The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

Help your students with Asperger’s/ASD surmount challenges in social communication and executive functioning. In response to a combination of direct instruction, contextual coaching and video review and school-wide positive behavior support, see how students at the Temple Grandin School improve their awareness and practice of these critical real world skills. 1. Introduction of Perspectives and Temple Grandin School (TGS)

 Adolescents on the autism spectrum have unique strengths and highly individualized learning profiles (NRC, 2001; ASHA, 2006). The coaching model of Perspectives has been developed in collaboration between the Speech, Language, Hearing Center at CU Boulder and TGS to address the social communication needs of students with Asperger's and similar learning profiles.

2. Brief history of social skills training for students with ASD

 While many adolescent students in the high functioning range have received intervention through a "social skills training" approach (Burgess & Turkstra, 2006; Matson, Matson & Rivet, 2007; Spence, 2002), much of their social learning may remain at the "knowledge," rather than "performance" level. Without insight into the perceptions, motivations and intentions of others, specific skills are likely to be used in a rote, perfunctory manner.

 School clinicians frequently note this discrepancy, and find that although students demonstrate knowledge on standardized tests such as the Test of Pragmatic Language and the Social Language Development Test- Adolescents, they are not able to utilize that knowledge in everyday contexts. Hence, the call by the National Research Council (2001) as well as ASHA (2006) to use multiple assessment measures, including observations, parent/teacher checklists of social communication functioning in everyday contexts, as well as standardized assessments is warranted. 

3. The Social Competency Continuum

 Expanding on descriptions of an acquisition process in social learning by Bandura (1977) and others, the Perspectives team has developed the Social Competency Continuum to include the stages of awareness, knowledge, performance and proficiency. Challenges including sensory reactivity (DSM-V, 2013), reading context (Vermeulen, 2012), and executive function skill deficits (Charman et al., 2011; Pellicano, 2010) may interfere with the application of social knowledge into performance. Faculty and clinicians identify how these challenges impact individual students through observations and through the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF).

4. The Perspectives Model

 Perspectives encourages students to identify strengths in social communication and target one area to strengthen. A framework for reading context and making an adaptive approach to social interaction is presented in large and small group settings. Within small group activities, clinicians provide explicit coaching using visual supports. In individual coaching, clinicians use video review of the student's interactions to increase awareness and identify opportunities for students to practice their self-determined strategies. As students make progress toward their specified objective, long-term goals are also addressed.

5. PBS: Connecting Knowledge and Performance

TGS employs a school-wide Positive Behavior Support program to increase student awareness and practice of executive function skills. Students earn points for behaviors that reflect positive engagement with academic and social learning. In addition, each student identifies one behavior or executive function skill to target for increased awareness and/or practice.

TGS provides direct instruction about executive functioning, and how it impacts students. The use of a school-wide shared vocabulary helps students increase awareness and acceptance of their need for compensatory strategies, which they implement with increasing independence. Long-term progress is monitored with twice-yearly administration of the BRIEF.

Learning Objectives: