Autism Grants & Projects

The Autism Program in involved in a number of different grants focused on enhancing services to districts and teams working with students with autism spectrum disorders.

ASD Instructional Assistant Training Project

The WESD Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Program provides training to develop a cadre of local district and regional program instructional assistants trained to address the specific needs of students with ASD. The Project includes competencies for instructional assistants working with students with ASD; provide intense and ongoing training for the instructional assistants; provide mentorship; enhance opportunities for university credit; build capacity for districts to provide instruction for students with ASD.

Behavior Crisis Response Guide

Through funding from the Oregon Department of Education, the Behavior Crisis Response Guide was developed to provide

• A template of crisis response procedures that schools can easily adopt to the unique needs of their schools
• Task lists, forms, and suggested procedures to help schools prepare, implement, and review Behavior Crisis Protocols across three specialized teams
  • Administrative Behavior Crisis Team: outlines administrative guidelines for communication, missing student search procedures, and use of intrusive behavior interventions.
  • Behavior Crisis Team: building level team that plans and responds to Unsafe Behavior and Missing, Evasive, and/or Runaway crisis situations.
  • Individual Education Program Team: conducts functional behavioral assessments and develops Behavioral Intervention Plans for students as needed.

Social Skills Curriculum

The end product of this grant will be a three-volume curriculum for students with Asperger’s Syndrome, which will address the social cognitive needs of students, preschool through high school. It will combine two products Manual for Adolescents with Asperger’s Piloting Social Success (MAAPSS) and I’m Experiencing Technical Difficulties. The first volume of the curriculum will be the teacher’s guide and will include: a review of the research, a description of how the curriculum is organized, the student assessment tool, sample IEP goals, information on how to structure a social skills group, group management techniques and instructional supports. The second volume will be for preschool and elementary aged students. It will contain lesson plans and student activity sheets covering the deficit areas that these students experience. The third volume will be geared toward older students. Some of the areas to be addressed include: organizational skills, self advocacy, perspective talking, pragmatic skills, problem solving and relationships.

Regional Program Autism Training Sites (RPATS)

Through a grant and partnerships with the Oregon Department of Education and Portland State University, the Autism Program has established model classrooms and curriculum for intensive learners with autism. The classrooms are in both the Early Childhood Special Education Program (ages 3-5) and in elementary schools. The curriculum are designed around three instructional strategies: discrete trial teaching, pivotal response training, and functional routines. The curriculum used in the model sites is based on THE STAR PROGRAM (Strategies for Teaching Based on Autism Research).

A parent training program is now available for parents of young learners with autism. Additional programs are in development for middle school and high school students with ASD. These include Adjusting the Image and FACTER: Functional Assessment & Curriculum for Everyday Routines.

Additional information on this research is available at the Autism Spectrum Disorders Outcome Study and Training Project