Educating The Students With ASD

Abstract

A fundamental goal of teaching is to help students develop to their fullest potential by giving them the necessary skills to function in society. This goal is no different for students who are students with autism. Autism has been found to occur in children at all levels of intelligence, a degree of intellectual disability ranging from mild to severe retardation is found in the majority of cases . As many as three quarters of children with autistic disorders have an IQ score below 70 (Sue et al., 2000) and ongoing special education is usually required to address their learning needs. Children with autism remain among the most difficult students to place successfully in mainstreaming classrooms (Whitman, 2004). Those with severe autism are usually functioning intellectually at a level too low; even cope with the demands of an adapted curriculum. The characteristics and learning styles associated with autism are important to consider, particularly their import on learning and in planning an appropriate educational programmes for the child. Children with autism exhibit difficulty in appropriately processing incoming information. Therefore, teaching strategies for children with autism will be different the strategies used for other disability children. Simply delivering academic instruction is insufficient for this population. Only when students with ASD are exposed to effective strategies, supporting the development and active use of social-communicative skills will really begin to positively affect the overall quality of their lives. Traditional models of teaching emphasize an expert imparting knowledge to a novice learner, demonstrating a skill or way of doing that maximizes the potential of the learner. A big part of teaching is deciding which skills to develop and how to teach those skills.  But it is necessary to modify teaching practice.