Supporting Students with Autism
AFIRM Modules are designed for staff working with learners with Autism.
The AFIRM courses listed below are approved for remote work days and eLearning/snow days. You will register in click the link below for each course you would like to complete. Remember to submit the COMPLETION FORM for each once you have finished.
Each of these courses is approximately 1-3 hours.
Foundational Skills
- This module contains information about the characteristics of autism, including social communication, repetitive behaviors, thinking and learning, and how to support learners.
Reinforcement is used to increase the chances a learner with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) will use a target skill or behavior.
Prompting is used to help the learner with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) successfully use a target skill or behavior.
Time delay is used to systematically fade the use of prompting for a target skill or behavior.
Exercise can improve physical fitness and increase targeted behaviors.
Modeling is used to visually demonstrate a skill or behavior to a learner.
Social skills training refers to adult-directed instruction used to address social skills.
Visual supports present information in a way that helps learners with ASD focus on key elements.
Intermediate Skills
Antecedent-based interventions can be used to decrease an identified interfering behavior and increase engagement by modifying the environment.
Differential reinforcement is an application of reinforcement designed to reduce the occurrence of interfering behaviors (e.g., aggression, self-injury, stereotypic behavior).
Discrete trial training can be used to teach a new skill or behavior.
Extinction is a behavioral principle that can be used to decrease or eliminate an interfering behavior by withholding the consequences that are maintaining it.
Peer-mediated instruction and intervention (PMII) supports positive and meaningful social interactions between peers and learners with ASD.
Self-management systematizes self-regulation strategies for learners with ASD.
Scripting is a visual or auditory cue that supports learners to initiate or sustain communication with others.
Structured play groups are small group activities with a defined area, activity, theme, and roles with typically developing peers and an adult scaffolding as needed to support the learner with ASD's performance.
Social narratives help learners with ASD understand social situations and what is expected of them.
Technology-aided instruction and intervention refers to instruction or intervention in which technology is the central feature supporting the acquisition of a goal for the learner.
Advanced Skills
Cognitive behavioral intervention is used to teach learners strategies to change negative emotions or thoughts from escalating.
Functional behavior assessment can address interfering behaviors.
Functional communication training can be used to replace interfering behaviors with more appropriate and effective communicative behavior.
Parent implemented interventions (PII) consist of practitioners collaborating with, training, and coaching parents to implement evidence-based practices (EBPs) with their children throughout daily routines and activities.
By using PECS (R), the learner with ASD will develop a system of communication and promote speech development and production.
Pivotal response training is an intervention that integrates principles of child development with those of applied behavior analysis (ABA).
Response interruption and redirection can be used to eliminate or reduce interfering behaviors.
Task analysis breaks down complex target skills or behaviors into smaller steps. Team members then work with the learner to systematically teach the individual steps.