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| Consultative Speech and Language Services for Children with Autism and Severe Developmental Disabilities |
| Friday, May 26, 2006 |
| 6:00 PM–9:00 PM |
| Vinings |
| Area: AUT; Domain: Applied Research |
| CE Instructor: Laura M. Hutt, M.S. |
| LAURA M. HUTT (New England Center for Children), BETH O. BELLONE (New England Center for Children) |
| Description: Children with autism and severe developmental disabilities present with critical needs in communication and difficulties acquiring, maintaining and generalizing skills. Consistent and extensive instruction is required to insure that learning and subsequent performance increase. Direct pull-out speech and language treatment may not adequately address the communication deficits of children with autism. The American Speech Language and Hearing Associations (ASHA) 1993 position statement endorses the consultative model as an effective way to provide services. In a consultative model, children receive several hours each day of direct instruction from their teacher targeting their individual communication needs. Data collected from the ASHA National Outcomes Measurement study indicate that children of many ages made more and better progress when they received treatment delivered in this manner. At New England Center for Children, this model includes presenting 1) learning opportunities, 2) prompting accurate performance for both teachers and students, 3) reinforcement of correct performances, and 4) systematically fading prompts. Training teachers to provide instruction in speech and language ensures more learning opportunities in the settings that the target skills must be used. Participants will learn to present the benefits of the model to school administrators and parents, provide trainings for teachers, 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 |
| Activities: Case studies with video and/or written examples: Participants will identify classroom and individual goals, environmental factors, and training issues. Motivating operations, antecedents, target behavior, and reinforcement will be identified for the student and for the trainer. Analysis of consumer, service, and organizational factors will be conducted and participants will make decisions on implementing this type of service plan. |
| Audience: Behavior analysts working in school systems, school personnel, speech and language pathologists, direct care staff, teaching aides |
| Content Area: Practice |
| Instruction Level: Intermediate |