A Closer Look at Supporting Elementary Students with Autism in School
Precisely what does it mean to be impacted by autism? What is the prevalence of autism? Is there a difference between a medical and educational diagnostic criteria for autism? What are the common characteristics of autism? How are children with autism different from typically developing peers or neurotypical peers? Do these differences impact best instructional practices for children with autism? If so, what changes should be made to the way elementary children with and without autism are taught? The author will attempt to provide answers to these questions and others from a big picture or global perspective. Suggestions provided for extending these instructional practices to other age groups.
Evolution of Autism Diagnostic Criteria
Dr. Leo Kanner was the first person known to use the term autism as a diagnostic label (Harris 2018; Verhoeff, 2013). In 1943, Dr. Kanner used the term autism to describe a patient with social and emotional symptoms typically associated with schizophrenia. Kanner’s somewhat vague criteria for autism described individuals experiencing severe behavior, social and emotional challenges or severe “aloneness” from the rest of the world, sometimes nonverbal and usually with average or below cognitive skills. Dr. Hans Asperger expanded the definition of autism to also include individuals with typical or higher verbal and cognitive skills (Barahona-Correa & Filipe, 2015). Unfortunately, the realities of a world war limited the distribution and acceptance of Dr. Asperger's work, initially published in German in 1944. However, the march of time and progress does indeed heal all wounds. Over the years, progress has been made in the fields of technology, medicine, education, and human rights. Soon people impacted by autism, family members, disability rights advocates, educators, scientists, and others began to ask and expect real answers to pressing questions. Questions like: what exactly is and is not autism? What causes autism? Can it be cured? Can it be prevented? What should be done medically, educationally, and legally to support individuals with autism? Concerted efforts to provide clear, definitive answers to these questions began to highlight a significant stumbling block to further scientific research. All to often existing research was being undertaken without clear, quantifiable criteria for what is and is not autism. Lack of agreed-upon criteria led to challenges in replicating research, comparing the findings of one study to the next, and appropriately extrapolating the research findings to the various populations they were supposed to represent (McPartland, Reinchow &Volkmar, 2012; Peters & Matson, 2019).
In 2012, Drs. Catherine Lord and Rebecca Jones published an article titled “Re-thinking the classification of autism spectrum disorders stressing the need for a consistent, clear, leveled, quantifiable criteria to clearly describe the social-communication deficits and restricted / repetitive behaviors for both research and application purposes.” Lord and others within the field of autism have come to a consensus that the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual (with proposed changes to the fifth edition) by the American Psychiatric Association (2013) as being the most commonly used, valid source of disease criteria (Foley-Nicpon et al., 2017; Wiggins et al., 2019).