Strategies for teaching common core to teens with autism show promise

Credit: High school classroom in Newark, Delaware, public domain image, courtesy of Wikimedia

Scientists at UNC's Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) report that high school students with autism can learn under Common Core State Standards (CCSS), boosting their prospects for college and employment.

Newly published recommendations from FPG's team also provide strategies for educating adolescents with autism under a CCSS curriculum.

Veronica P. Fleury

"The number of students with autism who enter high school settings continues to grow," said Veronica P. Fleury, lead author and postdoctoral research associate with FPG's Center on Secondary Education for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (CSESA).

"Many educators may find that they're not prepared to adapt their instruction to meet both state standards and the diverse needs of these students."

In 2010, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers released the CCSS for English and mathematics in an effort to better prepare students for college and careers.

According to Fleury, the greater demand for a technologically advanced workforce also makes academic skills now even more essential for high school graduates.

"But the college enrollment of people with autism is among the lowest for all categories of disabilities," Fleury said.

"In addition, less than 40% of the population with autism is employed, and most of those with jobs only work part-time, without benefits."

However, she said that academic performance in high school plays an important role in opportunities for a college education and employment.

Yet, while the CCSS outlines expectations of what educators should teach, it provides no guidance on how to teach these skills to students with or without autism.

Fleury believes the most effective high school instruction requires understanding the complex profile of students with ASD, who possess both strengths and weaknesses.

People with autism have some social deficits and may process language at a slower rate, she said, while many also have enhanced visual processing.

Some may have difficulty learning to make calculations, but others are mathematically gifted.

"It's extremely hard to draw general conclusions about academic performance for these students," Fleury said. "But adolescents with autism often do have difficulties comprehending texts, and many find writing a burdensome task."

Fluery added that work in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math) are replacing manufacturing jobs and may provide viable opportunities for many people with ASD.

She said people with autism often gravitate to these fields in college, highlighting the need to equip them as high school students with skills that will enable them to compete and achieve.

"While the very structure of high school poses challenges for students with autism, being able to anticipate and understand activities, schedules, and expectations can improve their ability to respond to classroom demands," she said. "Establishing routines and creating written schedules also helps."

In a new article in Remedial and Special Education, Fleury and her co-authors recommended several strategies to educate students with ASD effectively, including exposing them to assignments before presenting the work in class.

The researchers also noted a variety of techniques for delivering the highly explicit instruction that teenagers with autism require, such as teaching mnemonic devices for remembering steps in a task.

"High school students with ASD also need ample opportunities to practice skills across settings throughout the school day," she said. "And teaching them to monitor their own behavior can help them to use their skills in a variety of settings."

Fleury added that because there is a strong link between social and academic skills, new research should focus on developing interventions for students with autism that can address both areas of need together.

"We know that when students with autism receive appropriate instruction and support, many of them are capable of learning academic content that is aligned with state standards, AND better academic performance often leads to a more successful outcome after high school." she said.

Parenting Teenagers: Using harsh verbal discipline with teens is detrimental

Many American parents yell or shout at their teenagers. A new longitudinal study has found that using such harsh verbal discipline in early adolescence can be harmful to teens later.

Instead of minimizing teens' problematic or unwanted behaviour, harsh verbal discipline may actually aggravate it.

Ming-Te Wang

The study, from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Michigan, appears in the journal Child Development.

Harsh verbal discipline happens when parents use psychological force to cause a child to experience emotional pain or discomfort in an effort to correct or control behaviour.

It can vary in severity from yelling and shouting at a child to insulting and using words to humiliate.

Many parents shift from physical to verbal discipline as their children enter adolescence, and harsh verbal discipline is not uncommon.

A nationally representative survey found that about 90 percent of American parents reported one or more instances of using harsh verbal discipline with children of all ages; the rate of the more severe forms of harsh verbal discipline (swearing and cursing, calling names) directed at teens was 50 percent.

Few studies have looked at harsh verbal discipline in adolescence. This study found that when parents use it in early adolescence, teens suffer detrimental outcomes later.

The children of mothers and fathers who used harsh verbal discipline when they were 13 suffered more depressive symptoms between ages 13 and 14 than their peers who weren't disciplined in this way; they were also more likely to have conduct problems such as misbehaving at school, lying to parents, stealing, or fighting.

Moreover, the study found that not only does harsh verbal discipline appear to be ineffective at addressing behaviour problems in youths, it actually appears to increase unwanted behaviours.

Parents' hostility increases the risk of delinquency by lowering inhibition and fostering anger, irritability, and belligerence in adolescents, the researchers found.

