Working with Dorothy Siegel as I did in developing the ASD Nest program, as well as with Terry Feuer of the Office of Special Education School Improvement, and with support from Linda Wernikoff who heads the Office of Special Education Initiatives, I designed the Intensive Kindergarten (Intensive K) program model to address this second population. The Intensive Kindergarten is a one-year transitional program. It serves as a partner to the ASD Nest kindergarten program, and its goal is to enable children to move into an ASD Nest kindergarten class after one year.

Unlike the ASD Nest, the Intensive K is not an inclusion program, although it is structured to support interaction between children in the Intensive K and those in the ASD Nest kindergarten  in several ways, e.g., with easy flow-through for visitation in both directions, with some joint activities, and with selected children from the Intensive K participating in activities in the ASD Nest kindergarten class after November or December.

The Intensive K was instituted on a pilot basis in one school during 2007-08. A second site was added in fall 2008. What the Intensive K has to offer is a small class (6 children), with less pressure to implement the academic curriculum of the kindergarten, and with lots of instruction in the areas that made it unlikely for a particular child to function well in the ASD Nest. Those areas include self-regulation, language development and communication, and extreme anxiety.

In summer 2008 a draft version of a manual for the Intensive K was completed. That manual is undergoing expansion and revision based on increased understanding and development from the second pilot year. We now see the ASD Nest and the Intensive K as a package, with two ASD Nest kindergarten classes plus one Intensive K class at a site. We hope to be able to institute that package in additional schools during the coming couple of years. That will not be easy as this package requires three classrooms the first year and two additional classrooms each year as the program ages up; and the Intensive K requires highly skilled support. Without such support, and without very strong teachers, the Intensive K will not be successful.

Student assessment and program evaluation are essential to identifying, selecting and evaluating effective interventions and educational programs for students with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As the number of children classified as autistic increases, school personnel can benefit from increasing their understanding of the role that evaluation plays in determining student instructional needs and designing and evaluating effective programs and interventions. Evaluation provides the data needed to design appropriate and effective instructional contexts that promote student learning and achievement, goals of our federal laws (IDEA, 2004; NCLB, 2001).

Students with ASD are a heterogeneous group presenting with a wide range of neurodevelopmental deficits and high rates of learning and behavior disorders; all of which can challenge their ability to access the general education curriculum, engage in the instructional process, and participate in the least restrictive environment. With features of the disorder affecting multiple developmental areas and symptoms varying in severity across students and across the age span, school personnel need to routinely evaluate the unique learner characteristics and instructional needs of each of their students. In addition, the instructional context (e.g., curriculum, instruction, positive behavior supports) also needs to be routinely evaluated in order to identify and provide effective interventions and supports.

It is only when the instructional context is aligned with the student’s instructional level and contains the appropriate social and behavior supports that he/she will learn. While this might seem the sole responsibility of the individual teacher or therapist, school administrators need to ensure that district infrastructure supports educational personnel in the use of these evidence-based practices. Therefore, formalized on-going program evaluation is a necessary component in all districts wishing to ensure that their students are achieving. This requires a commitment by the school district to ensure that its policies and procedures support school personnel in gaining the knowledge, skill and ability to engage in meaningful student evaluation that allows for the identification of the student’s instructional needs, identification and application of appropriate interventions, progress monitoring, and evaluation of the student’s response to the intervention.

Because educational programs and/or interventions derived and evaluated in the context of research do not always translate to the field, student and program level evaluation are necessary to demonstrate that a district and its personnel are applying effective practices. Evaluation should, therefore, become a part of the daily repertoire of all school personnel. Successful ASD programming requires school leaders to understand the needs of their students, create school contexts that contain elements of effective practice in ASD education, and policy and procedures that ensure research-based elements are translated into practice to improve student outcome.

Evaluation provides the data that are needed to make informed decisions about student and district programs and to assist with problem-solving for those programs, interventions or practices that are ineffective. Please join our talk scheduled for 8:30 am on March 7^th to hear me discuss the fundamental role that evaluation plays in evidenced-based practice in ASD education, and the issues and considerations in designing appropriate student assessment and program evaluation protocols.

When I was a child, I was good at drawing and art and terrible at algebra.  My parents encouraged my ability in art and I used my ability to visualize in my career designing livestock facilities.  People on the autism/Asperger spectrum have uneven skills.  They are often good at one type of learning and bad at another.  Educators need to work on building up the area of strength.  There is often too much emphasis on deficits.  The most successful individuals developed their areas of strength.  I have observed that there are three different cognitive patterns in autism/Asperger’s:

1. Visual thinkers like me.  I think in photo realistic pictures. Suitable careers would be graphic   design, industrial design, or animation. The area of weakness is algebra.  Some visual thinkers can do geometry and trigonometry.

