(32) Autism
VIDEO
What is TEACCH?
TEACCH is an acronym for Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication-Handicapped Children. It was developed at the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina in the 1970s and was the first comprehensive state-wide community-based program of services for children and adults with autism and other similar developmental disorders.
Today, TEACCH provides a wide range of services to a broad spectrum of toddlers, children, adolescents, adults, and their families including diagnosis and assessment, individualized treatment programs, special education, social skills training, vocational training, school consultations, parent training and counseling, and the facilitation of parent group activities.
TEACCH offers a structured teaching approach based on the idea that the environment should be adapted to the child with autism, not the child to the environment. The program is based upon a thorough understanding of the child’s functioning level.
Teaching strategies are designed to accommodate a child’s identified strengths and weaknesses. TEACCH does not employ a single therapeutic method for a child’s treatment; rather, it uses the best available approaches and methods for an education with the goal of having that child achieve their maximum level of autonomy. Special emphasis is placed on helping people with autism and their families live together more effectively by reducing or removing “autistic behaviors.”
Some of the unique aspects of this program include:
Improved adaptation. They employ two strategies of adaptation. They work to improve a child’s skills by means of education, and they modify the child’s environment. These strategies accommodate the child’s deficits and decrease his or her stressors.
Parent collaboration. Parents are considered as cotherapists for children in this program.
TEACCH therapists work with parents to teach them therapeutic techniques and advise them about how to modify the home environment for the benefit of their child, so that techniques utilized in school can be continued at home.
Assessment for individualized treatment. Through regular assessment of the child’s abilities, unique educational programs are designed.
Structured teaching. TEACCH programs use a structured teaching environment. Research demonstrated that children with autism benefit more from a structured educational environment than from free approaches.
The TEACCH approach is not without its critics. Some feel that the program is too structured. Others complain that autistic children are often distracted by the charts, organizational aids, and schedules the program utilizes. Finally, critics assert that TEACCH discourages mainstreaming of autistic children.
Terms:
Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication- Handicapped Children (TEACCH) - A structured educational program that targets both the strengths and weaknesses that are often seen in children with autism. It is a project of the University of North Carolina.
Mainstreaming - The concept that students with disabilities should be integrated with their nondisabled peers to the maximum extent possible, when appropriate to the needs of the child with a disability. Mainstreaming is one point on a continuum of educational options. The term is sometimes used synonymously with inclusion.
