The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

As the incidence of students with ASD increases, public schools are faced with the challenge of creating effective individual programs and services. Comprehensive planning is critical to the development of successful indivudalized educational programs, IEPs, for students with ASD. This session provides an in-depth description of a district- wide approach to integrating the Ziggurat Model into the special education planning process, including evaluation, behavior consultation, and program planning. As the incidence of students with ASD increases, public schools are faced with the challenge of creating effective individual programs and services.  Comprehensive planning is critical to the development of successful educational programs, IEPs, for students with ASD.  Comprehensive programs are more effective than those developed “piece-meal” and help to ensure that staff implement the program in a consistent way.  In recent years, parents and schools have begun to recognize the value of comprehensive planning and have embraced the approach for students with ASD.  This shift towards true individualized and holistic planning has required a new approach to working as a team, identifying underlying needs, addressing the students’ needs comprehensively.  This session provides a description of how to seamlessly integrate the Ziggurat Model, a framework for comprehensive planning, into the school district’s special education planning process including evaluation, behavior consultation, and program planning.  Following an overview of comprehensive planning, two school professionals explain how their district is implementing this process and improving educational programming for students with ASD. 

The Ziggurat Model contains five-levels in a hierarchal structure that must be included in a comprehensive intervention plan.  These areas are: Sensory and Biological; Reinforcement; Structure and Visual/Tactile Supports, Task Demands, and Skills to Teach. Each level represents an area that must be addressed in order for an intervention plan to be comprehensive.  Interventions at each level are selected to address the individual’s true needs to ensure that “the autism” is addressed.  Thus, interventions are meaningful – meeting underlying needs instead of masking them.  Examples of school-based interventions for each level of the Ziggurat will be presented.

Effective comprehensive planning requires systems change both at the student and district level.  School professionals have adopted the Ziggurat Model to create this change.  Two such professionals, a specialist in school psychology and an educational diagnostician, explain how their district successfully adopted this approach. 

At the student level, teams, comprised of parents and school staff, utilize the Ziggurat Model to develop a comprehensive individualized program.  The team uses the Underlying Characteristics Checklist (UCC) to evaluate underlying needs, related to ASD, to ensure that the IEP directly addresses the disability and the Individual Strengths and Skills Inventory (ISSI) to identify present levels of academic and functional performance.  The team determines priorities, based on input from parents and staff, through a student-centered approach.  Last, a comprehensive behavior intervention plan is developed based on the five levels of the Intervention Ziggurat. 

At the district level, procedures are in place ensuring that all newly identified students with ASD have a comprehensive program based on the Ziggurat Model.  For students currently in special education, the IEP team works to develop a comprehensive plan with support from the district.  Specifically, district professionals provide consultation and staff development training to build capacity within schools.  Last, documentation has been streamlined to create standardization across schools.

Participants will be able to:

• Discuss advantages for using a comprehensive planning process in a school district in order to address student needs
• Identify how the Ziggurat Model assists district professionals in meeting the requirements of the IEP process
• Describe tools for identifying the underlying characteristics of ASD and individual strengths and skills
• Identify strategies for designing comprehensive programs on a limited time “budget”

Learning Objectives: