“We can’t just put them in a grade level,” Pagliaro said. The key is to ensure that educators look not just at the child or simply identify skills to be taught, he said, but that the educator takes a child’s individual abilities and comfort levels into account.
A quantifiable system for measuring progress also is critical.
“We need to make sure what we’re measuring is something that’s easily observable. If two or more people can agree on when the skill is happening or not happening, we’re using a reliable system,” he said.
Training educators and their helpers for an autistic learning environment is a process that must be standardized, said Pagliaro. He said it’s important to provide verbal and written instruction, have the skill modeled by an experienced specialist, and provide verbal performance feedback. He also pointed to video use as a way to standardize training.
“When you use video modeling as a form of training, performance increases. People like it, as opposed to lecturing them or having someone come in and tell them how to do something. It’s also more economical,” Pagliaro said.
“Educating Children with Autism,” a 2011 report from the National Research Council, discussed effective ways to teach students on the autism spectrum.
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