This document provides information about autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including: - World Autism Awareness Day is celebrated on April 2nd to raise awareness and understanding of autism. - ASD is characterized by difficulties with social skills, repetitive behaviors, communication, and sensory processing. It exists on a spectrum from mild to severe impairment. - Challenges for parents of children with ASD include significant financial burden from care costs as well as caregiving burden from around-the-clock responsibilities. Behavior management strategies for students with ASD focus on preparation, consistency, and positive reinforcement.

1. SPED 185
By Karen Hamilton
Autism Awareness

2. Autism Awareness Month
World Autism Awareness Day is an internationally recognized
day on the 2nd of April every year, to give us a reason to do
something extra to help more people understand. It makes
people who are autistic feel less alone, less apart, and less
misunderstood. I encourage you to go out their and
represent.

3. What is Autism Spectrum
Disorder?
According to research Autism, or autism
spectrum disorder, refers to a range of
conditions characterized by challenges with
social skills, repetitive behaviours, speech
and nonverbal communication, as well as by
unique strengths and differences. We now
know that there is not one autism but many
types, caused by different combinations of
genetic and environmental influences.

4. Characteristics of
Autism Spectrum Disorder?
Autism spectrum disorder fall into three categories;-
Communication problems: including difficulty using or
understanding language. Some children with autism focus
their attention and conversation on a few topic areas, some
frequently repeat phrases and some have very limited speech.
Difficulty relating to people, things and events: including
trouble making friends and interacting with people, difficulty
reading facial expressions and not making eye contact.
Repetitive body movements or behaviors: such as hand
flapping or repeating sounds or phrases.

5. What is Diagnostic criteria for
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Diagnostic criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder was
development in May 2013, by psychologists and psychiatrists
to evaluate individuals for these developmental disorders.

6. Diagnostic criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder
1. Persistent deficits in social communication and social
interaction across multiple contexts, as manifested by the
following, currently or by history (examples are
illustrative):
a) Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from
abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth
conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect;
to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions.

7. Diagnostic criteria cont.
b) Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviours used for social
interaction, ranging, for example, from poorly integrated verbal
and nonverbal communication; to abnormalities in eye contact and
body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures; to
a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication.
c) Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding
relationships, ranging, for example, from difficulties adjusting
behaviour to suit various social contexts; to difficulties in sharing
imaginative play or in making friends; to absence of interest in
peers.

8. Diagnostic criteria cont.
2. Restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests, or
activities, as manifested by at least two of the following,
currently or by history (examples are illustrative):
a) Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or
speech (e.g., simple motor stereotypies, lining up toys or flipping
objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases).
b) Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or
ritualized patterns or verbal nonverbal behaviour (e.g., extreme
distress at small changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid
thinking patterns, greeting rituals, need to take same route or eat
food every day).

9. Diagnostic criteria cont.
c) Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity
or focus (e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual
objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interest).
d) Hyper- or hypo reactivity to sensory input or unusual interests in
sensory aspects of the environment (e.g., apparent indifference to
pain/temperature, adverse response to specific sounds or
textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, visual fascination
with lights or movement).

10. Diagnostic criteria cont.
3. Symptoms must be present in the early developmental
period (but may not become fully manifest until social
demands exceed limited capacities, or may be masked
by learned strategies in later life).
4. Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in
social, occupational, or other important areas of
current functioning.

11. Diagnostic criteria cont.
• 5. These disturbances are not better explained by
intellectual disability (intellectual developmental
disorder) or global developmental delay. Intellectual
disability and autism spectrum disorder frequently co-
occur; to make comorbid diagnoses of autism spectrum
disorder and intellectual disability, social
communication should be below that expected for
general developmental level.

12. Severity levels for Autism Spectrum Disorder
There are three severity levels for autism which are:
 Level 1: "Requiring Support"
 Level 2: "Requiring Substantial Support"
 Level 3: "Requiring Very Substantial Support

13. Challenges parents encounter with
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Parents of children with autism sometimes describe feeling
"overwhelmed, guilty, confused, angry, or depressed.“
Frustration is a common emotion. They may feel frustrated
when their child is clumsy, unresponsive, angry, or
disregarding of others.
Two challenges parents encounter with autism spectrum
disorder are:-
Financial burden
Care-giving burden

14. Challenges parents encounter with
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Financial burden
This can be emotional and physical challenging to parents.
Parents of autistic children have additional expenditures that
can turn a middle-income family into a low-income family in a
matter of months.
Expenditures of an autism child
The loss of one parent’s income
Specialty schooling
Special activities
 Special equipment
 Lacking health coverage

15. Challenges parents encounter with
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Care-giving burden
Parents are unable to leave their homes due to caring
responsibilities towards their child with autism. These caring
responsibilities led to lack of adequate time for paid work,
home domestic chores and other activities.
A strategy parents can use is
Problem-focused strategies: The problem-focused
strategies are directed at managing or altering the problem
that brings the distress.

