Psychology of Exceptional Children essays

Psychology of Exceptional Children essays Teaching On-Task and On-Schedule Behaviors to High-Functioning Children with Autism Via Picture Activity Schedules. In this article, the authors set out to prove the importance of the development and future use of visual activity schedules. It is believed that the visual activity schedule system will promote independent functioning of students with autism spectrum disorders in their least restrictive environments. PECS, or Picture Exchange Communication Systems, was claimed in the article to be effective in teaching students to use a type of picture-based system in order to communicate socially. Visual prompts, such as pictures and words, are thought to help children to identify their play choices during free play. They also teach a variety of tasks to people with disabilities including cooking and basic cleaning and custodial skills. Also, of importance in todays society, is the fact that they have been useful in teaching autistic people computer skills. The main goal in this article was to teach children with low-functioning autism to follow the visual activity schedule, in order to complete daily living tasks. These tasks include getting dressed, washing laundry, and setting the table. The schedules used visual prompts to show the students what work was to be completed. Many autistic children have trouble going from one activity to another. The visual schedules gave the students a structured environment for learning and performing. Each students individual activity schedule was displayed in a 4 x 6 inch plastic photo album with four line drawn pictures of academic activities. A 2 x 2 photo card was placed in a transparent plastic envelope that allowed only one picture per page. After the children were introduced to the visual activity schedules, there were immediate positive increases in the level of performance. When the schedules were taken away, there was a decrease in the per...