Bright and Verbal Students with Autism: Strategies for the General Education Classroom

Teri McGill Author

12/17/2021 Added

1344 Plays

Description

Bright and Verbal

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:02.890]Welcome to the webinar,
[00:00:04.070]Bright and Verbal Students with Autism,
[00:00:06.050]Strategies for the General Education Classroom.
[00:00:08.970]My name is Teri McGill, and I am a regional coordinator
[00:00:11.870]for the Nebraska ASD network.
[00:00:14.090]Today's webinar will focus on individuals with autism
[00:00:17.240]who have average to above average cognitive abilities
[00:00:20.200]and average to above average verbal abilities.
[00:00:23.100]I will review some of the unique characteristics
[00:00:25.270]this group presents with
[00:00:26.850]along with strategies to support them
[00:00:28.650]in the general education classroom.
[00:00:32.380]What do I need to support
[00:00:33.720]my bright and verbal students with autism?
[00:00:35.940]Well, first and foremost, we must see the autism.
[00:00:39.220]Our bright and verbal students with autism
[00:00:41.300]spend the majority of their day
[00:00:42.940]in the general education classroom,
[00:00:45.160]and they look like every other student.
[00:00:47.770]So first and foremost, it is so important
[00:00:50.460]that every team member has a strong foundation
[00:00:53.200]of the characteristics of autism.
[00:00:57.130]Eric Schopler likes to talk about the ability
[00:00:59.470]to see the autism using an iceberg.
[00:01:01.850]The tip of the iceberg is what we see,
[00:01:03.840]the child and those observed behaviors.
[00:01:06.640]The base of the iceberg is the underlying deficits
[00:01:10.160]or characteristics of autism.
[00:01:12.950]If we don't take time to look deeper under the surface,
[00:01:16.800]we will struggle to understand the problematic behaviors
[00:01:20.500]or the skill deficits
[00:01:21.650]that our students with autism might have.
[00:01:26.780]So the first thing on your checklist
[00:01:28.400]needs to be understanding the characteristics.
[00:01:33.070]All students with autism,
[00:01:34.700]no matter where they present on the spectrum,
[00:01:36.680]have deficits in three areas,
[00:01:38.460]communication, social, and restricted interest
[00:01:41.660]in patterns of behavior.
[00:01:43.290]We're just going to do a quick review of these.
[00:01:45.760]In the area of communication,
[00:01:47.360]it's not the quantity of their language.
[00:01:49.210]It's actually the quality of their language.
[00:01:51.770]Our bright and verbal students, they have a lot to say
[00:01:54.610]and they talk to us a lot,
[00:01:56.330]but actually lack the understanding
[00:01:58.940]of those specific conversation rules,
[00:02:01.470]so they might be talking more at us than with us,
[00:02:04.860]because they don't have an understanding
[00:02:06.970]that in a conversation
[00:02:08.480]there should be turn-taking or reciprocity.
[00:02:11.820]Our students can also struggle to change the topic,
[00:02:15.090]so to move away from that special interest
[00:02:18.070]or preferred topic, and they may have difficulty
[00:02:21.020]comprehending abstract concepts,
[00:02:23.770]figurative language, and sarcasm.
[00:02:27.130]in the area of social,
[00:02:28.760]many of our bright and verbal students
[00:02:30.360]have difficulty understanding relationships and friendships.
[00:02:33.490]This can be a really big roadblock,
[00:02:35.700]because these students spend the majority of their time
[00:02:38.240]in the general education classroom
[00:02:40.400]with their neuro-typical peers.
[00:02:42.840]They can have difficulty reading body language
[00:02:45.170]and those nonverbal cues.
[00:02:47.210]They can struggle to predict events,
[00:02:49.400]and also struggle to understand the reactions of others
[00:02:53.200]to their own behavior, which means then
[00:02:55.810]they're generally not changing their behavior.
[00:02:58.960]Also understanding that things are not black and white.
[00:03:02.160]This is a group of individuals that really struggles
[00:03:05.910]with understanding that things could be one way
[00:03:08.290]or things could be another way.
[00:03:10.180]And then conversation style,
[00:03:11.880]often includes those cumbersome monologues
[00:03:14.440]related to special interest.
[00:03:16.520]I'm sure many of you that work with our bnv students
[00:03:19.010]have experienced that in the past.
[00:03:21.530]In the area of restricted interest and patterns of behavior,
[00:03:24.850]many of our bright and verbal student's
[00:03:26.800]special interest now might not be the same special interests
[00:03:30.280]they have a month from now,
[00:03:31.730]because they're oftentimes not permanent
[00:03:33.530]with this group of individuals.
[00:03:35.700]But their special interests
[00:03:37.640]can appear to be uncontrollable,
[00:03:39.830]and what we mean by that is they may have trouble
[00:03:42.170]turning off that special interest, and because of that,
[00:03:45.630]they can miss out on learning opportunities
[00:03:48.600]and social opportunities.
[00:03:50.770]The role of the special interest for our individuals
[00:03:53.130]with autism, along with you and I,
[00:03:55.710]is oftentimes fun and relaxation, and that stress reduction.
[00:04:01.400]For many of our individuals with autism,
[00:04:03.720]if they are anxious or they are feeling uncomfortable
[00:04:07.720]in a situation, or they're not able to predict
[00:04:09.890]what's going to happen, they could then roll
[00:04:12.730]into their special interests
[00:04:14.730]because it provides them comfort and security.
[00:04:21.750]Many of our bright and verbal children with autism
[00:04:25.370]often have a social maturity of somebody one third
[00:04:28.740]to two thirds of their age,
[00:04:30.450]so think about some of the students you are working with,
[00:04:33.630]and do they do things that sometimes make you think,
[00:04:36.977]"Hmm, they're acting a little younger than their age?"
[00:04:40.000]That's very possible.
[00:04:41.500]Autism is a social communication disorder,
[00:04:44.010]so even our bright and verbal students
[00:04:45.760]have significant deficits in the area of social.
[00:04:49.610]Many individuals with autism have a good rote memory,
[00:04:52.270]especially around that area of interest.
[00:04:54.500]They will spend a lot of time memorizing
[00:04:57.560]and looking up information
[00:04:58.960]on that special interest or preferred topic,
[00:05:02.070]and they can have difficulty
[00:05:03.260]when their facts are different from others.
[00:05:05.710]Our bright and verbal students oftentimes
[00:05:08.400]will struggle to understand
[00:05:09.800]the difference between a fact and an opinion.
[00:05:16.590]Willingness or a different brain.
[00:05:18.590]So what looks like won't,
[00:05:20.680]for many of our bright and verbal students,
[00:05:24.080]might actually be can't.
[00:05:26.560]So if a child is oppositional,
[00:05:29.560]choosing not to follow a direction or do something
[00:05:32.240]that you have asked them to do, it may not be defiance.
[00:05:35.870]It may actually be cognitive inflexibility.
[00:05:39.660]So remember when I said we have to look under the surface,
[00:05:43.430]We need to look deeper?
[00:05:45.340]At the tip of the surface,
[00:05:46.800]what we see is a child being oppositional,
[00:05:49.400]but below the surface lies those deficits
[00:05:53.320]and characteristics of autism,
[00:05:55.320]and one of those characteristics
[00:05:57.030]could be cognitive inflexibility,
[00:06:00.300]and because we now know that,
[00:06:02.470]we might be able to put a support or teach a skill
[00:06:05.770]to help our student be more successful or more flexible
[00:06:09.580]the next time around.
[00:06:11.290]Lack of will, okay, "He can do it if he wants to,"
[00:06:14.870]might actually be, under the surface,
[00:06:18.320]difficulty in shifting.
[00:06:20.420]Again, if we don't look under the surface,
[00:06:22.770]we may miss the opportunity to put a support in place
[00:06:25.960]or to teach a missing skill for our student.
[00:06:29.290]Lack of effort could actually be poor initiation
[00:06:31.900]or impaired planning.
[00:06:33.100]Those are executive functioning skills
[00:06:34.700]which can be difficult
[00:06:35.810]for many of our bright and verbal students.
[00:06:38.140]Inability or refusal to put good ideas on paper
[00:06:42.210]could be poor fine motor skills or disorganization.
[00:06:45.650]I actually had a gentleman with autism
[00:06:48.690]tell me "I know everything I want to write
[00:06:51.410]on a piece of paper,
[00:06:52.870]but when I put my pen to the paper,
[00:06:55.270]my hand has a fight with my brain,"
[00:06:58.150]so I try to always remember that
[00:07:00.200]when I am working with a student
[00:07:02.100]who's struggling to do their writing.