16. Behaviour Management for Autism
Two behaviour management for students with autism are:-
 Let the child know what will happen next.
 Acknowledge students for complying with your requests.

17. Behaviour Management for Autism
 Let the child know what will happen next.
For example, “In five minutes it
is time to turn off the computer
and start your writing assignment.
” For some students it is helpful
to set a timer so the child can
keep track of how much time is
left.

18. Behaviour Management for Autism
 Acknowledge students for complying with your requests.
For instance, if a student is using a loud
voice in the movie theatre and you say,
“whisper in the theatre,” praise the child
with a comment such as “nice job
whispering”, or “thank you for being
respectful in the theatre.”

19. Social skills intervention for students with
Autism Spectrum Disorder
What is social skills intervention?
A social skills intervention is defined as
an instructional strategy that may be
implemented by teachers to promote
development of social skills for an
individual with a disability to promote
social interactions between students
with disabilities and their typically
developing peers.

20. Social skills intervention for students with
Autism Spectrum Disorder
The following are various social skills intervention strategies
that have been designed to promote social interaction skills
with children who are ASD, including
peer-mediated instruction
thinking-feeling activities
social stories
role-playing
video- modeling

21. Social skills intervention for students with
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Peer-mediated instruction
Peer-mediated instruction is used to teach typically
developing peers ways to interact with and help learners with
ASD acquire new social skills by increasing social
opportunities within natural environments. (English et al.,
1997;Odom et al., 1999; Strain & Odom, 1986).
What skills or intervention goals can be addressed by PMII?
PMII targets social skills that include the following:
responding to others, reciprocity, understanding others, and
interacting with others or in groups.

22. Social skills intervention for students with
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Types of Peer-Mediated Instruction and Intervention
Integrated Play Groups
Peer Buddy and Peer Tutors
Group-Oriented Contingency
Peer Networks
Pivotal Response Training (PRT)
Peer Initiation Training

23. Social skills intervention for students with
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Role-play
Role-playing or behavioral rehearsal is used primarily to teach
basic social interaction skills in and out of the classroom. It
is an effective approach to teaching social skills that allows
for the positive practice of skills (Gresham, 2002).
Role-playing involves acting out situations or activities in a
structured environment to practice newly acquired skills and
strategies, or previously learned skills that the child is having
difficulties performing. Role-plays can be either scripted or
spontaneous.

24. Academic intervention in Grammar for students with
Autism Spectrum Disorder
The subject area I have chosen is phonics and under phonics
I would be teaching how to identify consonant blends using
one academic intervention.
What is consonant blend?
A consonant blend is a combination of consonants that are
placed together without being separated by a vowel. The
most common consonant blends are combinations of two or
three consonants together at the beginning or end of a word

25. Academic intervention in Grammar for students with
Autism Spectrum Disorder
These are the academic intervention that I will used to teach
students consonant blends with autism students:-
Word building
Word hunt
Sort and colour
Sounds (computer, radio)

26. Academic intervention in Grammar for students with
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Word building is an effective and hands-on way for students
with autism because it can hold it, see the different colours
and can be easy to practice phonics. They can use foam
letters, magnetic letters, or even word building
templates. Sometimes the word building will be guided (e.g.,
“add a /t/, take away the /e/, etc.

27. Conclusion
Our perception of autism has evolved over time. Today autism
is now recognized as an independent neurologically based
disorder of significance, a major health problem, and a topic
of much research. Despite this difficulty, research continues
in ever more sophisticated directions. Numerous treatments
have been developed that help children with autism and PDD
to maximize their potential to learn and become socially
fluent, no matter how impaired they may be. This PowerPoint
presentation was to inform you the reader of Autism
Spectrum Disorder.

28. References
 American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental
disorders. 5th ed. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association; 2013.
 Peer-mediated instruction is used to teach typically developing peers ways to
interact with and help learners with ASD acquire new social skills by increasing
social opportunities within natural environments. With PMII, peers are
systematically taught ways of engaging learners with ASD in social interactions
in both teacher-directed and learner-initiated activities (English et al., 1997;
Odom et al., 1999; Strain & Odom, 1986).
 Gresham, F. M. (2002). Best practices in social skills training. In A. Thomas. & J.
Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology (4th ed.). Bethesda, MD:
NASP.
 Burke P, Cigno K (1996). Support for families: helping children with learning
disabilities. Ashgate Publishing. Google Scholar