Inclusion and Exclusion Summary

Team C
March 14, 15
PAR-ED/208
Simone Patterson

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) represent a spectrum of complex, neurological, and

developmental disorders characterized by deficits in reciprocal social interaction and
communication, along with the presence of restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped interests and
behaviors. Intensive intervention methods are as follow: a structured learning environment,
adult-medicated and peer mediated interventions for social and communication skills, inclusion
with a balance of direct services, support staff to facilitate inclusion, a functional approach to
problem behaviors, alternative and augmentative communication interventions, and sensorymotor interventions.
Wayne points out some characteristics are: having difficulties with social interaction and
communication, children display unusual behaviors; they tend to have repetitive behaviors and
interests. Some interventions are: support that is given should be individualized, their strengths
tend to be in non-verbal abilities so teach and work to their strengths, encourage group work and
buddy systems or anything that promotes social interaction and communication, and allow them
to work on things alone to promote independence.
Kalyn mentions, people learn by imitating other people. A person with autism lacks
certain imitation skills, which impacts the development of their social and language skills.
Brooke Ingersoll and Laura Schreibman authors to an article in the Journal of Autism and
Developmental Disorders tell about teaching imitation skills to young children with autism and
the effects on language and pretend play. Five children with autism participated in a variety of
therapies designed to teach imitation skills. The end results found that most of these children's
imitation skills did improve their overall skills in playing and language (Ingersoll & Schriebman,
2006). This article gives me some insight as to why free time such as recess and other
unstructured activities are particularly difficult for children with autism. These activities require

us to rely on our imitation skills, which help us to adapt to the new situation. Since these
imitation skills are impaired for someone with autism, other interventions are needed. Providing
structured free time is one way to prevent misbehavior. In addition, I like to set up small groups
to be responsible for each other during structured free time. The teacher can pair a student who
has autism with a student who has strong social skills.
Sandi points out that, it seems the consensus for working with ASD children is to model
appropriate social behavior. When working in an inclusion classroom it seems important to have
the regular education students aware of the ASD student's behaviors and to encourage them to
help the ASD student display appropriate social behavior. Having regular education students
model and encourage appropriate play and social behavior is going to make the classroom calmer
and easier for the ASD student to learn and behave appropriately. When everyone is aware of the
needs of the student it makes them all responsible for their "own" behavior as well. Regular
education students know which behaviors to ignore and so does the instructor. It makes it easier
to deal with the inappropriate behaviors that cannot be ignored. The more time an ASD student
can interact with regular education students the more beneficial for that student. In order to be
able to cope in the "real world" it helps to have had exposure to expectations of behavior and to
have seen it modeled and to have lived up to those expectations. Are we doing special education
students any justice by giving them special leeway as far as behavior if we want them to be able
to function as capable adults? Isn't that the real goal of education for any student?

References
Parent and Family Impact of Autism Spectrum Disorders: A review and proposed model for
intervention evaluation. (2012, August 7) Jeffrey S. Karst. Amy Vaughan Van Hecke
Educational Interventions for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Perceptions of Parents
and Teachers in a Northeast Tennessee School System. (2010, December) Paula Anderson
Nickels
Volkmar, Fred R; Pauls, David. The Lancet, (2003,October 4), Volume 362, Issue 9390,
pp.1133-1141.
Lai, Meng Chuan; Lombardo, Michael V; Baron-Cohen, Simon. Lancet, (2014, March) Volume
383, Issue 9920, pp. 896-910.
Teaching reciprocal imitation skills to young children with autism using a naturalistic behavioral
approach: Effects on language, pretend play, and joint attention. (2006) Ingersoll, B., &
Schreibman, L.
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36(4), 487-505.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-006-0089-y