Assessment and Intervention for Autism
Do you have a child with Autism? Are you an educator or a therapist that works with children with Autism? I wanted to share two wonderful resources with my readers today available from Future Horizons. Both of these tools can be helpful with regard to assessing a child with Autism and then using a video modeling intervention strategy for intervention.
The Autism Inventory Development (AID) by Roya Ostovar was designed to be a tool to gather critical information for the process of assessing for Autism Spectrum Disorder. This comprehensive assessment tools includes the following:
• Family History
• Child History
• Medical History
• Developmental Milestones
• Communication
• Cognitive and Executive Functioning Abilities
• Social Functioning
• Interests
• Sensory Integration and Processing
• Behaviors
According to the description, “The AID was created with two purposes in mind. First, it was created for clinicians to obtain a comprehensive record of a child’s history to assist in the diagnostic process. Second, and equally important, it was created for parents, caregivers, and/or family members to create a record for themselves that holds critical and important historical information for the individual being assessed.”
As a speech language pathologist that has worked with children diagnosed with Autism for over 18 years, I found this tool to be user friendly and very useful for assessment. I like how the sections are quick and easy to fill out without being overwhelming with open ended questions on the parents part. Since I evaluate many children at the preschool age, this tool would give me wonderful information for my assessments and will continue to be part of my toolbox!
Autism Inventory of Development
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Video Modeling, Visual Based Strategies to Help People on the Autism Spectrum by Stephen Lockwood is a functional intervention guide about using video modeling to build independence, transitions, play skills, social skills, teaching skills and vocational skills. This book is easy to read and can be a resourceful guide that can read over and over again. I also found it to be useful for both educators and therapists but equally helpful for parents and caregivers. The book is broken into sections by skills with ways to implement video modeling to meet specific goals.
What is video modeling? According to the Stephen Lockwood, “Video recording the individual to be taught or someone else, or finding commercially made videos highlighting the behavior to be taught. It is used to teach the skills and finally the individual is required to perform the skills.”
I love the intervention tool of video modeling and use it often in my speech and language therapy sessions. I have found it helpful to assist clients in daily living skills such as doing laundry, cooking simple meals and purchasing a small item at the store. I have used both commercially available videos as well as individualized videos and have seen great gains in skills with this type of intervention. I specifically like to use video modeling to meet specific social skills such as greeting, starting a conversation and taking turns in conversation. I found the examples in each chapter easy to relate to and the suggestions were helpful and easy to implement. Video Modeling is a book that should be a staple in special education classrooms, specifically with those that are working with children on the Autism Spectrum.
Video Modeling Visual Based Strategies to Help People on the Autism Spectrum
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