The effect went the other way, too. Children who had conduct problems at 13 elicited more harsh verbal discipline from their parents between ages 13 and 14.

The study looked at 967 two-parent families and their children. About half were European American; 40 percent were African American and the rest were of other ethnic backgrounds.

Most of the families were middle class. Students and parents completed surveys over a two-year period on topics related to their mental health, child-rearing practices, the quality of the parent-child relationship, and general demographics.

Adolescents' conduct problems were assessed at ages 13 and 14 by survey questions like;

"In the past year, how often have you:

1. been disobedient in school, 
2. lied to your parents,
3. stolen from a store, 
4. been involved in a gang fight, and 
5. damaged public or private property for fun?" 

The response format ranged from 1 (never) to 5 (10 or more times).

Parents' behaviours indicating harsh verbal discipline were measured by questions like;

"In the past year, after your child has disobeyed you or done something wrong, how often have you:

• shouted, yelled, or screamed at the child, 
• swore or cursed at the child, and 
• called the child dumb or lazy or some other name like that?" 

Items were rated on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always).

"This is one of the first studies to indicate that parents' harsh verbal discipline is damaging to the developing adolescent," says Ming-Te Wang, assistant professor of psychology in education at the University of Pittsburgh, who led the study.

"The notion that harsh discipline is without consequence, once there is a strong parent-child bond—that the adolescent will understand that 'they're doing this because they love me'—is misguided because parents' warmth didn't lessen the effects of harsh verbal discipline.

"Indeed, harsh verbal discipline appears to be detrimental in all circumstances," Wang concludes.

Wang suggests that parents who want to modify their teenage children's unwanted behaviour would do better by discussing with them their concerns about the consequences of the behaviour.

The study's findings can inform parenting programs so that parents can learn alternatives to shouting and insulting their teens.

Closer Personal Relationships Could Help Teens Overcome Learning Disabilities

In addition to struggling in school, many learning disabled children are known to face social and emotional challenges including depression, anxiety, and isolation.

Often beginning early in childhood, they become more pronounced during adolescence, an emotionally turbulent time.

For these youngsters, more positive relationships with the significant adults in their lives -- including parents and teachers -- can improve learning and "socioemotional" experiences, says Dr. Michal Al-Yagon of Tel Aviv University's Jaime and Joan Constantiner School of Education.

In a recent study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, she reported that teens with learning disabilities were less likely to have secure attachment relationships to their mothers and teachers compared to peers without learning disabilities.

The absence of such close and supportive relationships had an adverse effect on the teens' social and emotional functioning, contributing to behavioral problems including isolation, depression, and aggression.

"We found that more secure child-adult attachments may act as a protective factor during this developmental period, whereas insecure attachments are a risk factor" for social and emotional issues, Dr. Al-Yagon says.

These results could help researchers design more effective interventions for children and adolescents with learning disabilities. Helping to strengthen their relationships with parents and teachers may decrease their emotional and behavioural problems.

The power of attachment
Attachment theory, which describes long-term relationship dynamics, seeks to explain how parental involvement, availability, and support can shape a child's social and emotional development. Insecure attachments are damaging to a child, hindering future relationships with peers, romantic partners, and family members.

For this study, Dr. Al-Yagon measured the socioemotional state and the security of attachments to parents and teachers for 181 adolescents with learning disabilities and 188 with typical development, all between the ages of 15-17.

Participants completed a series of questionnaires regarding their attachment to their mother and father, perceived teacher availability and rejection, loneliness, experience of positive and negative emotions and behavioral problems.

Adolescents with learning disabilities were discovered to have less secure attachments with significant adult figures compared to their non-disabled peers, which had a direct impact on their socioemotional state.

Within the disabled group, those who had more secure attachments to their mother and father, or who considered their teacher caring and available, exhibited fewer negative emotions, feelings of loneliness, and behaviour problems -- all of which can interfere with learning.

Building closer relationships

These findings can help guide clinicians in developing effective treatment strategies, says Dr. Al-Yagon.

Examples include family intervention techniques that focus on creating more secure attachments between parents and children, or school workshops to help teachers understand the needs of their learning disabled students and make more of an effort to include them in classroom activities.

While social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties cannot be entirely avoided, Dr. Al-Yagon believes that a little effort, care, and attention can go a long way toward helping learning disabled children and teens feel happier and more secure.

"Parents and teachers should be aware not just of academic difficulties, but also of socioemotional difficulties -- and work to treat them. They should not avoid or ignore issues such as depression or aggression, which are another dimension of the original problem," she advises.