Methods of Teaching Students With Autism & Communication Disorders

1. METHODS OF TEACHING
STUDENTS WITH AUTISM &
COMMUNICATION DISORDERS
Sonya Abbye Taylor & Grace McColgan
edited by Melody Geroux 6/2022

2. What is the TEACCH?
⦿ Treatment and Education of Autistic and related
Communication handicapped Children- University of North
Carolina- Department of Psychiatry School of Medicine- -1966
⦿ Developed program in response to backlash against lack of
structure in play therapy and highly structured activities of
operant conditioning

3. TEACCH PHILOSOPHY
⦿ Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are part of a
culture; they share common characteristics that define them as
a group.

4. WHAT IS CULTURE?
⦿ Culture denotes a complex integrated system of beliefs, values,
and behaviors common to a large group of people and may
include adaptive responses, a shared language and folklore,
ideas and thinking patterns, and communication styles. (Utley &
Obiakor, 2001,p11.)

5. HOW DO YOU BEGIN TO WORK WITH STUDENTS WITH
ASD?
⦿ Understand yourself and your own culture
⦿ Understand the culture of autism
⦿ Maintain respect of the culture of the disability
⦿ Act as the cross-cultural interpreter
⦿ Understand the cultures’, strengths & deficits
⦿ Include parents and families as partners in
education

6. WHAT IS THE STRUCTURED TEACHING
APPROACH?
⦿ Provides environmental and instructional
adaptations and modifications-
⦿ Instruction is based on individual needs
⦿ Provides meaningful environments where success
is supported and behavioral difficulties minimized
⦿ Focuses on Details – not connections
⦿ Addresses Variability in Attention- reduce
environmental distractions

7. WHAT IS THE STRUCTURED TEACHING
APPROACH? CONTINUED
⦿ Focus on concrete not abstract thinking
⦿ Understand students with ASD interpret language
literally.
⦿ Provide clear steps; identify expectations- what
happens first, second, etc.
⦿ Understand students with ASD can have challenges
with the concepts of time and sequence.

8. WHAT IS THE STRUCTURED TEACHING
APPROACH? CONTINUED
⦿ Understand students with ASD can have attachment
to routines and difficulty with generalization-
establishing routines with visual organization of the
environment assists with generalization
⦿ Understand students with ASD are visual learners
and are supported by visual cues.
⦿ Understand students with ASD may have marked
sensory preferences & aversions

9. WHAT IS THE MILLER METHOD?
⦿ The Miller Method is a cognitive development technique that uses the
student's desire to do something to teach communication.
⦿ Example: The instructor teaches the student a
routine for an enjoyable activity, such as going
down a slide. After the student knows the
routine, the teacher interrupts at the moment
of maximum tension, when the student most
wants to continue the activity. This is where
there is greatest likelihood of communication,
When the student realizes he or she is stopped -
and before the tantrum - there will be
communication. (CEC, 2012)

10. THE MILLER METHOD:
⦿ Is a Cognitive-Developmental Systems
Approach for Children on the Autism Spectrum
⦿ Addresses children's body organization, social
interaction, communication and representation
issues in both clinical and classroom settings
⦿ Uses two major strategies to restore typical
developmental progressions:

11. WHATARE THE TWO MAJOR STRATEGIES OF THE MILLER
METHOD?
⦿ Transformation of children's aberrant
systems (lining up blocks, driven reactions
to stimuli, etc.) into functional behaviors
⦿ Systematic and repetitive introduction of
developmentally relevant activities involving
objects and people.

12. WHATARE GOALS OF MILLER METHOD?
⦿ Assess the adaptive significance of the
children's disordered behavior
⦿ Transform disordered behavior into functional
activity
⦿ Expand and guide the children from closed
ways of being into social and communicative
exchanges
⦿ Teach professionals and parents how to guide
the children toward reading, writing, number
concepts, symbolic play and meaningful
inclusion within typical classrooms

13. THE MILLER METHOD USES:
⦿ Activities chosen to fill developmental gaps.
⦿ Narration of children’s actions while the children
are elevated 2.5 feet above the ground on an
elevated square and similar challenging
structures. Elevating the children enhances
sign-word guidance of behavior and body-other
awareness as well as motor-planning and
social-emotional contact. It also helps children
transition from one ENGAGING object or event to
another or from object involvement to
representational play.

14. The Miller Method continued
⦿ Parents play a significant role in helping students to
generalize new learning
⦿ Time out is never used- seek to find the cause of the
tantrum
⦿ Believes that language begins with directed body
action toward or with objects and events. Placing
children on elevated boards 2 to 4 feet above the
ground helps them become more aware of their
bodies, better focused, and far more able to cope with
obstacles or demands directly confronting them.

15. THE MILLER METHOD CONTINUED
⦿ Narratives are accompanied by manual
sign and words related to children’s
actions- children are sign and word guided

16. APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS (ABA)
⦿ The science in which procedures derived from
the principles of behavior are systematically
applied to improve socially significant behavior
to a meaningful degree and to demonstrate
experimentally that the procedures employed
were responsible for improvement (Cooper et.
al, 1987).
⦿ Based on 50 years of research
⦿ Requires the study of observable and
measurable characteristics.

17. ABA CONTINUED
⦿ ABA is behavioral. It studies observable, measurable
characteristics. It requires data collection based on
actual responses not on subjective processes. Data is
recorded and graphed.
⦿ ABA is analytic. It requires empirical proof of
functional relationships between antecedent events,
behavior and consequences.
⦿ Through careful study of these relationships a teacher
can control the occurrence and non-occurrence of
behavior.

18. ABA CONTINUED
ABA is technological. Any behavior
targeted for change must be precisely
defined and methods and procedures
must be explicit, described in
step-by-step fashion.

19. FOR MORE INFORMATION
⦿ http://www.millermethod.org.
⦿ Hall, L.J.(2013) Autism spectrum disorders: From
theory to practice. Boston, MA. Pearson
⦿ http://www.HolisticLC.com