Goals of structured teaching methods and visual supports

Goals of structured teaching methods

Click on the link to view an Introduction to The TEACCH Approach.

Structured teaching is a visually based approach to creating highly structured environments that support children and young people with autism in a variety of educational, community, and home or living settings. It promotes independence by utilising strategies that align with the strengths and needs of children and young people with autism as it incorporates physical and visual boundaries, visual schedules, routines, work systems, and task organisation.

Structured environments and classrooms can promote a clear understanding of the schedules, activities, and expectations for the children and young people with autism and their teachers. (TaskExamplesAIM) (How to Make a Task PDF)

They:

• Promote independence and give meaning to the environment
• Can transform curriculum, learning activities and tasks into concrete, visual sequences that support the student as he or she may have difficulties with Executive Function and may also have poorer communication skills
• Allow for understanding and with predicting what is happening in the classroom
• Support the prediction of the expectations of behaviour and task completion
• Support the acquisition of additional and novel skills
• Promote the generalisation of skills from one particular environment or setting to another (Iovannone, Dunlap, Huber, and Kincaid, 2003).
• Structure is not faded or removed but is modified and adjusted

Visual Supports

Use visual instructions, rules and classroom schedules adapted to meet individual preferences and needs.

• NAS Autism spectrum disorders resource pack for School Staff
• Visual Support and Autism Guidance
• Visual strategies
• Visual schedules
• National Autistic Society Visual Supports

Using visual strategies allows students with autism to participate effectively and independently in the classroom setting.

Kidder 2015, Visual Aids for Positive Behavior (SIC)

Fletcher and Morley, 2016 claim, that visual supports are important as they

• Can make life more predictable and reduces anxiety
• Help the student know what to expect
• Give the child time to focus
• Allow child to refer back
• Support social communication
• Support emotional regulation
• Encourage independence, i.e. transitions
• Encourage consistency and procedure, expectations and routines across all people working with the child
• Verbal language and gestures are often not enough
• Physical guidance can pose a threat.

When we present information verbally, the words are available for a brief moment, leaving little time to process the information, extract the meaning and complete the task or activity required.

When we present information visually, it can be there for as long as the student needs it. The student can refer back whenever he or she needs to and it allows of independently completing task, request or activity.

It allows the student to have a clear pathway of expectations and to know what he or she should be doing in a particular environment. This can lead to increasing levels of independence. Schack (2014) reminds us,

“An overreliance on adult prompting can create a barrier to independence for individuals with autism. However, through the use of pictorial activity schedules, video modelling (sic), work systems, and social stories, individuals with autism spectrum disorder can learn to function independently in a variety of contexts.”

• Promoting Independence among Individuals