[00:07:05.220]Sloppy or erratic work could be poor self-monitoring,
[00:07:08.000]again, another executive functioning piece,
[00:07:10.380]and then refusal to control outbursts could be overload.
[00:07:13.970]That student could be overloaded
[00:07:16.880]with everything that's going on in their environment
[00:07:19.550]and unable to regulate, and also unable
[00:07:22.680]to control their emotions.
[00:07:28.760]So being very verbal, something that we see a lot,
[00:07:31.550]especially with our bright and verbal students
[00:07:33.410]on the spectrum.
[00:07:34.580]This is a worksheet that a special education teacher
[00:07:37.110]shared with me, and the directions are
[00:07:39.880]write the following words in alphabetical order.
[00:07:42.140]So I want you to take a minute and look at this.
[00:07:43.860]What do you think this student did?
[00:07:49.320]The teacher and myself both had to admit
[00:07:51.380]that it took us a minute to figure it out,
[00:07:53.730]but this student wrote each of those words
[00:07:56.190]in alphabetical order,
[00:07:58.080]so the student definitely knows how to alphabetize,
[00:08:02.630]so that's not a problem, but we may want to go over
[00:08:04.075]those directions with this student again
[00:08:07.350]and walk them through what that means,
[00:08:09.400]because this student took those directions very literal.
[00:08:15.240]So we only touched on some of the characteristics of autism,
[00:08:18.520]but it's very important,
[00:08:19.720]if you are working with our students with autism,
[00:08:22.130]that you have a strong foundation of characteristics.
[00:08:25.060]So these are a variety of webinars
[00:08:27.050]that are available on the Nebraska ASD website,
[00:08:30.120]the Colorado Department of Ed website,
[00:08:32.140]and the Kansas TASN website.
[00:08:35.040]All of these webinars are free,
[00:08:36.880]and these are live links that you can go to on your PDF
[00:08:40.770]if you'd like to watch or view some of these webinars.
[00:08:45.490]Now we're going to talk about the unique mind
[00:08:47.360]of our individuals who are very bright and very verbal.
[00:08:51.680]There's three areas that we're going to touch on,
[00:08:53.660]theory of mind, executive functioning,
[00:08:56.030]and weak central coherence.
[00:08:59.410]So theory of mind is the ability to recognize
[00:09:02.020]and understand the thoughts, beliefs, desires,
[00:09:04.470]and intentions of other people
[00:09:06.410]in order to make sense of their behavior
[00:09:08.340]and predict what they are going to do next.
[00:09:11.200]What this might look like for some of your students
[00:09:14.210]who have deficits in this area
[00:09:16.470]is they may appear to be rude or disrespectful,
[00:09:18.770]so have you ever had a student say something
[00:09:21.050]that's given you pause?
[00:09:22.580]For example, I had a student with autism,
[00:09:25.440]very bright, very verbal, say to me one day,
[00:09:28.247]"Why did you let them do that to your hair?
[00:09:30.470]You need to go back and have your person fix it."
[00:09:33.610]So this student did not have any malice intent.
[00:09:39.150]They didn't at all.
[00:09:40.070]In their mind it was simply a fact.
[00:09:42.060]They didn't like the hair,
[00:09:43.660]they didn't like what happened with my hair
[00:09:45.680]and they felt like it needed to be changed back.
[00:09:48.630]So other examples of that is sometimes you'll have kids
[00:09:52.510]in the general education classroom
[00:09:54.920]and one of our bright and verbal students
[00:09:56.800]might make comments like "That's an ugly shirt,"
[00:09:59.860]or "Those shoes are gross," whatever it happens to be,
[00:10:03.530]and in making those comments to their peers,
[00:10:07.720]they cause negative behavioral interactions,
[00:10:11.100]because the peers aren't going to respond well to that.
[00:10:14.520]As adults, if we have a strong foundation
[00:10:17.330]of the characteristics of autism,
[00:10:19.070]we recognize that we should not take that personally.
[00:10:22.310]Instead, we need to use it as a teachable moment.
[00:10:25.260]Like, "You know what? That's not okay to say that.
[00:10:27.690]That hurts my feelings. It makes me sad.
[00:10:30.060]I won't want to be around you
[00:10:31.320]if you say things like that to me."
[00:10:33.230]We use it as a teachable moment,
[00:10:34.930]but remember that there's no malice intent,
[00:10:37.550]that it's rather, in the mind of an individual with autism,
[00:10:41.010]simply a statement of fact.
[00:10:43.160]Also, if there's deficits in theory of mind
[00:10:45.710]they might lack understanding that others
[00:10:47.690]may not have the same passions, interests, and desires.
[00:10:51.970]This can explain why some of our individuals with autism
[00:10:54.960]come up to us a lot and talk about their special interest
[00:10:58.270]over and over again, thinking possibly
[00:11:00.760]that we are as passionate about bonsai trees as they are,
[00:11:05.010]and oftentimes, we as adults will kinda hang out,
[00:11:09.210]and we'll listen to them talk about their special interest
[00:11:11.700]because we actually learn lots of stuff
[00:11:14.160]when we listen to them,
[00:11:15.650]but our second grade peers on the playground
[00:11:19.910]are oftentimes not gonna hang out
[00:11:22.070]to talk about bonsai trees,
[00:11:23.920]and so it's certainly something that we need to work on
[00:11:26.210]with our students who are bright and verbal.
[00:11:30.060]Another area is self-awareness.
[00:11:31.690]Self-awareness is the ability to step outside oneself
[00:11:35.700]to observe and evaluate one's own behavior,
[00:11:38.620]and when I read that statement
[00:11:40.080]and I think about the individuals that I've worked with
[00:11:42.350]in the past who are bright and verbal on the spectrum,
[00:11:45.380]I always note that that is definitely something
[00:11:48.300]that is difficult for so many of them.
[00:11:50.700]When you attach self-awareness to theory of mind,
[00:11:53.400]what you get is that understanding
[00:11:55.540]your own actions and behaviors
[00:11:57.370]and how they are viewed by others.
[00:11:59.880]So we're oftentimes spending a lot of time
[00:12:02.540]trying to figure out what other people are thinking
[00:12:05.980]and what other people are thinking about,
[00:12:08.080]about us in that situation and our behaviors.
[00:12:12.710]Also when we connect theory of mind and self-awareness,
[00:12:17.170]it allows us to make adjustments to our own behavior
[00:12:21.050]based on inferring other's perspectives
[00:12:23.470]and reading those non-verbal cues,
[00:12:26.070]so a really good example of this
[00:12:27.560]is that if you were at a table with a colleague
[00:12:31.160]and they scoot their chair over a little bit away from you,
[00:12:34.680]you then read that cue as,
[00:12:37.157]"Oh my gosh, I must be crowding them,"
[00:12:39.100]and then you scoot your chair over a little bit.
[00:12:41.610]We are always, always trained to read and infer
[00:12:45.170]what other people are thinking
[00:12:46.880]in order to adjust our behavior
[00:12:48.630]so that people will still want to be around us.
[00:12:54.220]Executive functioning, so here we have
[00:12:58.240]some executive functioning thinking skills
[00:13:00.410]and some executive functioning
[00:13:01.710]behavioral regulation skills.
[00:13:03.680]On the left side, planning, organization, time management,
[00:13:07.220]working memory, and metacognition,
[00:13:09.130]those are some thinking skills
[00:13:12.900]in the area of executive functioning.
[00:13:14.650]I think if you look at a lot of those
[00:13:16.230]and think about your bright and verbal students,
[00:13:18.630]there could be some struggles there for some of them,
[00:13:22.390]and then behavior regulation skills
[00:13:24.200]in the area of executive functioning, response inhibition.
[00:13:27.450]I know a lot of my bright and verbal students
[00:13:29.570]on the spectrum who really struggle with that one.
[00:13:32.470]Self-regulation of affect, task initiation, flexibility.
[00:13:37.250]We know that flexibility is part of their autism
[00:13:41.050]and it's something that many of our individuals
[00:13:43.290]struggle with, and it's also an executive functioning skill.
[00:13:47.070]And then goal directed persistence.
[00:13:49.590]Are your students able to persist through
[00:13:51.900]to complete an activity or an assignment
[00:13:55.450]in order to reach a goal?
[00:13:57.190]That can be very difficult
[00:13:58.420]for many of our bright and verbal students on the spectrum.
[00:14:02.280]Some things to remember about executive functioning skills,
[00:14:05.200]they are consistent with inconsistencies.
[00:14:08.420]So all the executive functioning skills work together.
[00:14:11.470]No skills work in isolation.
[00:14:13.800]For our students, it's not about do they have this skill,
[00:14:17.550]but it's about do they have the ability
[00:14:19.750]to access that skill at that moment when they need it?
