Abstract and critique of Training Teachers to Use Naturalistic Essay

Abstract and critique of Training Teachers to Use Naturalistic Communication Strategies in Classrooms for Students with Autism and Other Severe Handicaps - Essay Example The goals and objectives are used as an assessment tool. It is called the â€Å"Individualized Education Plan†, which is a plan for each individual student. These steps are later observed in the classroom for implementation. The teachers are observed by the SLP and at any given point the teachers will be given immediate feedback by the SLP ´s corrective measures during the observation process. The teachers have to follow the suggestions given by the SLP and does not continue to the next step until the teacher has accomplished the task. The SLP gives the teacher feedback, after a 10-minute observation is done by using the â€Å"Communication Maintenance Goals checklist†. The SLP gives the observations to the teacher and the teacher gives the supervising teacher the feedback after reviewing them. The teacher should reach an 80% of competency after three consecutive observations. This study was tested in two special education classrooms at The May Institute, Inc. The children that were observed had severe communication deficits, social withdrawals, aggression, and self-injuries behaviors. The children received one-to-one and small group instruction on pre academic and academic skills, vocational skills, self-help routines, and recreation programs. There were eight children involved in this study made up by two groups of four. The children were diagnosed as having autism, severe mental retardation, or pervasive developmental delay. Their ages ranged from 7 years to 13 years. Two of the children took medications (insulin and clonodine). For the reliability, the observers had an agreement of 86% to 96% in the frequency of elicited communication maintenance goals which was 90% and for the frequency of spontaneous communication maintenance goals which ranged from 72% to 95% reaching an agreement of 81%. The authors selected one of the children, Tim, for an in-depth analysis. They presented the