
28. 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.
