Poster Session #1: UC Ballroom
Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
Jennifer Closson
Faculty Mentor’s Department
Communicative Sciences and Disorders
Abstract / Artist's Statement
With the current prevalence of 1 in 88 people, the incidence of autism has continued to rise and some consider it epidemic. Children with autism are challenged by social interaction such as missing social cues, lack of imitation, restricted interests, and possibly preferring to play alone. Many children with autism attend public schools and are educated in the general education classroom. Researchers have found that peers with typical social skills have great potential to positively impact students with autism; however, children often do not receive training on how to implement positive inclusion strategies despite attempts to educate parents, teachers, and administrators.
Our research addresses the outcome of teaching typically developing peers social situation awareness and inclusion strategies to use with their classmates with autism or low incidence disabilities. Our method of research will utilize the Montana Behavioral Initiative (MBI) strategies which implements three steps: teaching, practicing, and reinforcing positive behaviors. In combination with MBI, the evidence-based practice of video modeling will be used by showing the participants videos of peers of similar age conducting successful social interactions. A survey of speech-language pathologists in Montana conducted in January of 2014 revealed that a) asking a peer to play and b) sharing materials are priority for inclusion. These areas will be targeted in the study and data will be collected using formative and summative methods. Finding an effective and consistent method to teach typically developing peers how to implement positive inclusion strategies will result in inclusion of children with autism and other low incidence disabilities in the regular education setting.
Category
Social Sciences
Including Everyone: Training Typically Developing Children to Employ Positive Inclusion Practices
With the current prevalence of 1 in 88 people, the incidence of autism has continued to rise and some consider it epidemic. Children with autism are challenged by social interaction such as missing social cues, lack of imitation, restricted interests, and possibly preferring to play alone. Many children with autism attend public schools and are educated in the general education classroom. Researchers have found that peers with typical social skills have great potential to positively impact students with autism; however, children often do not receive training on how to implement positive inclusion strategies despite attempts to educate parents, teachers, and administrators.
Our research addresses the outcome of teaching typically developing peers social situation awareness and inclusion strategies to use with their classmates with autism or low incidence disabilities. Our method of research will utilize the Montana Behavioral Initiative (MBI) strategies which implements three steps: teaching, practicing, and reinforcing positive behaviors. In combination with MBI, the evidence-based practice of video modeling will be used by showing the participants videos of peers of similar age conducting successful social interactions. A survey of speech-language pathologists in Montana conducted in January of 2014 revealed that a) asking a peer to play and b) sharing materials are priority for inclusion. These areas will be targeted in the study and data will be collected using formative and summative methods. Finding an effective and consistent method to teach typically developing peers how to implement positive inclusion strategies will result in inclusion of children with autism and other low incidence disabilities in the regular education setting.