Buy essay on Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and (TEACCH)
The percentage of children having autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is increasing, and one of the key problems at schools is to determine optimal approaches for educating these children. Two most popular paradigms in this sphere are special education according to specifically designed programs, and inclusive education, where practices aimed to help ASD children are integrated into general learning process. Treatment and education of autistic and related communication
handicapped children (TEACCH) is a widely used teaching system created in the 1970s in the University of North Carolina, which is based on close collaboration between professionals and parents. The idea of structured teaching involves physical organization of the learning environment, visual schedules, structured work systems and special organization of tasks. The goal of the paper “Special education versus inclusive education: the role of the TEACCH program… treatment and education of autistic and related communication handicapped children” was to study the effectiveness of TEACCH applied in two different settings and general inclusive program for children with autism and severe mental retardation during a 3-year period. The authors claim that this study is the first comparison research with a long-term follow-up period.
The selection of educational environments performed by the authors was quite successful: the first group of participants was educated using TEACCH program implemented in a residential center; the second group participated in a TEACCH program “implemented at home and in mainstream schools after a specific parent psychoeducational training” (Panerai et al. 875). The third group was treated using an inclusive nonspecific program in mainstream schools. Thus, the research design can be evaluated as effective, because it allows both to analyze the effectiveness of TEACCH compared to inclusive education, and to study the effectiveness of TEACCH in different settings.
A significant limitation of the experiment is the number of participants: there were 34 participants in the first group, and only 13 children in the second group, and 11 children in the third group. Moreover, children in the first group were all male, which also decreases the generalizability of the experimental results. For greater reliability of research results, this experiment could be repeated for the groups with 40-50 participants, with comparable proportion of male and female children included in each group.
Effective choice of reliable research instruments in the analyzed study should be noted. The evaluation of children’s skills was performed twice, in the beginning and in the end of 3-year period, using Psycho-Educational Profile-Revised and Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale survey (Panerai et al. 875). Autism disorder and mental retardation were diagnosed using the Childhood Autism Rating Scale and Autistic Diagnostic Interview revised (Panerai et al. 876). Learning
Accomplishment Profile Revised was used to determine learning profiles and measure developments in particular domains for all participants. The authors applied ANOVA to test between-groups comparison, and ensured that there were no significant differences in learning profiles of the participants prior to the experiment. This approach partially eliminates the limitations of the study associated with the small number of participants.
The authors provide a detailed description of treatments and educational approaches used for all three groups. This increases the value of the study for educators, because they can apply these practices in educational setting. Seven areas of development are taken into account in this research, thus providing a detailed picture of the effect of different educational interventions on the development of children with autism and mental retardation. Statistical comparisons were applied to the results of pre-assessment and post-assessment using Psycho-Educational Profile-Revised and Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale survey for all areas of development. Results of the experiment and figures obtained using statistical analysis are presented in separate tables by the authors.
The limitations of the research are discussed in the end of the paper; the authors managed to describe major limitations, but did not mention the effect of external factors on the development of the participants during the selected 3-year period. The weakness of the study is the design which does not allow to identify or remove these factors; moreover, the results might have been more impressive if the measurements would be done annually. However, the findings provided by Panerai et al. (2009) are highly important for educating children with autism.
The results indicate that TEACCH appeared to be effective both in the natural setting and in the inclusive setting; the authors have also found out that the inclusive programs applied in mainstream schools are insufficient for improving the development of children with autism and mental retardation. Important implications of this research are the following: the role of parents in educating children with autism and mental retardation is very high, and parents should be specifically trained for such educational interventions; TEACCH program an be effectively used in the inclusive setting (contrary to suggestions of other researchers), and it is highly important to change the methods and approaches in education in order to address the needs of children with autism and mental retardation.
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