The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

Children with autism present with critical needs in communication and difficulties acquiring, maintaining and generalizing skills. Direct pull-out speech-language treatment may not adequately address their communication deficits. Our consultative communication service delivery model includes presenting 1) learning opportunities, 2) prompting accurate performance for both teachers and students, 3) reinforcing correct performances, and 4) systematically fading prompts. Training teachers to provide instruction in speech and language ensures more learning opportunities in settings where the target skills will be used. Children with autism present with critical needs in communication and difficulties acquiring, maintaining and generalizing skills. Traditional “pull-out” speech and language services-where the typical service delivery model may consist of the SLP scheduling a ½ hour block of time 3 days a week to see the child 1:1 or in a small group in the “speech room” to work on speech and language skills may not adequately address the communication deficits of children with autism. The problems with this model are: 1) most SLPs have very large caseloads and the amount of time they are able to spend in treating children with autism is insufficient to make significant gains, 2) the SLP is typically the only one who works with the child to develop communication skills, and 3) the “speech and language room” is an isolated setting and not part of the child's natural environment.Insuring that the child is able to generalize and maintain communication skills he's learned in the “speech and language” room across other people and other contexts is extremely difficult given these limitations. Other service delivery models are “push-in” treatment sessions-where SLPs work 1:1 with the child with autism, or with a small group in the classroom or “co-teaching”-where SLPs may work with 1 group of children in the classroom and the classroom teacher works with another. In both the “push-in” and “co-teaching” models, although the setting is natural, there may be very little time for the classroom teachers and staff who work with the child to observe the SLP and learn to practice techniques for teaching children communication skills to use across their day. It's also difficult to insure consistency in methods of instruction, prompting, and reinforcing with these models. Choosing effective treatment that meets the needs of children w/ autism is our number 1 priority as SLPs. Some individuals with autism may be able to learn to function independently as adults, but most children with autism need intensive instruction and supports throughout their lives. There are now many studies that have shown that early, intensive instruction can produce improvements in many wide-ranging skills for children with autism. Given the great needs that children with autism have: intensive instruction, many many opportunities to practice skills before they're able to demonstrate them independently, and once they have learned these skills, difficulty generalizing them to other settings and other people, and difficulty maintaining learned skills unless they're routinely given opportunities to practice them…we MUST ask ourselves the question: “how can we maximize our services to most effectively meet these needs?” The American Speech Language and Hearing Association's 2006 Guidelines for Speech-Language Pathologists in Diagnosis, Assessment, and Treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorder states that “current best practice suggests a move from exclusive use of the traditional model of individual “pull-out” services for individuals with ASD…the type of service delivery should be flexible and dynamic, adapting to changing needs and preferences…” We have successfully used a consultative model of speech and language service delivery for over 15 years at The New England Center for Children. We carefully and systematically teach strategies to use with children with autism to those who teach, live, and work with them daily so they in turn can teach communication skills to the children throughout all environments. This model includes presenting 1) many learning opportunities, 2) prompting accurate performance for both teachers and students, 3) reinforcing correct performances, and 4) systematically fading prompts. We have also used this model successfully in 3 public school classrooms. We train teachers to provide instruction in speech and language and this ensures that children with autism will be provided with more learning opportunities in settings where target skills will be used, as well as generalization and maintenance of newly acquired skills across a variety of people and settings. Participants in this seminar will learn to present the benefits of the model, provide training for teachers and families, and observe and evaluate program effectiveness. Learning Objectives: 1. identify drawbacks of the traditional pull-out speech and language services for children with autism 2. identify benefits of the consultative/collaborative model of speech and language services 3. present benefits of the consultative/collaborative model to families, teachers, and school administrators 4. develop caseload management systems within the framework of the consultative/collaborative model 5. train teachers to use speech and language curriculum, collect and summarize data, and present student progress

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