Learners with Autism

 PROACT-SCIPr-UK

The PROACT SCIPr-UK curriculum aims to provide a whole approach in supporting pupils with challenging behaviour.

Each pupil has a Behaviour Support Plan, which ensures all staff are consistent in providing proactive strategies to support pupils with challenging behaviour, including calming strategies (ACTIVE) and those for dealing with behaviour as it occurs (REACTIVE).

PROACTIVE

Interventions encompass what we, as carers, do to reduce incidences of challenging behaviour, help the pupil cope in situations and what we are going to teach the pupil as a replacement for the behaviours.

To ensure that we are PROACTIVE at school, all tasks are motivating and manageable in duration and content, offering choice within lessons, use of Sensory Programmes and appropriate therapies, reward systems, individualised timetables, break systems and encouraging and developing effective communication.

TEACCH        

The Treatment and Education of Autistic and related Communication-Handicapped Children (TEACCH) is an evidence based service, training and research programme for individuals of all ages and skills with autism spectrum disorders.

Programme principals include:

• Understanding the culture of Autism
• Developing an individualised person centred planning for each pupil
• Structuring the physical environment
• Using visual supports to make the sequence of the day predictable and understandable
• Work systems.

The programme is composed of four separate concepts, including:

1. Visual structure: visual clarity, instructions and organisation.
2. Physical environment: specific areas for dedicated learning tasks, marking clear boundaries, making materials easily accessible, structured learning areas in order to help focus attention on relevant information.
3. Visual schedules: to help a pupil organise and predict events, lessen anxiety, help pupils transition between activities; promote independence and build flexibility.
4. Work systems: to increase the ability to work independently, generalise skills and enable the pupil to understand their work load, work purpose, how will they know they have finished and next steps.

Attention Autism

A strategy used in Pathway lessons, attention autism was devised with the aim of meeting autistic learners’ needs. The approach is based on the understanding of ‘typical’ attention levels and the development of infants, the strengths of a person with autism as a visual learner and the characteristics of autism including difficulty with social communication, interaction, rigidity of thought and sensory processing differences.

The structure is divided into four parts:

1. To focus attention
2. To sustain attention
3. To shift attention
4. To focus and sustain attention in a group, then transition shifting attention to individual activity and refocus to the group.

Terminology Guide