[00:14:24.060]And there's lots of things that can impair their ability
[00:14:28.910]to actually access those executive functioning skills.
[00:14:31.980]Stress can be one. Anxiety can be another.
[00:14:35.350]We know that many of our bright and verbal students
[00:14:37.910]who are in the general education classroom
[00:14:40.930]do have lots of anxiety for a variety of reasons,
[00:14:46.240]and those could impair their ability
[00:14:48.030]to access those executive functioning skills.
[00:14:51.370]Also, things like being overstimulated,
[00:14:54.690]overloaded in an environment,
[00:14:57.300]not feeling well, having their routine
[00:15:00.350]changed in the morning, not sleeping well last night,
[00:15:04.050]all of those things can impair their ability
[00:15:07.490]to access executive functioning skills.
[00:15:11.060]Think about when you've been in a stressful situation.
[00:15:14.770]I remember one time I was driving in my car
[00:15:17.810]and I was rear-ended by another car.
[00:15:20.190]Wasn't a serious accident, but it caused, obviously,
[00:15:24.610]lots of stress and lots of anxiety.
[00:15:27.300]I remember the police officer coming up and asking me
[00:15:30.190]for my license, my registration, and my proof of insurance,
[00:15:34.360]and I also remember sitting there thinking,
[00:15:36.697]"I have no idea where to find those things."
[00:15:39.870]At that moment, my anxiety level and stress levels
[00:15:43.490]were so high that I could not access
[00:15:45.630]those executive functioning skills.
[00:15:47.860]Then I remembered they were in the glove compartment,
[00:15:49.860]and then I pull out this stack of papers,
[00:15:51.760]I can't find one of them,
[00:15:53.860]and the police officer, I'm almost in tears,
[00:15:56.460]the police officer finally said,
[00:15:57.667]"I believe you that you have insurance. It's okay."
[00:16:00.880]I just really, really, truly
[00:16:02.430]could not function in that moment,
[00:16:04.610]so I think it's important that we think about
[00:16:06.350]when we've been in that situation,
[00:16:08.200]and then how so many of our students with autism
[00:16:12.170]in the general education classroom
[00:16:13.750]could be having some of those same difficulties.
[00:16:17.210]Executive function deficiencies often interfere
[00:16:21.210]with one's ability to demonstrate intelligence,
[00:16:24.260]and so if they're not able to access those skills,
[00:16:27.330]they cannot show you how smart they are.
[00:16:30.530]They can't show you how they are able to finish the work
[00:16:34.010]because of that inability to access those skills.
[00:16:40.510]That was such a quick overview of executive functioning.
[00:16:43.180]So again, here are some webinars
[00:16:44.800]that you can use these links and click on,
[00:16:46.950]or you can go to the Nebraska, Kansas, or Colorado websites
[00:16:51.210]to find these webinars
[00:16:53.500]and to learn more about executive functioning.
[00:16:57.670]Now let's talk just quickly about weak central coherence.
[00:17:01.230]Weak central coherence is the ability to see
[00:17:03.700]or attend to the details, but have difficulty perceiving
[00:17:06.620]or understanding the overall picture.
[00:17:09.250]So our individuals with autism who struggle in this area
[00:17:12.730]may learn those isolated facts
[00:17:14.710]but have difficulty with the overall analysis,
[00:17:18.010]have difficulty determining what is relevant,
[00:17:20.760]so when they're reading a passage
[00:17:22.870]and you ask them to tell you about what they read,
[00:17:25.240]they may be stuck on these minor details
[00:17:28.100]that really are not relevant in that passage,
[00:17:31.390]and then have difficulty being able to give you
[00:17:33.530]the big picture or understand what are the important parts
[00:17:38.090]that I should be talking about here.
[00:17:39.880]I've even seen this with our bright and verbal students
[00:17:42.090]when they've been trying to tell me
[00:17:43.330]about what they did over the weekend,
[00:17:45.590]and they give me all these little details
[00:17:47.440]that don't seem very relevant
[00:17:49.400]and really struggle to give me the big picture
[00:17:52.560]and those important details
[00:17:54.060]that would really help the listener
[00:17:56.070]understand what they did over the weekend.
[00:18:02.170]All right, so now that you have a foundation
[00:18:04.810]for some of the characteristics and some of the deficits
[00:18:08.670]you might see for some of our students
[00:18:10.360]who are bright and verbal, let's talk about the checklist
[00:18:13.520]of some of the needed supports.
[00:18:15.420]So although these students are very bright and very verbal,
[00:18:19.250]what I see a lot is people think
[00:18:20.970]that they don't need the supports,
[00:18:23.130]and especially visual supports,
[00:18:25.380]so we're going to talk about how that's not the case
[00:18:27.970]with some of our bright and verbal students.
[00:18:30.210]Even though they have a lot to say
[00:18:33.690]and they're really verbal,
[00:18:35.040]and they have strong cognitive skills,
[00:18:38.340]they still need supports throughout the day.
[00:18:43.520]Let's first talk about reinforcement.
[00:18:45.980]So reinforcement is so important.
[00:18:49.230]It's really our best tool for behavior change
[00:18:54.080]and to help our students improve in skill acquisition.
[00:18:57.970]90% of the effectiveness of a program is reinforcement.
[00:19:02.270]When you're working with students with autism,
[00:19:04.650]it's really, really important that they understand
[00:19:07.310]the paycheck for what they're doing,
[00:19:09.330]especially if it's something they're not interested in
[00:19:13.130]or don't see the need to learn.
[00:19:15.590]So I had a student once who did not like history class,
[00:19:20.150]and often said things like "It's not pertinent today,"
[00:19:24.657]"Has nothing to do with my life," "It's a waste of my time,"
[00:19:28.720]so one of the things that we needed to do
[00:19:31.050]was talk about why history was important,
[00:19:35.320]and in doing that, we were talking big picture.
[00:19:39.210]Remember what happens with big picture
[00:19:40.930]for a lot of our kids.
[00:19:42.600]You need history to graduate so that you can go to college.
[00:19:45.820]That's kind of big picture, right?
[00:19:48.120]Wasn't working with this guy,
[00:19:49.570]so instead, we knew he loved physics,
[00:19:52.600]so if he went to history and he followed along,
[00:19:57.250]did his work, then he earned time
[00:19:59.950]to work with a physics mentor from their town,
[00:20:03.560]and that worked great.
[00:20:05.450]He was willing to go to history
[00:20:07.560]in order to earn time to do physics,
[00:20:09.720]and in the end, he said to me,
[00:20:11.547]"You know, some of that stuff in history wasn't so bad,"
[00:20:14.980]so even though he didn't think it was relevant,
[00:20:18.210]he did the history so that he would be able
[00:20:21.410]to go to college, but more so
[00:20:23.820]so that he could work with his physics mentor.
[00:20:26.400]Reinforcement is what makes a behavior
[00:20:28.600]more likely to occur again in the future,
[00:20:31.020]so any time we teach a skill and we want it to happen again,
[00:20:35.340]we must reinforce it,
[00:20:36.990]and reinforcement should immediately follow
[00:20:38.900]the behavior you want to strengthen.
[00:20:42.780]You don't get the behavior you want,
[00:20:44.580]you get the behavior that you reinforce.
[00:20:46.900]That sounds super easy, but sometimes, we don't mean to,
[00:20:52.330]but sometimes we reinforce an inappropriate behavior,
[00:20:55.290]and then that behavior happens over and over again,
[00:20:58.040]so we have to be really careful that we're reinforcing
[00:21:00.570]only the behaviors that we want to happen again.
[00:21:04.070]Your reaction determines whether a behavior
[00:21:06.420]will happen again or not.
[00:21:07.950]To change student behavior, we have to change our behavior.
[00:21:11.460]We have to change how we respond to that.
[00:21:14.320]If you want more information on reinforcement,
[00:21:16.560]there is a link here for a reinforcement virtual strategy.
[00:21:19.730]Again, these are on Colorado, Kansas,
[00:21:22.280]and the Nebraska website.
[00:21:24.400]This is a very short video clip
[00:21:27.240]on the importance of reinforcement,
[00:21:29.070]describes reinforcement, shows some examples.
[00:21:31.450]There's also some written information
[00:21:33.390]about the importance of reinforcement,
[00:21:35.480]very short, very quick,
[00:21:37.770]so this is a great tool to use with other team members,
[00:21:40.860]your paraeducators, even your parents.
[00:21:45.780]So one part of reinforcement is actually pairing ourselves
[00:21:52.090]with that student's reinforcers,
[00:21:54.500]so it's really important
[00:21:55.760]with our bright and verbal students especially
[00:21:58.730]that we plan some time to pair,
[00:22:01.180]and by pairing, like I said,
[00:22:02.670]we're going to pair with that student
[00:22:04.460]and their preferred reinforcers, their special interests,
[00:22:08.710]and we do that in order to become relevant to them.
[00:22:12.150]We want to become as cool as Spider-Man,
[00:22:15.360]if that's their special interest,
[00:22:17.560]and when we do that, again, we are more relevant
[00:22:20.767]and our student is more apt to interact with us
[00:22:24.040]and we're more apt to see them following directions
[00:22:27.030]and doing the things that we need them to do.
[00:22:31.800]This will make more sense
[00:22:32.870]when we talk about some of these examples.
[00:22:35.140]So when we want to pair with our bright and verbal students,
[00:22:37.880]and this is at any age, whether they are littles
[00:22:41.630]or they are middle school or high school,
[00:22:44.490]we first, with our bright and verbal students,
[00:22:46.720]need to find out what their special interest is.
[00:22:49.720]We can just ask them, but I bet you won't have to ask,
[00:22:53.090]because if you're interacting at all with that student
[00:22:55.190]during the day, they have already told you
[00:22:57.540]about their special interest.
[00:22:59.600]We then need to learn about that special interest.
[00:23:02.040]We need to kind of become an expert in this area,
[00:23:05.040]and then set up a time to talk with the student
[00:23:07.110]about their special interest.
[00:23:09.230]Sometimes we talk about two by 10, two minutes for 10 days,
[00:23:13.350]so that you can build that relationship,
[00:23:15.940]pair with that student, and become relevant in their world.
[00:23:19.800]We want our student to think we are as cool
[00:23:22.330]as the things that they love.
[00:23:23.900]We want our student to think,
[00:23:25.257]"I want to hang out with that teacher
[00:23:27.450]because that teacher knows about car parts,
[00:23:30.950]or Spider-Man, or video games,"
[00:23:33.830]and by doing that, we then are going to have
[00:23:37.810]a better relationship with that student,
[00:23:39.440]and we know when we have better relationships
[00:23:41.730]we have better outcomes with our students.
[00:23:44.260]So you can have reinforcing items in your classroom.
[00:23:47.840]So if your kiddo, like I said, likes Spiderman,
[00:23:50.090]you get Spider-Man comic books,
[00:23:51.650]a Spider-Man poster for the classroom.
[00:23:53.950]If they like car part catalog,
[00:23:55.690]which is kind of funny, are car parts,
[00:23:57.570]because I've had a couple of my students
[00:24:00.050]who have liked these, and they like to go through
[00:24:02.210]and look at the different car parts,
[00:24:03.440]so that teacher, and I don't just mean
[00:24:05.960]special education teacher,
[00:24:07.220]I mean general education teacher,
[00:24:09.190]our specialist teachers, everyone on the team,
[00:24:12.740]needs to be pairing,
[00:24:14.040]so you can have car part magazines on your desk,
[00:24:17.020]on your shelf, pictures of the video games.
[00:24:20.570]Learn a little bit about them so you have some knowledge
[00:24:22.700]and you can talk with them about them,
[00:24:24.410]or I had a student once that liked to build models,
[00:24:27.660]so we had a teacher that went out
[00:24:29.390]and bought some model cars and model airplanes.
[00:24:31.470]He put them together. He had them on his shelf, in his desk.
[00:24:34.860]He even bought one and used it as a reinforcer.
[00:24:38.660]If you earn this many points, then you earn time
[00:24:41.050]and we will work to put the model car together.
[00:24:43.660]That is an amazing way to pair.
[00:24:46.110]You can have lunch or set up a break time
[00:24:48.200]to engage with the student
[00:24:49.580]and talk about their special interest.
[00:24:52.070]We want you to be excited about the things they love,
[00:24:55.290]and by doing that, you're going to find that that child
[00:24:58.340]runs to you and not away from you,
[00:25:00.230]which is how you evaluate whether or not
[00:25:02.300]we've paired with that student.
[00:25:04.490]If they are trying to avoid you,
[00:25:06.860]if they're younger, that generally means run away from you,
[00:25:09.570]if they're older, they're not coming to your class.
[00:25:11.840]They're looking down when they walk into the classroom,
[00:25:14.540]if they're doing those things,
[00:25:16.220]then you need to spend more time
[00:25:18.210]caring with them and their special interest.
[00:25:21.840]If they stop by to see you, if they greet you
[00:25:25.130]when they come in, if they participate in your class,
[00:25:28.010]if they give you fleeting glances of eye contact,
[00:25:31.360]those things are probably clues
[00:25:33.290]that you've done a good job pairing with that student.
[00:25:39.458]Here are some visuals
[00:25:40.460]for some individual reinforcement systems
[00:25:42.640]that we also use for our bright and verbal students.
[00:25:45.350]These are for our younger students, elementary age,
[00:25:48.060]and I'm gonna show you a video
[00:25:49.540]of a token system being run,
[00:25:51.500]so it can give you an example of how this might look.
[00:25:54.260]I'll also describe different ways
[00:25:55.760]it could look in a classroom.
[00:26:01.900]You have three tokens. One more for Goldfish.
[00:26:05.486]Keep working.
[00:26:10.159]Thanks for getting started right away.
[00:26:24.429]You are working so quickly
[00:26:26.040]and nice work page,
[00:26:27.430]look it, you earned Goldfish.
[00:26:35.369]Look, you're getting Goldfish again.
[00:26:38.216]Pick up your pencil and keep working.
[00:26:41.333]Okay, so this was a video that was done
[00:26:44.580]in order to not only show teachers
[00:26:47.100]how you could use a token system,
[00:26:48.540]but also to show parents.
[00:26:51.170]So in this video, mom is actually sitting
[00:26:55.030]right next to the student, or to the child,
[00:26:57.610]but in your classroom, you don't have to be
[00:26:59.570]right next to your student.
[00:27:01.070]Some of our kids have paraeducators nearby,
[00:27:03.630]which is fantastic,
[00:27:05.330]can have that token system sitting on the desk,
[00:27:08.010]and when you see that child display the target behavior,
[00:27:11.390]so working quickly and working quietly
[00:27:13.450]was this target behavior,
[00:27:15.020]then you can walk over and put a token on the card,
[00:27:17.420]so you don't have to be sitting right here.
[00:27:19.780]I know sometimes that stresses some people out
[00:27:22.500]because you have a classroom full of students,
[00:27:25.310]so you don't have to be sitting right here.
[00:27:27.510]Also, it's really important when we start a token system
[00:27:31.150]that we show the child what they're working for,
[00:27:33.240]generally they've picked that item,
[00:27:35.770]and then also we give out those tokens
[00:27:37.830]quickly when we start,
[00:27:39.600]and that is so the child can quickly contact
[00:27:42.240]that reinforcer, here it's fish crackers,
[00:27:44.920]and so that then they will buy into that system,
[00:27:47.950]and so initially, we do this very quickly,
[00:27:51.420]and then we start to thin that out,
[00:27:53.500]so we'll start giving those tokens out slower.
[00:27:55.730]We'll expect them to demonstrate that target behavior
[00:27:58.630]several times before we give them a token,
[00:28:01.400]or we might add more spots on the card
[00:28:04.120]and have them earn more tokens
[00:28:05.950]before they get that reinforcer.
[00:28:12.880]So here is a visual for a high school student,
[00:28:15.060]and it has pictures on it
[00:28:16.180]because this student wanted the pictures on it.
[00:28:18.700]So remember, I said even our bright and verbal students
[00:28:21.380]need pictures, especially if they are stressed or anxious
[00:28:25.120]or having a rough time.
[00:28:26.600]The pictures are often very helpful.
[00:28:28.640]This student has two paths on their reinforcement sheet.
[00:28:31.750]First one, bring materials,
[00:28:33.190]follow the class agenda, complete the work.
[00:28:35.600]They get a coupon for snacks in the cafeteria
[00:28:38.340]or health office, or time for MindCraft.
[00:28:41.670]But there's another path here.
[00:28:43.270]If this student is struggling any time during the day,
[00:28:46.680]they can go to the office and pick up a pass.
[00:28:49.470]Then they go to class.
[00:28:50.540]If it's not working, they can show the pass to the teacher
[00:28:53.720]and then go to either the office or the resource room.
[00:28:57.940]If they successfully give the teacher the pass,
[00:29:01.420]exit the room, go to their office or resource room,
[00:29:04.670]and complete work, they will also earn coupons,
[00:29:08.060]because we want to reinforce the fact that they regulated
[00:29:12.570]through a tough situation, they followed the plan,
[00:29:16.790]and they successfully exited the room
[00:29:19.080]and they completed work,
[00:29:20.980]so we want that to happen again, right?
[00:29:23.140]We all need to know how to regulate through tough times.
[00:29:25.840]So we want that to happen again,
[00:29:28.080]so it's important that we also reinforce that.
[00:29:32.630]This was developed for a high school student,
[00:29:34.800]also has been used by many middle school students.
[00:29:37.440]The specific target behaviors on the right,
[00:29:39.480]and those are going to change for every student,
[00:29:41.720]also the things that the child is working for,
[00:29:44.110]their reinforcers, are listed over here on the top.
[00:29:47.560]So they chose those. They like to draw.
[00:29:50.370]This kiddo wanted time to think,
[00:29:52.760]which I thought was awesome,
[00:29:54.480]and then time to do make-believe comics website.
[00:29:57.650]So this situation, every teacher for every class
[00:30:01.853]that they went to could shade in or X off
[00:30:05.470]two minutes for handing in an overnight assignment,
[00:30:07.750]one minute for completing an assignment,
[00:30:10.250]a half a minute for starting an assignment
[00:30:12.250]or task independently, and also a half a minute
[00:30:15.530]for asking for help, which can be really hard
[00:30:18.140]for so many of our students.
[00:30:19.880]They also can give minutes for additional things.
[00:30:22.340]If something great, like this kiddo worked
[00:30:24.420]in a group and participated,
[00:30:26.400]they might want to give him an extra minute for that,
[00:30:28.960]and that was something that the child could,
[00:30:30.980]or something the teacher could choose to do.
[00:30:35.340]Let's talk about some more structures and visuals
[00:30:37.390]that we can use in the general education classroom.
[00:30:41.020]So change can be very difficult
[00:30:43.000]for many individuals with autism.
[00:30:45.070]This is a great quote by a gentleman,
[00:30:47.070]a young man, named Peter Berg.
[00:30:48.620]He was a middle school student with Asperger's syndrome,
[00:30:51.770]so one of our bright and verbal students.
[00:30:54.047]"Asperger's is like a vice on your brain,
[00:30:56.420]and each unexpected event is like another turn on the vice.
[00:30:59.970]It just keeps building
[00:31:01.550]until you feel like you're going to explode.
[00:31:04.210]Sometimes when you explode, it comes out the wrong way."
[00:31:07.890]This gives us such great insight
[00:31:10.780]on how unexpected events and change
[00:31:14.200]can affect so many of our students on the spectrum,
[00:31:18.860]including our bright and verbal students
[00:31:21.030]in the gen ed classroom,
[00:31:22.580]because there can be a lot of unexpected events
[00:31:25.590]that pop up in a gen ed classroom.
[00:31:29.390]So it's really important that we work on teaching our kids
[00:31:32.310]how to manage change.
[00:31:34.440]So in essence, we're teaching them how to be more flexible,
[00:31:37.980]so we want to visually show them the change,
[00:31:40.200]so not just verbally telling them,
[00:31:42.410]so I've had to say to some of my teams,
[00:31:45.237]"That doesn't count."
[00:31:47.060]even though they told me that they told the student
[00:31:49.740]six times about the change,
[00:31:51.870]I still had to say to them, "It doesn't count."
[00:31:55.180]You have to write it down. Words are transient.
[00:31:59.610]Visuals, those are permanent.
[00:32:02.290]They're right there in front of them.
[00:32:03.970]So you write down the change on a sticky note.
[00:32:05.990]These are bright and verbal students.
[00:32:07.790]For our upper elementary, middle, and high school kids,
[00:32:10.130]you don't need to make fancy pictures.
[00:32:12.220]Write it out, put it on their binder
[00:32:15.070]so they can process it throughout the day for that change.
[00:32:18.800]And then also show them how the change
[00:32:20.500]will impact the rest of their day.
[00:32:22.350]This is really important
[00:32:23.650]and I see this step being missed a lot.
[00:32:25.760]If something changes in the morning,
[00:32:27.760]you can have students who are bright and verbal
[00:32:29.960]not understand now what the rest of their day's
[00:32:32.450]gonna look like, which causes great anxiety,
[00:32:35.240]so make sure you show them how the rest of their day
[00:32:38.390]will be impacted, and then don't forget
[00:32:40.360]to provide reinforcement
[00:32:41.680]when the student manages the change,
[00:32:43.720]because we want that to happen again in the future.
[00:32:49.040]Here's some examples.
[00:32:50.700]So these are both written schedules
[00:32:52.330]for our bright and verbal kiddos in the gen ed classroom.
[00:32:55.070]The kiddo just checks off.
[00:32:56.210]The teacher on the left
[00:32:57.640]crossed off things and made the changes,
[00:32:59.840]also wrote the word change
[00:33:01.210]that that student could recognize,
[00:33:03.380]and then on the right, the student actually crossed out
[00:33:06.220]the middle section of the schedule, wrote field trip,
[00:33:09.640]and then it shows him,
[00:33:10.980]when he comes back from the field trip,
[00:33:12.670]he has lunch, library, reading, journal,
[00:33:15.790]afternoon chore, and home.
[00:33:17.610]So this student knows where the change is
[00:33:20.600]and also knows what's going to happen next.
[00:33:27.040]It's also super helpful with our students
[00:33:28.840]who are bright and verbal to provide structure
[00:33:31.110]or cues to help end an activity,
[00:33:33.390]so visual timers are things
[00:33:34.920]that lots of our students are using.
[00:33:37.150]These days, generally, they're always on a cell phone,
[00:33:39.320]which is fantastic, but be aware that timers don't work
[00:33:42.730]for all of our students.
[00:33:44.670]Sometimes we have students who get so hyper-focused
[00:33:48.040]in their preferred activity that they don't really feel
[00:33:50.770]that passage of time, so when you set the timer,
[00:33:54.260]the timer starts, they're not paying attention to the timer.
[00:33:57.040]They are hyper-focused on their computer game,
[00:33:59.240]their iPad, they're building Legos,
[00:34:01.770]whatever it happens to be, the timer rings,
[00:34:04.270]and you then hear, "No, you just set the timer."
[00:34:08.680]I don't know if you guys have ever heard that.
[00:34:09.930]I used to hear that all the time.
[00:34:12.260]So instead we want to provide a different type of cue
[00:34:16.600]to help them understand when it will be time to be done,
[00:34:19.180]so a countdown card and a one-more-minute card
[00:34:21.830]are ways we can do that.
[00:34:23.390]With a countdown card,
[00:34:24.730]the key to this is you engage the child
[00:34:27.640]every time you take off a number or cross off a number.
[00:34:30.940]That way, each time they're reminding themselves
[00:34:33.360]it's going to be time to finish.
[00:34:35.560]A one-more-minute card you use with a timer,
[00:34:38.840]and it allows the student some control.
[00:34:41.420]They can ask for one more minute,
[00:34:43.770]but when they are done with their one-more-minute card,
[00:34:46.160]the only card they have left
[00:34:47.920]is "I don't want to but I will,"
[00:34:49.770]which is a great life lesson
[00:34:51.600]because sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do.
[00:34:54.650]I have a quick video to show you on both of these.
[00:34:59.060]Here is the countdown card.
[00:35:03.240]I'm taking five off,
[00:35:05.190]four, three, two, one, then we'll be all done.
[00:35:11.410]So each time, we try to use the same language
[00:35:14.270]so this becomes a routine.
[00:35:15.900]Paige, four off.
[00:35:18.980]Three, two, one, then all done.
[00:35:21.860]If we can make this a routine,
[00:35:24.000]that is a strength for so many kids on the spectrum.
[00:35:27.530]I'm gonna slide this forward.
[00:35:36.680]It's one off. That means we're all done.
[00:35:40.130]I got through lunch time. Put your lid on.
[00:35:44.160]Nice job cleaning up, Paige, good for you.
[00:35:47.770]Okay, so because she ended the activity
[00:35:50.100]when we asked her to, we reinforce it,
[00:35:52.400]because remember, we want that
[00:35:53.950]to happen again in the future.
[00:35:56.320]Now we'll look at the countdown card.
[00:36:07.965]Paige, the bell rang. We're all done with Play-Doh.
[00:36:11.064]I don't want to.
[00:36:12.594]Do you have a one-more-minute card?
[00:36:14.580]Oh, great. I'll set the timer for one more minute.
[00:36:18.220]Now I will scoot this forward a little bit.
[00:36:25.140]One more minute is done. It's time to clean up.
[00:36:29.663]But I don't want to.
[00:36:31.030]Well, do you have a one-more-minute card?
[00:36:33.300]No, okay, well then what do you have to do?
[00:36:37.193]What do you have to give me?
[00:36:39.061]I don't want to, but I will.
