What is the best method for teaching students with Autism Spectrum Disorders?
This is a very complicated question that does not have an easy answer. By virtue of the spectrum nature of ASDs, it does not make sense that there would be one way of working with all these students. Research has also not provided us with strong comparison studies of methodologies. There is, however, strong evidence that good instruction includes strategies based on the principles of applied behavior analysis. Most effective educators are using these strategies even if they do not call it ABA. Some of these strategies include: reinforcement, task analysis, errorless teaching/learning, error correction/transfer techniques, discrete trials, prompting/fading, shaping, chaining, extinction, mixing and varying tasks, and interspersing easy and difficult tasks. In addition, strategies from different methodologies are not necessarily incompatible. It is most important to assess a students needs, implement an instructional strategy to address those needs, monitor progress related to this instr
