Designing Comprehensive Interventions For High Functioning Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorders

This book presents a process and framework for designing interventions for individuals of all ages with ASD, while staying consistent with current trends in education, including response to intervention (RTI), evidence-based practices, and positive behavioral supports.

This textbook presents a process and framework for designing interventions for individuals of all ages with ASD while staying consistent with recent special education trends, including response to intervention (RTI), evidence-based practices, and positive behavioral supports. The Ziggurat Model 2.0 is updated and expanded with the latest research and a new version of the Underlying Characteristics Checklist for Early Intervention (UCC-EI).

This book first explains autism, its prevalence, and some conventional intervention techniques, and it then describes how virtual reality technology can support autism intervention and skills training. The approaches and technologies covered include immersive virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality. The tasks covered include emotion recognition, affective computing, teaching communication skills, imparting literacy skills, training for imitation skills, and joint attention skills. Most of the chapters assume no prerequisite knowledge of autism or virtual reality, and they are supported throughout with detailed references for further investigation. While the author is an engineer by profession, with specialist knowledge in robotics and computer-based platforms, in this book she adopts a user perspective and cites many real-life examples from her own experience. The book is suitable for students of cognitive science, and researchers and practitioners engaged with designing and offering technological assistance for special needs training.

Combining their years of experience working with individuals on the autism spectrum, the authors bring practical ideas and teaching methods for offering visual supports to students with autism spectrum disorders.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. ​This handbook synthesizes and analyzes the growing knowledge base on life course health development (LCHD) from the prenatal period through emerging adulthood, with implications for clinical practice and public health. It presents LCHD as an innovative field with a sound theoretical framework for understanding wellness and disease from a lifespan perspective, replacing previous medical, biopsychosocial, and early genomic models of health. Interdisciplinary chapters discuss major health concerns (diabetes, obesity), important less-studied conditions (hearing, kidney health), and large-scale issues (nutrition, adversity) from a lifespan viewpoint. In addition, chapters address methodological approaches and challenges by analyzing existing measures, studies, and surveys. The book concludes with the editors’ research agenda that proposes priorities for future LCHD research and its application to health care practice and health policy. Topics featured in the Handbook include: The prenatal period and its effect on child obesity and metabolic outcomes. Pregnancy complications and their effect on women’s cardiovascular health. A multi-level approach for obesity prevention in children. Application of the LCHD framework to autism spectrum disorder. Socioeconomic disadvantage and its influence on health development across the lifespan. The importance of nutrition to optimal health development across the lifespan. The Handbook of Life Course Health Development is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology/science; maternal and child health; social work; health economics; educational policy and politics; and medical law as well as many interrelated subdisciplines in psychology, medicine, public health, mental health, education, social welfare, economics, sociology, and law.

When a child with an autism spectrum disorder is also visually impaired, the effects on learning and behavior and complex and varied. Two exceptional educators condense their years of personal and professional experience into a one-of-a-kind handbook of effective ways to work with such students, including suggestions and approaches for assessment, instruction, and program planning; forms and tools for capturing vital information; information on assessment instruments, instructional materials, and web sites rich in important advice. Professionals and educators, as well as parents, will find critical guiding principles and valuable strategies.

Children are being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders at a staggering rate—as many as one in 110, according to some studies. To this sobering statistic add the familiar figures of the toddler disengaged from his peers, the middle schooler shunned in the lunchroom, and the adult struggling with social cues on the job, and professionals are faced with a mounting challenge: to assist and support young people with these disorders to ensure their successful transition to adolescence and adulthood. The first volume dedicated solely to its topic, Interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorders provides a comprehensive overview of programs currently in use. Contributors explore programs focusing on long-term outcomes, home- and classroom-based strategies, resilience training for parents, and pharmacological management of symptoms. Background chapters review issues in reliability and validity of interventions and evaluating treatment effectiveness. And an especially cogent chapter discusses the centrality of treatment integrity to best practice. Comprehensive programs and targeted interventions covered include: The Early Start Denver Model for young children. The TEACCH program for children, adults, and families. The Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) and CARD eLearning. PROGress: a program for remediating and expanding social skills. Evidence-based strategies for repetitive behaviors and sensory issues. Self-regulation strategies for students with autism spectrum disorders. Interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorders is an essential resource for researchers, professionals/practitioners, and clinicians in a wide array of fields, including clinical child, school, and developmental psychology; child and adolescent psychiatry; education; rehabilitation medicine/therapy; social work; and pediatrics.