[00:36:40.650]Great job. Let's pick up so you can earn a marshmallow.
[00:36:43.890]So generally, you'll have to prompt that way
[00:36:46.070]when you first start this with a student,
[00:36:48.650]and so once she puts the Play-Doh away,
[00:36:51.600]we're going to reinforce,
[00:36:52.620]again, her preferred reinforcer is that marshmallow,
[00:36:55.240]because again, we want her to repeat that behavior
[00:36:58.760]when we end an activity next time.
[00:37:05.010]Cleaning up, so if you're working with our young children
[00:37:07.970]who are bright and verbal in a preschool
[00:37:09.610]or kindergarten classroom especially,
[00:37:11.210]but this could even go into first and second grade,
[00:37:14.000]cleanup time can be really rough.
[00:37:16.550]There's a lot of movement,
[00:37:18.130]a lot of noise during cleanup time,
[00:37:20.210]so what I prefer to do with a lot of these little ones
[00:37:22.710]is I actually do cleanup time a little bit early,
[00:37:26.750]provide them with a visual cue
[00:37:28.360]of how many items they need to pick up,
[00:37:30.270]so this is a kiddo that knows their numbers and letters,
[00:37:33.220]which is common with our young kids
[00:37:35.420]who are bright and verbal on the spectrum,
[00:37:37.470]and so he could read the four
[00:37:38.930]and knew he had to pick up four items.
[00:37:40.207]I'm gonna show you an example for a student
[00:37:42.540]that maybe doesn't recognize their numbers yet,
[00:37:46.360]and how you can do it with a student like that.
[00:37:49.970]Sally, you only need to pick up four balls.
[00:37:56.710]Yay, three more.
[00:38:01.411]Yay, two more.
[00:38:04.784]Good job. One more.
[00:38:08.322]Okay, all done.
[00:38:10.110]Awesome, so notice, after all done,
[00:38:12.510]there's still balls on the floor.
[00:38:14.310]As adults, we have to be okay with that.
[00:38:16.700]We asked them to pick up four,
[00:38:19.000]the child picked up four, we're going to reinforce that,
[00:38:22.740]and then we're going to move on,
[00:38:24.030]and generally what I will do for this is I will have them go
[00:38:26.410]to a quiet area and do an activity
[00:38:28.130]before I start cleanup time,
[00:38:30.170]or they might go on a working walk with another adult
[00:38:33.830]in order to remove them from the situation
[00:38:35.960]before we start cleanup time.
[00:38:37.780]Then we're going to slowly start using this same system
[00:38:40.620]during the actual cleanup time,
[00:38:42.670]so we're going to get there with teaching a student
[00:38:44.780]how to regulate through cleanup time,
[00:38:46.650]but that's probably not how we're going to start.
[00:38:52.760]For some of our older individuals who are bright and verbal,
[00:38:57.170]sometimes a script.
[00:38:59.769]Giving them something to say that is appropriate
[00:39:02.820]when you give a direction,
[00:39:04.340]and then we will of course reinforce.
[00:39:06.770]This is the size of like a business card or an index card.
[00:39:11.880]So when given a direction, you need to say, okay,
[00:39:15.230]start right away, do it in the right amount of time,
[00:39:18.250]and do it correctly.
[00:39:19.780]Then you earn your reinforcer.
[00:39:21.980]For some of our kids, we might just have on there
[00:39:24.930]say okay and start right away.
[00:39:27.080]That might be all our expectation is if they do that,
[00:39:30.430]we're going to reinforce.
[00:39:32.070]You have to teach this,
[00:39:33.530]so you can't just put this card in front of a student,
[00:39:35.930]no matter how bright or how verbal they are.
[00:39:38.380]You're still going to have to practice it, role-play it,
[00:39:42.060]and coach them in the natural environment
[00:39:44.070]to make sure that they can get through this
[00:39:45.800]and earn their reinforcer.
[00:39:49.980]Many of our individuals who are older on the spectrum
[00:39:53.010]who are in general education classrooms
[00:39:54.750]have to rotate from class to class,
[00:39:56.720]and that can be really confusing for a lot of our students.
[00:39:59.650]Every teacher has different rules,
[00:40:01.740]especially when kids arrive into class.
[00:40:04.130]Some teachers let them just converse with their friends
[00:40:07.910]and have a little downtime when they get to class,
[00:40:10.490]and others, you have to sit down and you have to do work
[00:40:13.440]that's on the board, work that's in your notebook or binder,
[00:40:16.570]whatever it happens to be,
[00:40:18.120]so this is inside a binder for one of our older students,
[00:40:21.680]and when they get to math class,
[00:40:23.330]they look at what is expected of them when they get there,
[00:40:26.360]they can check them off, they can cross them off,
[00:40:28.940]whatever they want to do that makes them feel comfortable.
[00:40:32.580]But this helps to, for them to know
[00:40:35.130]what the expected behaviors are at arrival for each class.
[00:40:40.710]Sometimes we might need to make a visual on the spot.
[00:40:43.690]One of our other coordinators actually did this
[00:40:45.630]with an elementary age student who's bright and verbal
[00:40:49.230]who was struggling with turning their computer off
[00:40:52.260]during work time.
[00:40:53.630]So during break, computer screen is on,
[00:40:56.470]but during work, the computer screen is off,
[00:40:59.550]but you have four choices on what that looks like.
[00:41:02.920]You can turn it off, you can cover the screen with paper,
[00:41:06.750]you can close the lid, or you can turn the computer around.
[00:41:10.920]So again, even with our bright and verbal students,
[00:41:14.060]drawing things out can be so helpful for them in the moment.
[00:41:21.200]Some of our kids need visual reminders on their desk,
[00:41:25.410]on their binders, whatever it happens to be.
[00:41:28.350]Now, if you have an upper elementary, middle,
[00:41:31.220]or high school student,
[00:41:33.650]you're not going to have these pictures on their desk
[00:41:35.730]or on their binders.
[00:41:36.850]Instead, you might have a sticky note that says,
[00:41:39.197]"Remember, raise your hand," or a sticky note that says,
[00:41:44.417]"Raise your hand and I will come over,"
[00:41:47.190]whatever it happens to be.
[00:41:49.410]Either way, no matter the age of the student,
[00:41:52.330]you have to teach these skills,
[00:41:53.860]so the visuals to help remind them to use the skill,
[00:41:56.960]but again, first we have to teach it.
[00:41:59.750]Red square green square can be super helpful.
[00:42:02.620]Remember I said those cumbersome monologues
[00:42:05.490]about their special interest?
[00:42:07.520]So one of the ways you can use a red square green square
[00:42:10.010]is the teacher could have a red square up,
[00:42:11.670]which means it's not talk time.
[00:42:14.030]This is not a time you can talk about your special interest.
[00:42:17.590]There's no reinforcement available at this time,
[00:42:19.850]which means I'm not going to reinforce you
[00:42:21.280]for talking about your special interests,
[00:42:23.620]but when the green square is up,
[00:42:25.980]there's reinforcement available,
[00:42:27.290]meaning you can come up
[00:42:28.420]and talk about your special interest at this time.
[00:42:31.670]Red squares, green squares,
[00:42:32.900]those are used to signify a lot of different behaviors,
[00:42:37.080]things that we can do at one time but not at another time,
[00:42:40.270]so that's just one example of how you can use them.
[00:42:46.290]So do any of you have students who like to negotiate?
[00:42:50.620]And some people might call it argue.
[00:42:53.160]So a lot of our bright and verbal students,
[00:42:55.420]oh my goodness, they are so smart.
[00:42:57.250]They want to negotiate, and they are so good at it
[00:43:00.940]that generally they'll end up negotiating right around
[00:43:04.560]to the point where they get what it is they're asking for,
[00:43:07.210]so it's really, really important that we teach our kids
[00:43:10.370]that some things are negotiable and some things are not.
[00:43:14.270]So this non-negotiable card here,
[00:43:16.010]the front of it said non-negotiable.
[00:43:17.470]The back of it says, stop, listen, and follow directions.
[00:43:21.420]This was actually made for a student
[00:43:23.530]who was doing some job coaching in the community
[00:43:27.220]and had his own ideas about how some things should be done,
[00:43:31.470]but the boss did not want some things done
[00:43:35.060]the way he wanted to do that,
[00:43:36.750]and so we needed to come up with a signal or a visual
[00:43:40.340]for him that would show him that at this time
[00:43:43.650]what you're doing is not negotiable.
[00:43:46.940]You need to do it this way,
[00:43:49.400]the way the boss asked us to do it,
[00:43:51.810]and there may be some other things during the day
[00:43:54.450]that are negotiable, and if you want to choose
[00:43:56.760]to do it a different way, you can do that.
