Wise County and VCU ACE Present
“Autism Spectrum Disorders for Paraprofessionals:  Providing Effective Instruction and Support”
Cindy:  Hello, I’m Cindy Bates from Wise County, and I’m here to talk to our paraprofessionals about 
some ACE Training that we had at the beginning of the school year.  ACE came down to Wise County to 
do some live training for our paraprofessionals, and we’ve been real pleased with that.  And, we’ll talk 
to you about it some today.
Channie, what is the one thing that you have walked away with from the training that has been really 
helpful to you  in your work with students with autism and other disabilities?
Channie:  The thing that I took away from the training was the visual schedule—learning how to use it 
more effectively.  We’ve always used the visual scheduling but now where it’s broken down into 
smaller pieces, the children understand it better. They are more independent.  They have fewer vocal 
prompts.  I have seen a major change in behavior issues.  It took a while to implement, but other than 
that, it has worked wonderfully for us. 
Cindy:  Now, I know that you all have used visuals in your classroom, but what I’m wondering is since 
you had the training, and you spent some time learning the purpose of the visuals and how they 
benefit students, do you feel like having that in depth understanding of the visuals has helped you 
when you’re implementing them with students?  
Channie:  Yes, I do. Yes I do. It has helped immensely.  They know what to expect. It’s not something 
thrown at them, here’s a piece of paper. This is what we want you to do. They can look at their 
schedule, and they know so they’re not beating their head or not throwing the tantrums. They know 
what to expect and that helps a lot.
Cindy:  Monica, tell me something that you learned from the paraprofessional training that was a new 
skill.
Monica: Well, you know, we’ve always worked with task analysis, but the one thing I didn’t realize is 
that you can actually take one task and break it down to even smaller tasks.  One of the things we 
worked with at the workshop we did our hands on was a simple task such as hanging up a jacket.  One 
of the things that we do is giving them a morning routine, and they would put your books away and 
hang up your jacket. But, we didn’t always realize that the one step would take two or three steps.  
So, I thought that was interesting that we could break one thing as simple as hanging up a jacket and 
make it three steps.  
Cindy:  Sherri, what is the one thing that you walked away with from the training that has been the 
most helpful for you in supporting students with autism?
Sherri:  Well, I use so many of these things every day.  We use social narratives. We use the five point 
scale. We use the visual aids, the role play, and these appear to be really working for the children and 
he’s making progress.  
Cindy:  We did do quite a bit of hands on activities around prompting and task analysis strategies.  How 
did this help you specifically?  
Sherri:  It gave me a deeper understanding, and it helped me learn some new techniques to use with 
my students.  It was very helpful.  I learned to use role play and helping understand emotions, the 
emotion chart, well I call it the emotion chart, the five-point chart, and we use that.  And to make sure 
the organizational area is the way that it needs to be.  A lot of great information was presented very 
well, I like the presentation.  
Cindy:  Amanda, tell me something you learned at the training that was a new skill for you?
Amanda:  A new skill that I probably learned was being able to do a task analysis where I’ve actually 
done some, but they explained that it needs to be more steps and to the point.  
Cindy:  Amanda, what is the one thing that you walked away from the training that has been the most 
beneficial to you in supporting students with autism?  
Amanda:  The most beneficial thing that I walked away with would be learning the functions and the 
severity of them, the behavior, knowing when to intervene and when not to.
Cindy:  Alma, tell me something you learned at the paraprofessionals training we had at the beginning 
of the school year.
Alma:  One of the things that I found very informative was even though they are in a class, an autism 
group, each one has their own individuality.  So, even though they are in that class, you can’t treat 
them as a group.  They still have to be treated and seen with their abilities and disabilities individually.  
Cindy:  Any other strategies or new things that you learned?
Alma:  One of the things that I did learn and that we went over was how to treat them differently.  
Something that worked for one may not work for another.  So, you constantly have to be in mind of 
how you—it’s not a one size fits all category.  It takes learning what their strengths and weaknesses 
are and in building on those depending on the child and depending on the behavior.  
Cindy:  Jackie, tell me something that you learned that was a new skill?
Jackie:  What we learned at the beginning of the year was the chart sticker and a chart that you could 
add four stickers to in reading if they had a worksheet we could say to the student “if you work and do 
your warm up, I’ll reward you with this sticker.  And then if you get four stickers and complete all your 
work today, you’ll get iPad time of ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”  And, I guess the second thing was 
the visual schedule we could use showing the student that we had to transition from one thing to the 
other.  We’re doing reading now, and then in fifteen minutes we’re going to the restroom. Then, 
we’re coming back. And then we’re going to do math, a warm up on math and a fading out as far as 
you can read the directions to the student and maybe just if you need help, giving them that 
confidence that they need. And I’ll be right over here if you need anything and just kind of step back.  
And then shadowing and not talking.  So a lot of times I would just prompt and tap them on the arm 
and say “look at your teacher.”  So that has really helped me. I have done that and it’s worked.  Now 
hopefully it will continue.
Cindy:  Alright, Tammy, tell me something that you learned that was a new skill for you at the training.
Tammy:  Well, basically I learned how to make the picture schedule. I have not had a chance to do that 
before with any of the students that I had worked with and so it kind of gave me the insight on 
children that could go with a regular written schedule.  
Cindy:  Could you share about some of the hands on activities that you did with the training?
Tammy:  Well, one of the really helpful hands on was that we had our partners. We paired up, and our 
partner had had a problem happen on the bus.  So, we had a mock situation where you had to get 
your partner off the bus, bring them in, and you have to figure out what happened that morning and 
they have no vocal skills.  They could only say one or two lines.  So, it was a very interesting situation, 
because you had to figure out what’s going on with them.  And it kind of opened my eyes to dealing 
with someone who has limited or no vocal skills.
Cindy:  What is the one thing that you walked away with from that training that has benefited you the 
most?  
Tammy:  The thing that I think I did not realize and that has helped me the most is realizing that 
someone with autism does not have the social skills that necessarily others may.  They may have social 
skills, but they may not. And interacting with our peers, you really have to take that into consideration. 
And, I did not realize how hard it was for them to interact and I guess taking, going the extra mile, 
because some of them may not be able to vocalize what’s going on in their life at the moment. And, 
you really need to take that into account when dealing with them.