The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

Professionals from the Ohio Center for Autism and Low Incidence disabilities, the Summit County Educational Service Center, and the State Support Team Region 8 (to be called the coalition from here on) worked together to provide a series of professional development for providers of children with autism in the North East Ohio area. The whole process began with a needs assessment to identify that practitioners in the area were feeling under prepared to support the needs of children with autism in their classrooms. The coalition decided to begin by providing two days of training on the Ziggurat/CAPS model for ten leadership teams in the area. The Ziggurat/CAPS model was chosen as a starting place because it is a planning system that provides a framework from which all interventions can be integrated.

Teams were required to select one child with autism from their district and to bring the parent, one teacher, one special education teacher, and one administrator to the training. Most teams brought additional key stakeholders (e.g. related service providers, school psychologists). The teams were asked in advance to provide information about the child in order to apply the content of the training to a real life situation. Each team was also provided with a facilitator from the coalition to sit with the team during the session and support their work. Facilitators were also able to take the opportunity to interact with the teams and get a true picture of what their needs were. At the end of the two day session participants were asked to provide feedback on how the facilitators could provide follow up support. The needs assessment provided a wealth of information about the areas of need and the gaps in the programming being provided to children with autism in our area.

The coalition met a few weeks later to summarize the data and develop a series of professional development for the teams. The professional development was offered to the teams free of charge through the coalition. In addition, follow up meetings and face to face support was provided to teams who requested it.

The professional development series will begin in January. The proposed poster will outline the process, provide an illustration of the professional development series, and utilize photos and examples to enhance participant understanding. It is our hope that other communities across the nation will walk away with a model for providing support to children with autism from a macro-systems focus.

The series includes the initial two-day Ziggurat/CAPS training which serves as the framework for all successive trainings. Each follow up session will include a discussion of how the interventions and information provided will fit into the comprehensive planning systems the teams created during the initial training. Monthly sessions that will be defined and illustrated in the poster include training on visual supports, two-day TEACCH overview, social supports and the hidden curriculum, sensory supports, four-days of educationally based ABA, and a wrap-up/follow up to the initial Ziggurat/CAPS training.

We believe that the process developed and implemented in Ohio can serve as a framework for other districts across the nation. Children with autism deserve quality services and access to the general curriculum just as much as the next child, yet practitioners in the field are not prepared to support their needs. It is our duty as leaders in the field to provide the supports necessary to enhance practitioner knowledge and improve educational outcomes for children with autism in our communities.