[00:43:59.200]So this was a way to signal when something was negotiable
[00:44:02.920]and when it wasn't at the job,
[00:44:05.730]but we also sometimes need to do that at school.
[00:44:08.080]We have kids that'll argue about assignments
[00:44:10.070]or try to negotiate how to do an assignment different.
[00:44:13.410]Well, you can use your non-negotiable card
[00:44:15.470]to say to them it's not negotiable.
[00:44:18.580]So remember, when it's not negotiable,
[00:44:20.930]you might need to stop, listen, and follow directions.
[00:44:24.840]When we have kids that will not stop,
[00:44:27.610]they keep coming back at us,
[00:44:29.430]you can use a visual stop sign,
[00:44:32.190]which means "I'm done talking."
[00:44:36.072]No matter what they say, you are still done talking.
[00:44:40.280]In this situation, as an adult, we must become good
[00:44:44.410]at having this second to last word.
[00:44:47.552]Okay, the second to last word, go Google that.
[00:44:50.120]There's an amazing gentleman that has a quick video
[00:44:52.460]on second to last word.
[00:44:54.330]It is awesome and I'm sorry I cannot remember his name,
[00:44:56.960]but if you just Google second to last word,
[00:44:58.820]that video will come up.
[00:45:01.420]But we need to get good at giving the direction
[00:45:06.100]and then ending the conversation, walking away,
[00:45:08.930]and yep, you know that your bright and verbal student
[00:45:11.500]will have something to say about that,
[00:45:13.080]but you're still going to walk away
[00:45:15.030]because we're gonna be okay
[00:45:17.060]with having the second to last word.
[00:45:20.020]When we do that, we avoid power struggles,
[00:45:22.840]and that's what we're trained to do here.
[00:45:25.260]So be aware that they will not be happy about it,
[00:45:29.410]but if you can continue to have this,
[00:45:32.000]just be good with the second to last word,
[00:45:35.120]it can work well for a lot of our students.
[00:45:39.190]Sometimes our students like to ask question
[00:45:41.240]after question after question,
[00:45:43.550]so sometimes you can provide a visual
[00:45:46.390]that shows them how many questions they get in class.
[00:45:49.430]So once they ask a question,
[00:45:50.980]they either have to turn the card over,
[00:45:52.720]the teacher walks by and slides the card off their desk,
[00:45:55.460]whatever it happens to be.
[00:45:57.200]Now, again, you're not going to put
[00:45:59.040]these cute question marks on an upper elementary,
[00:46:01.680]middle, or high school desk.
[00:46:03.330]Instead, you might have a sticky note with three boxes
[00:46:06.190]and they're gonna self-monitor.
[00:46:07.800]They're gonna cross off or check off
[00:46:09.370]when they've asked each of those questions.
[00:46:11.830]If the student continues to have questions
[00:46:14.540]and they're done with their question cards
[00:46:16.630]or they're done X'ing their boxes,
[00:46:19.250]now they need to put them in their question notebook.
[00:46:22.130]And then they can ask the teacher for a time
[00:46:24.430]to come back and ask their questions.
[00:46:29.990]Problem solving can be difficult
[00:46:31.530]for some of our individuals who are bright and verbal.
[00:46:34.220]I like this problem solving system
[00:46:37.350]that's done by Mataya and Owens,
[00:46:38.900]and the book that it comes from is there for you to see.
[00:46:42.240]You put the problem in the middle,
[00:46:43.500]and then the solutions are on the outside.
[00:46:45.250]You can change those up.
[00:46:46.450]You can use pictures if you want to,
[00:46:48.860]but the reason I like this is because there is an option
[00:46:52.240]on here to let it bother you,
[00:46:54.410]and in the real world, all of us have an option
[00:46:57.390]to let something bother us,
[00:47:00.690]but if we pick that option,
[00:47:03.110]there might be some consequences to that option.
[00:47:06.290]We might not sleep well.
[00:47:08.300]We might have a high level of stress or be very anxious,
[00:47:11.790]or for some of our kids, they may not be able
[00:47:13.970]to rejoin PE or rejoin recess
[00:47:17.560]if they're choosing to let it bother them,
[00:47:19.840]because they have not calmed themselves,
[00:47:22.340]they are not regulated,
[00:47:24.020]so they might need to do their calming routine,
[00:47:27.390]do their deep breathing for two minutes,
[00:47:30.360]but it is a choice for them to let something bother them.
[00:47:34.150]We just need to work through
[00:47:35.350]what the consequences of that choice might be.
[00:47:40.870]Priming and pre-teaching skills is so important.
[00:47:44.580]For some of our bright and verbal kids,
[00:47:46.500]group activities can be very difficult,
[00:47:49.470]so sometimes if we prime the activity,
[00:47:52.800]when they're in the group, they are much more successful,
[00:47:56.200]so prereading books that will be read
[00:47:58.780]in a large group in the classroom or the library,
[00:48:00.760]especially for our lower elementary kids, preschool kids,
[00:48:04.400]lots of our kids with autism will respond to the familiar,
[00:48:08.270]so if something is familiar,
[00:48:09.850]they're more apt to attend to that,
[00:48:11.960]so pre-reading those books can be really helpful.
[00:48:14.230]Pre-teaching vocabulary or pre-teaching writing topics.
[00:48:18.150]Let's look up that writing topic.
[00:48:20.750]Let's watch a video on that.
[00:48:22.680]Now we've got a picture in our head
[00:48:24.590]of what that topic's about,
[00:48:26.030]we may be more successful in writing.
[00:48:28.780]Pre-teach motor skills needed for an activity in PE class.
[00:48:32.750]PE can be very, a very rough spot for our kids to attend,
[00:48:37.310]because not only do you have the large group,
[00:48:39.750]lots of movement, lots of noise,
[00:48:41.940]big open area, bright lights, all can be tough,
[00:48:45.660]so instead we might pre-teach how to kick the ball
[00:48:49.080]and how to run to the base,
[00:48:50.670]so now when they do that in class,
[00:48:52.480]our student has already learned it
[00:48:54.110]and can be more successful.
[00:48:56.110]Pre-teach those expected social skills for the playground.
[00:48:59.630]Pre-teach a social question,
[00:49:02.030]so that day you want to ask your student
[00:49:04.810]to ask a question to appear,
[00:49:06.970]so you're going to pre-teach that before recess,
[00:49:10.330]before passing period.
[00:49:13.040]They could even do it before the class starts,
[00:49:16.030]so you might want to pre-teach it the class before,
[00:49:19.410]so that can really help our students be successful.
[00:49:22.700]Pre-teach directions for an activity or even lab work,
[00:49:26.140]so "Here's the things we're going to do in lab.
[00:49:28.130]This is going to be your job in lab,
[00:49:31.230]and this is what you need to do for your job.
[00:49:33.270]This is what's expected,"
[00:49:34.570]so now when they get into lab,
[00:49:36.290]and kids are kind of crazy during lab times,
[00:49:38.870]they're kind of fun activities,
[00:49:40.710]our student knows what they need to do.
[00:49:43.790]And then also of course pre-teaching songs
[00:49:45.860]for a unit coming up,
[00:49:47.880]for our young kids, pre-teaching actions to songs,
[00:49:50.740]those kinds of things can be helpful.
[00:49:54.210]A checking-in visual.
[00:49:55.270]Some of our kids have a really hard time asking for help,
[00:49:58.320]and so what they might do
[00:49:59.420]is just kind of hang out at their desk and not ask,
[00:50:02.190]so we had a middle school teacher who actually made
[00:50:04.850]the rings on the left for all of her students,
[00:50:07.530]so once she gave a direction,
[00:50:09.180]they knew they need to flip that card over
[00:50:11.330]to where they were, green, yellow, or red.
[00:50:14.630]You also could use a sticky note.
[00:50:16.280]I like to do this for my middle school
[00:50:17.860]and high school students.
[00:50:18.870]So you have a sticky, give them sticky notes
[00:50:20.950]for their binders or their computer bags,
[00:50:23.790]and if they have a question,
[00:50:24.970]they simply pull the sticky note out and put it on the desk.
[00:50:27.630]It doesn't say anything,
[00:50:29.210]it's just a sticky note on the desk,
[00:50:31.030]but it is a signal for the teacher
[00:50:32.560]that they are asking for help,
[00:50:34.460]so this is kind of a first step in helping our kids
[00:50:37.260]initiate asking for assistance.
[00:50:42.630]Some of our kids also need some structure
[00:50:44.980]and some support and visual clarity
[00:50:47.750]for some of their curriculum work,
[00:50:50.580]so first I'm going to show you how we can use
[00:50:52.330]a mini schedule, also how we can use some highlighter
[00:50:55.830]to help visually structure the worksheet for the student.
