How the HighScope Approach Supports Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: Visual Strategies (continued)

Planning and review strategies using pictures and objects.

The planning and review processes support the child with autism by organizing an essential and open-ended component of the daily routine:work time. The High/Scope approach encourages teachers to use props and visual tools to support children as they make decisions about where and how they intend to work and play. For example, a child might be shown several objects from the interest areas and asked to indicate which ones he or she would like to work with that day. Similar strategies are used to facilitate language development as children recall their learning experiences after work time. These aspects of the daily routine help a child with autism anticipate upcoming events and transition to the next activity by putting a tangible beginning and closing to play at centers.

Clear physical boundaries and labels through- out the environment. The classroom environment sets the stage for child success. Teachers using the High/Scope approach use shelving, low furniture, and carpets to create distinct centers that promote interaction and extended play. "Mini-learning environments inherently promote hands-on, spontaneous learning. Each environment should include a range of learning materials that children and teachers can explore together at a variety of levels" (Greenspan, 1998). Additional visual information is provided through labels on interest areas and storage containers, allowing children to independently access and replace materials and understand where certain activities take place. The child with autism has a greater likelihood for success in an environment that provides information to give meaning to locations, activities, and materials that might otherwise seem foreign and confusing.

Adult-child interaction: imitation and modeling.

Children with autism often have great difficulty with receptive and expressive communication. Therefore, interaction and socialization are generally stressful for them.Adults in a High/Scope classroom often support children by using visual cues-action, imitation, modeling-instead of or in conjunction with words as they interact. For instance, they might join in a child's play by imitating what the child is doing. If a child is running a car up and down a wall by himself, the adult might sit next to the child and run a car up and down the wall too. She might then add another action and watch how the child responds.If the child seems comfortable with the adult's presence, the adult might add some simple words to describe what the child is doing: "You're making the car go up and down. "This approach is similar to Floor Time, a program developed by Dr. Stanley Greenspan (1998) that advocates joining a child in his or her play and expanding on the child's expression through gestures, comments on the child's actions, open-ended questions, and extension of language.  These methods of interaction invite children to socialize in a nonthreatening, supportive manner.

The most powerful visual strategy: peers.

Many children with autism spend most of their time with other children who have similar challenges. This may mean many hours in an environment with limited language models, few peer interactions, and a higher frequency of repetitive and possibly self-injurious behaviors. While these settings may be appropriate for some children, for others they may serve to exacerbate existing areas of deficit. Since children with autism seem to process information better through visual means, they do learn from watching the behaviors of others, whether positive or negative. In a High/Scope classroom with typical peers, with an emphasis on social interaction and child initiative, children with autism have many opportunities to experience and benefit from typical language and behavior as well as high expectations.