2. Pattern thinkers have more abstract visual thinking.  They are able to see patterns and relationships between numbers.  Good careers would be engineering, math or computer programming.  Reading is often a weak area.

3. Word thinkers who know every fact about their favorite subject.  They are not visual thinkers and they are often good at journalism and technical writing.

Teachers and parents need to work with people on the autism/Asperger spectrum to develop their strengths.  Additional information may be found in my books:  Thinking in Pictures and Developing Talents.

Teachers and parents need to work on helping the individual to develop skills that can be turned into good careers.  I am a visual thinker and my ability in art was encouraged.  I use my visual thinking skill in my work designing equipment.  Another child may be good at math.  He may be able to do advanced math, but need special education in  reading.  A big mistake is to put too much emphasis on the deficits and not enough emphasis in building up the area of strength.

As reported by the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control, the rate of children being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has risen dramatically, to an estimated one in 150 children.

Where are these children being educated? How well are they doing?

In 2002, educators in the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school district in the country, sought to answer these questions. They conducted a study of the growing number of higher functioning students on the autism spectrum attending New York City public schools. Led by District 15 Superintendent Carmen Farina, and with support from Dorothy Siegel of New York University and Shirley Cohen of Hunter College, the educators studied the research findings of the National Academy of Sciences’ 2001 report, Educating Children with Autism. That report stated that the school environment must be the “major vehicle for therapeutic change.” That became the goal of the ASD Nest Program, which Superintendent Farina piloted in September 2003 in Brooklyn’s PS 32.

The ASD Nest Program is built on the Collaborative Team Teaching (CTT) model, modified to meet the needs of higher functioning children with ASD. Nestled within supportive neighborhood schools, the program helps children with ASD learn how to function well academically, behaviorally and socially in school and in their community.

The program creates a therapeutic environment in which the requisite supports are provided by a transdisciplinary team of specially trained educators and therapists. Weekly team meetings/case conferences, professional development and time for co-planning and collaboration are built into the program.

ASD Nest classrooms provide the same academic curriculum as other classrooms in their schools on that grade level. In addition, Nest classrooms utilize selected instructional strategies and behavioral supports designed especially for children with autism spectrum disorders and other exceptional conditions. The Nest program also utilizes a Social Development Intervention curriculum derived from a combination of the concepts and practices of Relationship Development Intervention by Steven Gutstein, Social Thinking by Michelle Garcia Winner, and other social-cognitive approaches. The SDI curriculum, developed primarily by Susan Brennan, a speech/language pathologist who has been working with the ASD Nest program since 2003, is implemented across all settings across the school day.

As of the 2008-09 school year, the Department of Education supported 59 ASD Nest classrooms from kindergarten to eighth grade serving 235 children with ASD in 15 neighborhood schools (14 elementary schools and 1 middle school) across all of New York City. Nest programs begin with two kindergarten classes. As the children progress through first, second and higher grades, their schools open Nest classes to accommodate them. Linda Wernikoff, Executive Director of the Office of Special Education Initiatives of the New York City Department of Education, has guided and nurtured the ASD Nest program from its inception.

Interested parents/guardians of New York City schoolchildren should contact:

CSE 1: Dorothy Leone, 718-294-1109

CSE 2: Karen Reis, 718-324-2854 x1740

CSE 3: D. 25, 26: Melissa Haidary, 718-281-7668; D. 28, 29: Xicheng Zou 718-281-7517

CSE 4: Elissa Finkelstein, 718-391-8468

CSE 5: Aña Rodriguez, 718- 240-3542

CSE 6: Freya Novack, 718-968-6224

CSE 7: Linda Clark, Brooklyn: 718-759-496; Staten Island: 718-556-8304

CSE 8: Elementary: Maritza Quinones-Buckley, 718-330-9295 X151 (T, W, Th)

Middle: Madeline Fisher, 718-330-0329 x5191

CSE 9: Nilofer Naqvi, 917-339-1752

CSE 10: Diane Carnegie, 212-342-8391

For general information, contact Terry Feuer at tfeuer@schools.nyc.gov or Dorothy Siegel at Dorothy.siegel@nyu.edu.