[00:51:03.720]Okay, Paige, now we're going to work on some reading.
[00:51:05.570]Let's look at what we have to do.
[00:51:07.040]You first have to do what? Write your name.
[00:51:11.340]And then we need to use a marker
[00:51:13.530]and you need to trace the word pig and the word can.
[00:51:16.750]You don't have to do these down here,
[00:51:18.520]just the ones in yellow.
[00:51:20.490]Then you're going to glue the correct picture
[00:51:24.360]in each of the boxes.
[00:51:26.454]Remember, you don't have to do this part,
[00:51:28.020]so you just do this part.
[00:51:29.270]So first we're going to do our steps,
[00:51:32.260]and then what will you earn?
[00:51:34.066]Marshmallows.
[00:51:34.899]Marshmallows. Good job.
[00:51:36.600]Which color marker would you like to use?
[00:51:38.663]Pink.
[00:51:40.120]So what's the first step?
[00:51:42.720]Write your name. Good job.
[00:51:53.050]Perfect. Now please move.
[00:51:54.730]You're all done with step one, so move that where?
[00:51:56.830]Over to, all done, great job. Step two.
[00:52:02.650]Move forward just a little bit.
[00:52:11.150]So after she finishes each of those steps here,
[00:52:14.020]you can see that she's finished two steps.
[00:52:15.930]She still has one left to do.
[00:52:17.960]Then she will earn her reinforcer.
[00:52:20.240]Now, this is a video of how you would teach
[00:52:22.610]using a mini schedule,
[00:52:24.160]but the goal with having a mini schedule
[00:52:25.900]would be that that student could do this independently,
[00:52:28.630]so you would set up the mini schedule,
[00:52:30.380]give them some quick directions,
[00:52:32.810]and then the adult would be able to move away,
[00:52:35.330]but I wanted to show you how you might start using
[00:52:37.920]a mini schedule for some work, curriculum work,
[00:52:40.480]for some of your students,
[00:52:41.580]and obviously this is one for a younger student,
[00:52:43.940]kindergarten age student.
[00:52:49.840]Highlighters are amazing.
[00:52:51.490]I also love green and red dots.
[00:52:53.250]So on this worksheet, green means go, red means stop.
[00:52:57.050]When you get to red, you can take a quick break,
[00:52:59.520]get a drink of water.
[00:53:00.770]When you come back, you're going to find the green dot again
[00:53:04.040]and get started until you get to the red dot.
[00:53:06.840]On the right, the student has directions
[00:53:09.990]to only do the green problems,
[00:53:11.610]and then they have a key here,
[00:53:13.410]so it helps them to know how to average the numbers,
[00:53:17.030]so that's an important step to increase independence
[00:53:20.290]when our kids are working.
[00:53:24.530]Tracing and writing can be a tough thing
[00:53:27.160]for some of our students,
[00:53:29.129]so be sure that when you're doing tracing
[00:53:31.460]that you're actually stating that prompt.
[00:53:33.630]So we initially have them trace the seven,
[00:53:35.830]then the dashed lines, then connect the dots,
[00:53:38.150]then write the seven on their own,
[00:53:40.130]and on the right is just a simple file folder
[00:53:42.550]that's cut into three sections,
[00:53:44.300]so visually the student does not get overwhelmed
[00:53:46.690]by that whole worksheet.
[00:53:48.940]They open the first section and do the highlighted problems
[00:53:51.760]and take a quick break.
[00:53:53.200]When they come back, they're going to open up
[00:53:54.890]the middle section, do those highlighted problems,
[00:53:57.640]and take a break, so this way they're only looking at
[00:54:00.170]one part of the worksheet at a time.
[00:54:05.410]Sometimes our kids struggle to leave a worksheet undone,
[00:54:09.080]or to leave a task undone,
[00:54:11.010]so ahead of time, this student has a note
[00:54:14.550]that said they will do one and two in class,
[00:54:17.360]but they will finish three and four in study hall,
[00:54:20.890]so sometimes it's not enough to tell them
[00:54:22.900]to finish it later.
[00:54:24.190]Sometimes we need to help them know when later is,
[00:54:28.170]so I call it later with a plan,
[00:54:31.090]so finish three and four in study hall,
[00:54:34.690]so when will they do it?
[00:54:36.220]On the right is a to-do list with a worksheet,
[00:54:39.480]so do the yellow highlighted shapes, take a break,
[00:54:42.100]do the orange highlighted shapes, and then take a break.
[00:54:47.310]I read, you read, this is a really great strategy.
[00:54:50.930]Even if you tell a student that you're going to read,
[00:54:53.600]them being able to visually see how much they have to read
[00:54:56.810]and then when you're going to read
[00:54:58.190]can be really, really helpful.
[00:55:00.190]So, Mrs. Smith's gonna read the yellow
[00:55:02.580]and John is gonna read the red.
[00:55:08.630]Structuring a writing activity using visuals,
[00:55:11.310]so using pictures to help these young students
[00:55:14.130]with their writing can be really effective.
[00:55:17.030]This teacher specifically picked pictures
[00:55:20.210]that she knows her students know about.
[00:55:22.200]One of the boys there likes soccer.
[00:55:24.310]One of the girls at the table
[00:55:25.440]that you cannot see does dance,
[00:55:27.750]so she picks those pictures intentionally
[00:55:30.730]because they've had those experiences,
[00:55:32.500]which means it's going to be easier for them
[00:55:34.230]to write about it.
[00:55:35.550]You also can have families send pictures from home.
[00:55:37.990]That's a really great way.
[00:55:39.650]You also can add an I-write-you-write
[00:55:41.740]if your student struggles with writing,
[00:55:43.820]so you can add yellow highlighter
[00:55:45.670]for where the student writes
[00:55:47.260]and you could do pink highlighter where you write.
[00:55:52.760]Then this one is considering
[00:55:54.180]some different options for writing,
[00:55:56.070]and of course the favorite option is on the right there.
[00:55:58.660]I think this is ingenious.
[00:56:00.010]This was not my idea.
[00:56:01.110]It was another teacher's idea, using a label maker.
[00:56:04.220]The child types out the answer, it prints out,
[00:56:07.200]they peel off the back, and stick it on their paper.
[00:56:10.100]I think this would be highly motivating
[00:56:12.150]for a lot of our bright and verbal students.
[00:56:18.040]This is a strategy that's by Sarah Ward.
[00:56:21.910]She has done a few of the executive functioning webinars
[00:56:24.640]that you have links for in the PDF.
[00:56:27.260]This is a week long project,
[00:56:29.640]and the teacher and the student sit down
[00:56:31.650]and break the project down into small steps,
[00:56:34.740]and then they put the small steps on the calendar
[00:56:38.180]for the day the child needs to do those steps.
[00:56:40.950]Do not make the steps too big.
[00:56:42.490]Remember we're breaking the project down into small steps,
[00:56:46.730]but if the student on Monday doesn't complete that task,
[00:56:49.930]do you see what happens?
[00:56:52.070]It moves to Tuesday.
[00:56:55.000]If they don't do any of the work
[00:56:56.620]on this project on Tuesday or Wednesday,
[00:56:59.170]they've now all moved over to Thursday,
[00:57:01.550]and the project's due on Friday,
[00:57:03.500]so this is a way for a student to visually see
[00:57:07.060]what they have to do, and if they don't do it,
[00:57:11.410]it doesn't really go away.
[00:57:13.320]It just moves to the next day,
[00:57:15.580]and then things start to pile up.
[00:57:17.890]Now, we're not trying to cause great anxiety
[00:57:20.120]for our student, but we want them to have a visual way
[00:57:22.880]to see the importance of completing
[00:57:24.970]these small steps along the way,
[00:57:27.620]so they don't all pile up at the end.
[00:57:33.390]Final tip, fairness is not giving everyone the same thing.
[00:57:37.030]Fairness is giving the individual what they need to succeed.
[00:57:40.110]This is so important,
[00:57:41.570]especially for our bright and verbal students
[00:57:43.560]who are in the general ed classroom
[00:57:45.630]and who look like every other student.
[00:57:48.160]Sometimes we forget that they need extra supports.
[00:57:51.430]They need social skills taught to them.
[00:57:54.370]They need some visuals to remind them throughout the day,
[00:57:57.940]even though the other kids may not need that,
[00:58:00.860]so remembering that fairness
[00:58:02.920]is not giving everyone the same thing.
[00:58:05.190]It's giving that individual what they need to succeed.
[00:58:10.470]Thank you so much for taking the time to watch this webinar.

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Bright and Verbal Students with Autism: Strategies for the General Education Classroom

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments