Autism TransD Model

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Autism TransD Model

• Sylvia F. Diehl, Ph.D
• Tanice Knopp, Ph.D.
• Pat Wilson-LaVigne, M.S.

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ASHA ad Hoc Committee on Autism

• Amy Wetherby (Chair)
• Sylvia Diehl
• Emily Rubin
• Adriana Schuler
• Jane Wegner
• Ann-Mari Pierotti (ex-officio)
• Celia Hooper (vice-president for professional
  practices)

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• ASHA Documents
• Position Statement
• Technical Paper
• Guidelines
• Knowledge and Skills

Available at www.asha.org
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TransD Model

• Created to address challenging issues
• Complex needs of students
• Fragmented services
• Specialized knowledge needs
• Collaboration issues
• Teacher/Therapist burn-out

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TransD Philosophy

• Professional development is ongoing and grounded
  in presenting needs
• Participants team to train one another across
  disciplines to plan, implement, and evaluate
  educational programming
• Allow integration of educational strategies
  across disciplines to meet complex needs

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TransD Philosophy

• Participants are not asked to give up current
  practices but to expand options
• Each program or school implements the key
  components in way that meets their teaming needs
• Participation must be voluntary

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Three Basic Functions

• Cross training of professionals,
  paraprofessionals, and parents
• Collaborative problem solving using evidence
  based practices
• Pursuing collaboratively created team goals

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Cross Training of Professionals

• Developed Trans-D manual from evidence-based
  interventions shared
• Within team
• Across teams
• Outside training
• Acts as a reference for problem solving
• Acts as a reference for new team members

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Some Evidence-Based Strategies in Trans-D Manual

• Numerous visual supports and strategies
• PECs
• Priming
• Social stories
• Visual modeling

• Self management
• Peer supports
• Thought bubbles
• Scripts
• Pivotal Response Training

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Collaborative Problem Solving

• Adapted from Positive Behavior Support Procedures
  (Carr, 1999)
• Challenges
• Whats been tried
• Results
• Prevention
• Skills
• Intervention if challenging behavior happens
  (Dependent on context)

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Collaborative Problem Solving Example

• Seth
• 3rd grader
• Team Members
• General education classroom
• Teacher and a paraprofessional
• Occupational Therapist
• Speech/Language Therapist
• ESE Specialist

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Collaborative Problem Solving
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Independent Work

• Intervention
• Give written instructions
• Pause before helping
• Tap thought card
• Skills
• Increase ability to follow within activity
  schedules independently
• Use social stories to increase understanding of
  independent work

• Environmental Supports
• Daily schedule
• Within activity Schedule
• Color coding folders and markers
• Thought bubbles

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Daily Schedule(Massey Wheeler, 2000)

• Use interest pictures if not distracting to
  student
• Encourage self-management
• Teach how to handle change
• Encourage flexibility

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Within Activity Schedule (Hall et al., 1995)
Get Seths choice box
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Thought cues (Wellman, 2002)
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Option Cards(Moore, 2002)

• What I can do if I need help
• Think some more. Maybe I can figure it out.
• Look around. There may be a hint somewhere.
• Raise hand. Wait for teacher. Tell teacher
  problem

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Listening as Part of a Group

• Environmental Supports
• Priming (Koegel, 2003)
• Identifying attention getting words
• Decrease uninterrupted sitting time
• Intervention
• Use thought cues
• Visual key words on white board

• Skills
• Social stories to help understand group
  membership (Gray, 1994)
• Comic strip conversation symbols (Gray, 1994)
• Winners social thinking curriculum (Winner,
  2006)

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Comic Strip Conversations (Gray, 1994)
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Reading Comprehension

• Environmental Supports
• Same reading material as rest of class
• Priming (Koegel, 2003)

• Intervention
• Repeated listening to story
• Personal dictionary
• Skills
• Teach question words with visual sorting
• QAR relationships (Rafael, 1992)

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Reading checklist
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Question Answer Relationships(Rafael, 1992)

• Right there
• Think and search
• Author and you
• On your own

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Type of Team Projects

• Behavior and Data Collection
• Conversational language
• Inclusion issues
• Video modeling tapes

• Grant Writing
• Parent nights
• Case conferencing
• IEP goal/curriculum standards based lesson design

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Survey Distribution

• Survey
• 15 Likert type questions (4 point)
• 11 Open ended questions
• Survey distributed to the 49 members of team
• 25 members returned the survey (51)

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Survey Response
1 indicates strongly disagree, 2 indicates
disagree, 3 indicates agree, 4 indicates strongly
agree.

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Survey Response
1 indicates strongly disagree, 2 indicates
disagree, 3 indicates agree, 4 indicates strongly
agree.

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Survey Response
1 indicates strongly disagree, 2 indicates
disagree, 3 indicates agree, 4 indicates strongly
agree.

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Patterns of responses from open-ended questions

• Professional Benefits
• Learned new information/strategies
• cross-discipline ? behavioral strategies
• video modeling ? social stories
• knowledge of ASD
• Collaboration
• Improved professional relationships
• Support

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Patterns of responses from open-ended questions

• Personal Benefits
• Knowledge of ASD
• Understanding
• Compassion
• Comfort in working with students
• Support
• Self-esteem/confidence
• Friendship/peer relationships

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Patterns of responses from open-ended questions

• Benefits to other educators
• Learning effective strategies
• Inclusion knowledge/strategies/opportunities
• Behavioral strategies
• Input/sharing ideas

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Patterns of responses from open-ended questions

• Benefits to school
• Increased knowledge about students with ASD and
  best practices
• Professional support to staff
• Positive change in school environment
• Decrease in disciplinary issues

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Patterns of responses from open-ended questions

• Benefits to students
• Improved instructional skills that lead to
  student benefits
• Improved student learning
• bathroom skills
• eating skills
• social communication
• time on task
• behavior

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Problems and Intent to Continue

• Problems listed
• Scheduling
• Time
• Intent to continue TransD next year
• Yes 24
• No 01

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Comments

• Membership in this program and on this team has
  been the most worthwhile, meaningful,
  appropriate, effective, efficient, and valuable
  time I have ever spent in my 9 years in the
  educational system. I get more out of these
  meetings than from anywhere else that directly,
  positively impacts my students and my abilities
  as an effective teacher.
• This is a great project that allows us then
  much-needed time to collaborate as a team.

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Contact Information
Sylvia F. Diehl, Ph.D University of South
Florida Communication Sciences and
Disorders diehl_at_cas.usf.edu Tanice Knopp,
Ph.D University of South Florida Department of
Special Education tknopp_at_tempest.coedu.usf.edu
Pat Wilson-LaVigne, M.S. Sarasota County Schools,
Sarasota, FL pat_wilson-lavigne_at_sarasota.k12.fl.u
s
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Related References

• Adams, L., Gouvousis, A., VanLue, M., Waldron,
  C. (2004). Social story intervention Improving
  communication skills in a child with autism
  spectrum disorders. Focus on Autism and Other
  Developmental Disabilities, 19 (2), 87-94.
• Bryan, L., Gast, D. (2000). Teaching on-task
  and on-schedule behaviors to high-functioning
  children with autism via picture activity
  schedules. Journal of Autism and Developmental
  Disorders, 30, 553-567.
• Carr, E.G., Horner, R.H., Turnbull, A.P.,
  McLaughlin, D.M., McAtee, M.L., Smith, C.E.,
  Ryan, K.A., Ruef, M.D., Doolabh, A. (1999).
  Positive behavior support for people with
  developmental disabilities A research synthesis.
  Washington, DC American Association on Mental
  Retardation.
• Charlop-Christy, M. H., Daneshvar, S. (2003).
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  to Children with Autism. Journal of Positive
  Behavior Interventions, 5 (1), 12.
• Charlop-Christy, M. H., Le, L., Freeman, K. A.
  (2000). A comparison of video modeling with in
  vivo modeling for teaching children with autism.
  Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 30
  (6), 537-552.
• Gray, C. (1993). The original social story book .
  Arlington, TX Future Horizons
• Gray, C. (1994). Comic strip conversations.
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• Hall, L. J., McClannahan, L. E., and Krantz, P.
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• Koegel, L., Koegel, R., Frea, W.,
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• Massey, N., Wheeler, J. (2002). Acquisition
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• Raphael, T. "Question-answering Strategies for
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• Wilde, L., Koegel, L., Koegel, R. (1992).
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• Wellman, H. M., Baron-Cohen, S., Caswell, R.,
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