Presentation Topic

Using visual supports to support classroom behaviors of children with autism.

Type of Problem Behavior

While the uptake of education among children is quite high in the world, the general uptake of skills is not. Early childhood education confers important skills and competencies to children thereby preparing them for a long life. However, some of the students are generally slow in the acquisition of these skills owing to development issues. In particular, children with autism are disadvantaged in regards to early childhood education and the acquisition of necessary skills. As a result, there are huge discrepancies that render these children abnormal amongst their peers (Hayes et al, 2010). Also, children with autism have the potential of being bullied and rejected by peers thus confining them to a poor social life.

Poor development and acquisition of necessary skills in childhood is usually catastrophic for children. For instance, a number of children with autism have succumbed to delinquencies in their adolescence owing to a feeling of loss of meaning in life. Social development in children is dependent on the acquisition of both cognitive and behavioral skills. Some of these skills are acquired through interactions with peers, parents as well as teachers and siblings. By having difficulties in interacting with others, children with autism have the risk of not acquiring important skills. Johnston et al (2003) assert that environmental factors conspire against the successful integration of these skills among children with autism. Essentially, children with autism require different forms of help in order to smoothly acquire the skills. In recent years, visual support has proved to be among the most effective models of facilitating social skills acquisition among children with autism.

Benefits and Research Findings

The importance of visual support in facilitating classroom behavior among children with autism cannot be gainsaid. Rao & Gagie, (2006) argue that they provide an education tool necessary in organizing information for future recall and processing. Indeed, it has been observed that visual instruction is more effective in children learning compared to traditional forms of instruction such as dictation and audio instruction. Also, the flexibility of visual support makes it effective in a wide range of settings and includes semantic maps and graphic organizers. For instance, children can refer to visuals drawn during instruction to remember the functioning of different concepts. The use of visual support enhances the understanding of different concepts amongst children (Ganz et al., 2013). In addition, visual support is instrumental in facilitating behaviors such as comprehension and organization among children with autism. Lastly, the use of visual support makes learning more fun and lively through the reduction of stress and anxiety.

Today, most of the children with disabilities are integrated into general classrooms. In this regard, there is an increasing demand for the use of visual support in facilitating education among children with autism. The correct implementation of visual supports gives the children the freedom to partake in life despite their impairment. The use of visual support has been successfully integrated in teaching a variety of skills including positive behavior, social and literacy skills as well as providing activity schedules (Hayes et al, 2010). The use of visual support helps in providing sequence and routine among children with autism thus helping them to continue with their daily activities effectively. In addition to poor communication, children with autism suffer from poor understanding of social communication tools such as body language, voice intonation and facial expression. Consequently, the integration of visual support enhances a better understanding of what children with autism are required to do.

Transition difficulties have the potential of limiting the acquisition of student skills (Rao & Gagie, 2006). Particularly, children with autism are challenged in the completion of activities across different environments in school. In most cases, these problems are highly evident when children with autism are taught within the general education classes. The use of visual support can thus be integrated in reducing the continuous teacher intervention by increasing student independence. Visual supports have been integrated in the successful teaching of various skills among children with disabilities. In particular, the success rate of visual support concepts is quite high among children with autism. Perhaps, this success stems from its focus on the particular strengths of the children including their interest in visuals and their processing abilities. Its flexibility and potential use in a wide array of settings presents another benefit to children with autism (Meadan et al., 2011). Also, the concept can be used to compliment other strategies thereby enhancing the acquisition of skills and behaviors necessary for children growth and development.

Procedures

The successful implementation of visual support in facilitating skill acquisition is dependent on the right procedures. Rao and Gagie (2006) came up with a procedure that includes the following steps:

1. Task analysis

The first step in visual support is the breaking down of the anticipated behavior or task into concrete steps. In this step, a teacher or caregiver identifies the specific problem experienced by a student. Also, the teacher should provide a concise narration of the problem to guarantee accuracy as well as provide for monitoring.

2. Selection of appropriate visual supports

The teacher must then decide on an appropriate visual support for the different steps identified beforehand. In this step, the teacher maintains access to appropriate equipment for the implementation of visual support. For instance, the teacher may use videos and projectors to depict visuals during the learning process. A video camera for recording different visuals may also come in handy during the instruction process.

3. Individual instructions

Here, the teacher should use individual systematic instructions to cater for the specific visual needs of different children. The instructions must be explicit and clear to ensure proper acquisition of behavioral and social skills in class. These instructions must be prepared in advance to ensure a smooth process of learning.

4. Prompting and Fading

In this step, the teacher uses prompting procedures to teach and guide the children on the use of visuals. Each of the students is guided on the proper use of the visuals as well as the matching of different visuals to the right situation. Also, depending on the need of each student, teachers should apply fading procedures to ensure that students with autism grasp the concepts fully. By fading the concept, teachers reduce the regularity of the visual support thus encouraging positive progress.

5. Reinforcements

This step involves the enhancement of motivation among students with autism by using effective reinforces. Children that use the right procedures are encouraged through rewards thus motivating more children to use visual supports according to the criterion.

6. Assessment

The step involves monitoring and evaluation to gauge the success of the visual support in children with autism. Teachers must assess different tasks to gauge the percentage of improvements in the identified behaviors. In case there is poor progress, the teacher should devise an adjustment in the procedures to maximize the success rate.

References

Ganz, J., Boles, M., Goodwyn, F., & Flores, M. (2013). Efficacy of Handheld Electronic Visual   Supports to Enhance Vocabulary in Children With ASD. Focus On Autism And Other Developmental Disabilities, 29(1), 3-12.

Hayes, G. R., Hirano, S., Marcu, G., Monibi, M., Nguyen, D. H., & Yeganyan, M. (2010). Interactive visual supports for children with autism. Personal and ubiquitous computing, 14(7), 663-680.

Johnston, S., Nelson, C., Evans, J., & Palazolo, K. (2003). The use of visual supports in teaching young children with autism spectrum disorder to initiate interactions. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 19(2), 86-103.

Meadan, H., Ostrosky, M., Triplett, B., Michna, A., & Fettig, A. (2011). Using Visual Supports with Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 43(6), 28-35.

Rao, S. M., & Gagie, B. (2006). Learning through seeing and doing: Visual supports for children with autism. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 38(6), 26-33.

O’Brien, A., Schlosser, R., Shane, H., Abramson, J., Allen, A., & Flynn, S. et al. (2016). Brief Report: Just-in-Time Visual Supports to Children with Autism via the Apple Watch:® A Pilot Feasibility Study. Journal Of Autism And Developmental Disorders, 46(12), 3818-3823.

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