Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.
Today's article highlights an effective training program for teaching teachers how to teach autistic students and manage a classroom more effectively. Other than potentially agitating to have this introduced to lots of schools, I found this kind of interesting because it takes advantage of the hyper-availability of recording devices to help teachers recognize the changes in their classrooms.
I also found it interesting because it shows that simply educating teachers is not enough. The "control group" for this study was a group of schools in the same areas as the experimental schools, and the teachers there were given online training modules to help them learn how to work with autistic students. These are people that, generally speaking, would tend more towards textual learning than most- because that's what the school system tends to teach with most. And yet, while the teaching modules had an effect, it wasn't nearly as effective as adding video support and the other specifics of the SCERTS program.
In investigating the program, I was extremely pleased to see that the program can be applied to both ends of the communication spectrum, as well as anywhere in the middle. Nonverbal children can benefit from this program, as can highly verbal children (like I was). A major worry I tend to find in parents I talk to is that their child doesn't really act like I do, or has a dissimilar communication history. And although child-me didn't function as well as adult-me does, child-me was almost always able to communicate verbally. So it's good to see the built-in idea that pictoral communication, sign language, and other, less accepted forms of communication are valid in this program.
Lastly, I want to underline the second-to-last paragraph: general education teachers don't get a lot of things: fair pay, decent benefits, and sufficient mental and emotional support among them. But they're still expected to handle a classroom of 20+ students, or more. Sooner or later, at least one of those children will be autistic. If we want to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, good training programs are mandatory... and they benefit more than just the autistic students. The whole classroom, and the teachers themselves, also benefit.
Personally, I think most things are better with more diversity... but I might just be crazy.
Today's article highlights an effective training program for teaching teachers how to teach autistic students and manage a classroom more effectively. Other than potentially agitating to have this introduced to lots of schools, I found this kind of interesting because it takes advantage of the hyper-availability of recording devices to help teachers recognize the changes in their classrooms.
I also found it interesting because it shows that simply educating teachers is not enough. The "control group" for this study was a group of schools in the same areas as the experimental schools, and the teachers there were given online training modules to help them learn how to work with autistic students. These are people that, generally speaking, would tend more towards textual learning than most- because that's what the school system tends to teach with most. And yet, while the teaching modules had an effect, it wasn't nearly as effective as adding video support and the other specifics of the SCERTS program.
In investigating the program, I was extremely pleased to see that the program can be applied to both ends of the communication spectrum, as well as anywhere in the middle. Nonverbal children can benefit from this program, as can highly verbal children (like I was). A major worry I tend to find in parents I talk to is that their child doesn't really act like I do, or has a dissimilar communication history. And although child-me didn't function as well as adult-me does, child-me was almost always able to communicate verbally. So it's good to see the built-in idea that pictoral communication, sign language, and other, less accepted forms of communication are valid in this program.
Lastly, I want to underline the second-to-last paragraph: general education teachers don't get a lot of things: fair pay, decent benefits, and sufficient mental and emotional support among them. But they're still expected to handle a classroom of 20+ students, or more. Sooner or later, at least one of those children will be autistic. If we want to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, good training programs are mandatory... and they benefit more than just the autistic students. The whole classroom, and the teachers themselves, also benefit.
Personally, I think most things are better with more diversity... but I might just be crazy.
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