Taking a strengths-based approach, the author discusses how special interest areas can be used to motivate and engage individuals with autism. The author of this article found that when students were involved in activities incorporating their special interest areas they felt better about themselves and demonstrated improvements in social, communication, emotional, sensory, and fine motor skills.
This book provides strategies designed to target improvement in the social skills of individuals with autism to facilitate the development of self-efficacy. Evidence-based practices include scripting, video-modeling, social narratives, and prompting.
This book provides specific lessons on how to foster self-efficacy in students with autism through instructional practices such as errorless learning and discrete trials and by using evidence based practices that include visual supports, task analyses, and video modeling. Lesson plans are included in the book and reproducible activity supports are available here.
Incorporating special interest areas into school activities may lead to increases in motivation and engagement which ultimately may increase self-efficacy. Strategies to incorporate special interest areas into everyday routines and classroom lessons are provided in this book.
Group social skills training provides students with autism a safe, supportive environment where they can learn and practice social skills in a setting where they cannot fail. With multiple opportunities to practice and rehearse skills, students increase their self-confidence and realize their efforts produce positive results. The Super Skills curriculum provides lessons on joining in, reading body language, giving encouragement, waiting, and many others. Visual supports, checklists, and an assessment are included.
This book provides lessons and activities designed to support students with classic autism. Lessons utilize evidence-based practices to engage and motivate learners. An assessment, recipes, lesson plans, extension activities, and visual support examples are included.
The essence of self-efficacy is the motivation to engage in a task and the belief that one can accomplish the task. Providing visually structured tasks and supports at the appropriate instructional level with appropriate reinforcement may promote motivation and engagement in students with autism, leading to successful task completion. Experiencing success with tasks promotes self-efficacy. This book provides multiple examples of visual supports and tasks to engage all ages and ability levels in the areas of academic skills, communication, social behavior, and motivation.