Meaningful Curriculum and Functional Intervention for Adults with Autism

Bahry, Shanna; Cauchi, Jessica; Driscoll, Natalie M.; Gerhardt, Peter F.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-98507-3_18

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…For example, teaching an individual to cross the street while in the classroom is unlikely to generalize to the community without additional instruction in the community. As individuals get older, the proportion of instruction delivered in schools and clinics should be reduced and replaced to the greatest extent possible with instruction in the context in which the skill will ultimately occur (Bahry et al, 2022a;Gerhardt & Bahry et al, 2022;Gerhardt et al, 2013). Long-term planning is crucial because individuals will only be in the classroom for a finite number of years, but will be out in the real world for the rest of their lives.…”

Section: How To Teach: Effective Interventions For Meaningful Goalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adulthood Begins in Preschool: Meaningful Curriculum in Support of Increased Independence for Individuals with Autism

Gerhardt¹,

Bahry²,

Driscoll³

et al. 2023

iejee

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A meaningful curriculum is one that is individualized, inclusive of the individual’s unique needs and interests, and focused on building independence in current and future environments. A meaningful curriculum addresses an individual’s needs and prioritizes instructional programs based on what is, potentially, most important to their lives and not simply a somewhat arbitrary list of isolated skills. A meaningful curriculum is one that puts as much emphasis on skill acquisition outside of the classroom as it does on skill acquisition within the classroom or school. Unfortunately, the use of meaningful curricula to educate autistic students would seem to be something of a rarity, which may help to explain the consistently poor outcomes that individuals with autism and related disorders experience in adulthood. In this article, the authors make recommendations that may help practitioners to mitigate these outcomes by providing instruction in curricula that place a focus on adaptive behavior skills, the intersection of the individual, respectful intervention, and an emphasis on these important topics beginning in preschool, and increasing in importance and complexity across the lifespan.

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Section: How To Teach: Effective Interventions For Meaningful Goalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adulthood Begins in Preschool: Meaningful Curriculum in Support of Increased Independence for Individuals with Autism

Gerhardt¹,

Bahry²,

Driscoll³

et al. 2023

iejee

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“…As such, we suggest that practitioners in roles responsible for the skill acquisition of their clients in some capacity have a great responsibility to teach the right skills using the right procedures in the right contexts that may help affect outcomes (see Bahry, Cauchi, et al., 2022; Bahry, Gerhardt, et al., 2022). In 1978, Wolf described the goal of applied behavior analysis as solving problems of social importance, or those problems that have value to society.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving goals written for individuals with autism: Preliminary results on assessing meaningfulness and relevance to adulthood

Bahry,

Gerhardt,

Weiss

et al. 2024

Behavioral Interventions

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In general, individuals with autism spectrum disorder have poor outcomes in adulthood on almost any measure assessed. Poor outcomes, in part, may be related to inadequate planning leading up to adulthood, including inappropriate goal setting, ineffective communication, and inadequate involvement of all decision‐makers needed to inform planning. The skills in the repertoires of individuals on the spectrum have been shown in the research to directly impact the trajectory of outcomes. Yet, at present there is next to no peer‐reviewed literature that identifies evidence‐based procedures to teach practitioners how to write meaningful goals that will positively impact these outcomes. The present study therefore examined the effects of a treatment package aimed at improving the quality of goals written by clinicians and students of applied behavior analysis. Overall, this study showed that for at least some participants, the independent variable improved the quality of skill acquisition goals, as measured by expert and advanced practitioner ratings as well as self‐assessed ratings. Both experiments yielded statistically significant increases in both dependent variables for the experimental group, when compared to the control group. These promising initial findings have implications for practitioners who hope to adequately plan for the future of those they serve by targeting those skills that will positively affect outcomes.

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