Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Hawthorne Elementary School teacher Tami White’s room has become a statewide training site in a special kindergarten program for children with autism.
“It’s kind of different,” said White, one of eight nationally certified special education teachers in Oregon. She runs a program called Practical Academic Life Skills (PALS), and an autism program called the Star Program.
The program was developed by Joel Arick, a professor at Portland State University, White said. “It’s a research-based curriculum. It combines strategies for teaching students with autism up to about second grade level, when you switch to other curriculum.”
Arick’s associate, another professor at PSU, has helped set up the Hawthorne site and visits regularly to provide feedback and answer questions. The program officially started on Dec. 14.
“The exciting thing is that he’s got these videos of kids and the progress they’ve made,” White said of Arick.
In those videos, she saw children who had no speech ability and no interest in what the teacher was doing, and all of them have made huge gains, saying words and playing.
Students with autism have difficulties in five areas, White said. Those include social interaction; communication; sensory issues, where too much light, for example, may bother a student; different patterns of behavior, for example, the child knows everything about sharks but cannot count to 10; and resistance to change.
“Lots of times, kids with autism, they’re really good at one thing but can’t follow directions,” White said.
White has 16 students total. At least six of them have “autism spectrum disorder.”
“There’s a huge range that falls underneath that umbrella,” White said. “They’re all so unique. They’re all so different.”
As a training site, teachers from around the state will come to Sweet Home for training, White said. “I’m just excited because I see the huge gains (Arick has) had with kids, and I want to do that. We’ve made a lot of progress, but I’m really excited because I’m seeing this and seeing now what we can do.”
Under the Star Program, White and her assistants have been working with two autistic kindergarteners on language, receptiveness and expression. The teachers want to see spontaneous play and social interaction, talking and playing.
The children do not have much flexibility, White said. Her job is to expand that and help them develop functional routines. Once they understand the structure of play or talking, the children’s routines can expand.
“You’re trying to teach them something they’re not interested in,” White said, so the program has a system of tasks and rewards.
For example, one nearly blind, autistic student likes to spin objects, White said. In one exercise, a teacher gets him to show a picture of crayons. When the boy successfully completes the task, he is given a chance to spin a spinner.
To complicate things, the teacher may include a distractor, such as a picture of a ball. The student must find the correct picture before getting a chance to spin.
The students are not learning through inquiry, as many children do, White said. Rather their learning process is more structured, more like rote, so a teacher may physically prompt the student. If autistic students learn a function wrong by missing the right answer the first time, it sets them back. They need to get it right immediately.
Most of these students will get a certificate of attendance in high school, White said. Some may earn a modified diploma. A few might get regular diplomas, but she has not seen that happen yet.
The Star Program is one of the first comprehensive curricula White knows of for children in kindergarten through second grade. It is supported by a large amount of data, and
White said she has been able to observe the progress in other programs that students in the program make.
Oregon has 11 early intervention training sites, White said. Seven, including Hawthorne, are elementary level. The Oregon Department of Education set up the training program through the local Education Service District.
If students are in her class, their disabilities are severe, she said. Through the Star Program and ongoing special education programs, “I’m hoping that they will be more functional.”