Activity Schedules for Children With Autism: Teaching Independent Behavior (Topics in Autism)
- Book Review,
by Lynn E., Ph.D McClannahan, Patricia J., Ph.D Krantz
From Library Journal
Aarons and Gittens are London speech therapists who have taught autistic children for 25 years. Their book is a thorough introduction to autism, covering diagnosis, assessments, history, prognosis, and methods of education. Still, while the background and history are helpful, the intended readership is British. Sections on educational alternatives, British sign language, British education acts, and therapy options in Britain will be of little use to U.S. readers, who need immediate, close-at-hand help. Temple Grandin's Thinking in Pictures (LJ 1/96) and Emergence might be better choices. The McClannahan/Krantz book covers one method of helping autistic children learn: using activity schedules. These schedules teach autistic youngsters to follow words, pictures, or other nonverbal prompts to complete all varieties of tasks. Autistic children, often seen as antisocial, can benefit from a self-motivated plan to complete jobs at home, enjoy leisure time, or simply perform the daily activities of dressing and preparing for school. The book details how to set up activities, relate prompts to action, and follow through so that autistic children can become independent of verbal commands that parents or teachers might give. Illustrated with charts, photos of children, and examples of visual prompts; for larger public libraries.ALinda Beck, Indian Valley P.L., Telford, PA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Activity schedules-simple, yet revolutionary teaching tools-enable children with autism to accomplish activities with greatly reduced adult supervision. An activity schedule is a set of pictures or words that cues a child to follow a sequence of activities. When activity schedules are mastered, children are more self-directed and purposeful in their home, school, and leisure activities-doing puzzles, interacting with classmates, and preparing food with minimal assistance from adults. In Activity Schedules for Children with Autism, parents and professionals find detailed instructions and examples to help them: assess a child's readiness to use activity schedules; prepare an activity schedule; understand graduated guidance; monitor progress; expand social skills; and progress to written schedules. Based on a decade of research conducted at the Princeton Child Development Institute, Activity Schedules for Children with Autism offers a proven teaching tool to help children with autism make effective use of unstructured time, handle changes in routine with more ease, and choose among an established set of activities independently. It can be used successfully with young children, adolescents, and adults, rewarding them with more control over their lives.
From the Publisher
A Review... "Currently, popular works on autism intervention tend to fall into a few broad categories including, but not limited to: Group A: Opinion books, in which assertions about treatment are based largely upon the author's personal beliefs, masquerading as received wisdom (what "we" supposedly know or do not know about autism). Little if any quality research is cited to back up such opinions: authors tend to cite not peer-reviewed studies, but their own fame, their 'thirty years in the field.' Typically, such works trumpet the appealing but unfortunately vacuous premise that there are 'many options' for treating autism, while offering no clear description nor solid scientific support for such options. Such opinion-based works have contributed heavily to the lack of effective services autistic children. Group B: Coping Books, whose authors (typically not parents themselves) claim nevertheless a deep understanding of the impact of autism on families. These authorities see their job as analyzing various parental personality types and their respective abilities to cope with an autism diagnosis. While such coping is a laudable goal, it is a matter of some debate whether the great majority of these books actually achieve that end, or whether they simply prolong the Bettleheimian model of psychoanalyzing parents, instead of offering concrete help for their children. Group C: Descriptive books, in which the authors set about seeing how many new and different ways they can reformulate, redescribe, and recategorize the symptons of autism. As a parent I know remarks, 'How many ways can you peel an onion?' In this bleak literary landscape, the occasional work that is actually data-based, and strongly anchored in both credible research and solid clinical experience, is a rarity. When such a work also offers concrete help for people, it becomes a blessing. McClannahan and Krantz have written such a book. Their Activity Schedules for Children with Autism offers practical, step by step advice on how parents and teachers can help children to learn and to function with greatly reduced adult supervision. Using the teaching tool called activity schedules-sets of pictures or words that cue a child to engage in a sequence of activities-they demonstrate how children can be taught to independently engage in everything from playing with toys to holding social conversation without reliance on constant adult prompting. For the many parents who cannot access good, center-based programs for their child, this book represents a generous source of truly expert knowledge and concrete assistance. For those who want to increase their effectiveness in working with autistic children, this work provides clear discussion and clear examples of an important teaching tool. Chapters cover topics of assessing a child's readiness to use activity schedules, as well as constructing, introducing, monitoring and fading such schedules. Apparent throughout the work is the authors' deep and caring commitment to increase independence, choice and social interaction for the children they serve." --Science in Autism Treatment, Spring 1999
About the Author
Drs. McClannahan and Krantz are Executive Directors of the Princeton Child Development Institute, a community-based, nonprofit program that offers science-based services to children, youths, and adults with autism.
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