Part+2+-+Group+6

=Group 6 - Part 2 - Chapter 5=

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Social Stories are an effective strategy where a student with ASD learns desired responses through story-like scenarios. The character in the story (can be the student himself) goes through an experience with appropriate responses and results. Students can learn how to respond to change or stress. They can learn how to behave in specific social situations. The can be used also for such things as inclusion into environments, explaining behaviour of others, student specific social skills and teaching new academic skills. The stories can be written by parents, educators and others.======

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Effective social stories describe a situation from the perspective of the student, direct the student to the apropriate behavior, use the voice of the student ("I" perpsective), and are consistent with the students' cognitive development.======

The process for developing a social story includes the following steps: 1. Identfy a student need (i.e. difficult situation) through observation and assessment 2. Observe the difficult situation and try to understand the perspective of the student -- what the student sees, hears, and feels 3. Write the story, with the student (if possible), at an appropriate comprehension level and from the perspective of the student, and includes descriptive, directive and perspective statements.

Choose one communication strategy and describe it.
Echolalia is where a student repeats what his has heard rather than appropriately responding, immediately or after the fact. Echolalia may be a natural process in the language development for students with ASD. For example, someone asks, "how are you?" and the student responds "how are you?". Delayed echolalia may have no meaning to the listener as information is stored in chunks without regard for meaning. A situation or emotion may trigger this.

You can use immediate echolalia to train/teach appropriate responses by phrasing the response. The use of declarative language (descriptive statements rather than directive statements) models the desired expressive language development for children. eg. teacher: I would like to stop now. Student: I would like to stop now. -- The teacher then stops the activity. Eventually the student learns the appropriate phrase to stop an activity, along with the consequence or logical connection of their speech.

Choose one strategy concerning restricted repertoire of activities, interests and behaviours and describe it.
Taking advantage of the behaviours for instruction purposes can help students learn content. If a student is interested in a specific thing/topic (cars, a character, numbers) use their interest as themes in subject areas. For example, have student create a project on cars or have their characters appear in a math problem. You can ask a student to write about one aspect of their interest to help them narrow and focus on one element and develop writing and research skills.

Taking advantage of the behaviours for instruction purposes can help students learn self-management skills and to develop emotionally and socially. For example, if a repetivie behavior is used as a calming strategy, the student can be taught other methods to calm him or herself.

Taking advantage of behaviours can also be used to motivate students by using these behaviours as a reward, depending on the behaviour.

Choose one strategy to address an associated feature of ASD and describe it.
Scattered Developmental Profile: This refers to the wide range of cognitive ability and levels of functioning as a result of variations in associated features. It is important for the school team to develop a clear understanding of the students' developmental profile, so that classroom teachers are able to plan appropriately. Often teachers run into difficulty when planning due to mixed messages given by a student's learning. The student is often seen as being smart due to good memory and excellent vocabulary. This can be troubling to students who see that being smart and doing well is an essential part of his identity. For students with the ability to communicate, it is important to take the time to discuss their abilities and their learning disabilities. There needs to be direct instruction on strategies they can use to manage their learning disability including self-advocacy. The message I give is that learning make take more effort, more time and/or more help but it can be done.