Please answer the following question:

Complete the Appendix A: Self-Evaluation of Competencies for Consultants and People Teaching Students with ASD tool in the textbook. According to the survey, which two areas were your strongest areas of competency and which two areas were your weakest areas of competency.What might you do to build upon your strengths in your practice as an ASD consultant? What can you do to help build competency in your weak areas?

Read “Compass: A Parent-Teacher Collaborative Model for Students with Autism,” by Ruble and Dalrymple, from Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities (2002).

URL:

http://foa.sagepub.com/content/17/2/76.short

Respond to the following students discussions:

(KRS) As we continue our journey to become ASD specialists, we have learned many different strategies to work with students with ASD. It is important for the educator to become knowledgeable on all aspects of autism, and how we can assist. This self-evaluation form is a wonderful tool to provide new consultants and determine the areas of need that they need to study to increase competencies. Two of my strongest areas are assessment and IEP development, and involvement with school personnel. Majority of the staff in my building are not experienced in autism and often feel overwhelmed with strategies to help the student. I have found when the student has additional needs, such as behavior, I can assess the student with specific behavioral goals that can develop into FBA/BIP’s. The IEP must be developed and include enough information that if the student moved, another district will understand the student and be able to implement the same strategies with ease. I think team work is essential when working with special education and this year I have been chosen to assist the School Success Plan. The district won a large amount of grant money to implement Stetson strategies to improve special education. I think I will be able to assist the staff to include inclusive practices and improve outcomes for all students.

My weakest area on the self-assessment is medical needs and daily living and programming for students with ASD. In my current setting, we are a self-contained academic setting. The students follow a daily schedule and go to 7 different classes a day. We do not see the medical side of autism, nor do we focus on daily living skills. If students are affected by these skills, they usually are not in our setting, and would be in the more restrictive environment. Also with this setting, we do not plan a program for students with ASD. In my classroom I have to meet the grade level and modified standards in Science, all with meeting the accommodations of all students IEP’s. During the summer months I work in the more restrictive environment, where I have continued to learn strategies to implement with students. I believe working more in depth and collaborating, can increase my knowledge on these topics.

(AMB) Ruble, Dalrymple, & McGrew (2012) outline a survey that allow consultants to self-evaluate their expertise in various areas of knowledge relating to students with ASD. After responding to the prompts, I found that I demonstrate areas of strength and weakness. Areas of strength included collaboration with parents and involvement with school personnel. These areas are directly related with each other, as they both include collaboration efforts. These strengths can be built on through continued collaboration with parents and service providers not just when developing an IEP or instructional plan, but also to identify ways to provide ongoing support to students that is adjusted based on levels of progress.

Areas of weakness included positive behavior support and medical needs and daily living skills. Positive behavior support can be strengthened through continued learning and understanding of the function of particular behaviors. Often times, teachers reinforce a problem behavior by providing an inappropriate consequence. Other areas to build competency can include understanding how to identify and teach replacement behaviors, using data to modify behavior supports, and identifying the function of a behavior before implementing a behavior modification strategy. Knowledge of medical needs and daily living skills can be increased through ongoing research of the specific needs of individuals with ASD and how these needs affect their day-to-day functioning. Understanding these specific needs will increase outcomes for these students.

Reference

Ruble, L., Dalrymple, N. J., & McGrew, J. H. (2012). Collaborative model for promoting competence and success for students with ASD. New York: Springer.

(MICH) I like the Self-evaluation forms. The forms would be a good quality indicator to use when hiring personal who work with ASD students. The questions are specific and would give a better understanding of a person strength and weaknesses. I feel the two areas I am strongest in would be Area 1: Programming for ASD students and Area 8: Involvement with School Personnel. I have a decent amount of experience applying ABA practices and as I am in and out of inclusion classrooms all day I work well with staff on collaborating with them. The two areas I am weakest in are Area 2: Inclusion, Public Policy, and the Service System and Area 6: Medical Needs and Daily Living Skills. While I am excellent at inclusion in the academic environment I know very little about public policy other than know IDEA and what it covers. I would like to know more about local policy as well. I will be interning with an ASD specialist that has a private practice and his wife is also in the field. She works with the city of Houston on strategic planning doe implementation of American’s with Disabilities Act. I hope to intern with her as well. By interning with this ASD specialist doing in-home training for parents and their ASD child I hope to gain a broader knowledge base on the daily living skills that are needed outside of the academic environment. Sadly I do not feel I get enough ABA experience working in a public school but I do not feel I have enough experience to work in a behavior facility just yet. Interning with this particular ASD specialist who is also a contractor for my school district will hopefully fill in some areas I am lacking.