TEACCH Using Structured Teaching Outside of the Classroom
by Carolyn Penn
December 26th, 2002
Structured teaching with the use of schedules and work systems is well established within most autistic classrooms in this area. The challenge is using this structure when we move to other areas of the school, community or home in order to teach functional skills in a more realistic environment.
I had the opportunity to get to know one of the students and work with her for two weeks, in the Summer TEACCH training. One of the areas taught using structured teaching techniques during training is in the area of domestic/daily living skills. After conferring with the girl’s mother, it was decided we would try to teach her how to make a bed-not changing the sheets, but basic in the morning, making the bed.
We knew that she had strengths in reading, and in following directions. The first week a story was written with instructions on how to make a bed and she went to one of the hotel rooms we were using for training. The first attempts were not successful as we found the instructions were not concrete enough, asking her to make both beds in the room was too much, along with the fact that she as most "typical teenagers" do not like to do chores.
After conferring with her mother and her teacher from last year, I knew she loved peer interaction, and was a great TV fan. I decided to use these strengths and create a power point presentation to teach her how to make a bed. I convinced my high school aged son to help me with this. He came over to the hotel and we took digital pictures of him completing every step involved in making the bed. We put it into a power point presentation, wrote simple directions for each picture, added positive reinforcing statements along the way, and printed it off to make a booklet. We also made a checklist that included repeating small thumbnail photos of my son doing each step beside each item on the list.
The first day this was presented in 1:1 teaching. All of the materials were in a box as one of her work system tasks. When she first read what she was going to do, she was not excited at all and started to show some anxiety. I read each page very slowly and calmly to her and as we proceeded through the book, she became more relaxed, more engaged and even started smiling. After reading the book, she read a card that told her we would go to a room and make the bed. She immediately took the checklist, pencil and room key and took off. The room had already been set up with a labeled place to put the checklist and pencil. She went into the room, knew where to put her things and started to work. She followed the checklist, referring to the pictures as a guide, and was successful on the first day! I only had to stand in the background as support.
We repeated this each day in 1:1 for the rest of the week. By the end of the week, I was giving her a minute or two lead and waiting outside in the hall. She was able to complete this successfully every day. The next week it was moved to her independent work as one of her tasks and she continued to be successful. We did have one glitch one morning. She read her story and took off for the room. I followed a minute later and stood in the hall. All of a sudden I heard from the room "I’m finished, I’m finished"! I knew this would have been an all time record and went into the room. She gleefully was checking off each checklist item as it was apparent the maid had beat us to the room and the bed had already been made! She thought that was wonderful.
At the end of the training we sent the book and checklist home.
Carolyn Penn
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December 26th, 2002