Students with ASD are increasingly included alongside their typically developing peers in regular education environments. The purpose of this study was to analyze focused interventions for students with ASD in inclusive classroom settings and make recommendations for practitioners and researchers working in this field. Function-based interventions, visual supports, self-monitoring, and peer-mediated interventions produced strong results. Interventions mostly targeted social communication skills and were considered feasible to implement in inclusive settings. Future studies that train teachers to implement these interventions, target additional skills, and include students with ASD with diverse characteristics are needed.
0 Comments
There are very few resources for the educational and mental health needs of children with autism who live in Kenya. This study involves the implementation of an evidence-based program for treating high anxiety and social deficits in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in two Kenyan schools. Results are promising, with significant improvement in anxiety symptoms and ASD severity.
Children with ASD often have difficulties with peer interaction, and research suggests that students with ASD in inclusive classrooms generally do not interact or socialize with their typically developing classmates during play activities. This study assessed whether an intervention package consisting of interest-based structured play activities involving adult instruction, modeling, and response to child questions would result in an increase in social interaction between children with and without ASD in an inclusive preschool classroom. Four children with ASD and four typically developing classmates participated in this study.
During free play activities, little to no interaction between the children was observed. When the intervention was in place during play time, children with ASD demonstrated increases in both initiations and responses to their peers. The amount of time the children spent in interactive play increased as well. The intervention was simple and efficient, fitting easily within the normal classroom routine, and the classroom teacher reported that students with ASD were more involved in other classroom activities after participating in the intervention. The 18th Annual Alabama Autism Conference will be held at the Bryant Conference Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on February 22, 2019. The theme for this year's conference is Building Communication in ASD by Strengthening Skills and Systems. Please visit https://training.ua.edu/autism/index.php for the conference agenda and information about registration. We hope to see you there!
Difficulty managing emotions effectively, called poor emotion regulation (ER), is common in ASD and can lead to explosive behavior, depression, anxiety, and aggression. Effective treatments for these issues are a major unmet need in ASD that leads to poor mental health, social problems, interferes with success in school, and can result in the use of multiple medications or crisis situations. There are no evidence-based treatments to improve ER in ASD. Treatment options are especially lacking for adolescents and young adults. To address this need, we developed an intervention to reduce poor ER called the Emotion Awareness and Skills Enhancement (EASE) Program.
EASE is a 16-week individual therapy program for verbal adolescents and young adults with ASD without intellectual disability, designed to improve ER capacity. EASE emphasizes awareness of one’s own emotional responses as a key skill to then manage intense negative emotions, which is taught through mindful awareness practices. Then the therapist works with the client to teach different strategies for emotion management. This paper describes the first study of EASE, including how the manual was developed. Twenty adolescents and their parents took part in a pilot trial, and findings supported that the treatment was acceptable to the participants and the clinicians. Questionnaire responses also showed a significant improvement in ER problems and related symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and irritability. Overall, results suggest that the EASE program may be effective for adolescents and young adults with ASD, but a larger study should be completed to have more definitive evidence. Dr. Laura Morett was recently funded to visit the Kennedy Center at Vanderbilt University for Developmental Disabilities under the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Travel Program, which funds faculty to visit colleagues at SEC institutions. Under the auspices of this program, Dr. Morett will meet with faculty including Drs. Mark Wallace, Tiffany Woynaroski, and Stephen Camarata to discuss mutual interests in the neural bases of communication disorders in ASD and explore potential collaborations.
|