COMMUNICATION AND ASD

Communication and social exchanges are essential to everyday life. Impairment in communication is one of the core diagnostic characteristics of ASD. This means that every student identified with an ASD will experience communication difficulties, including social skills, reciprocity, social interaction, joint attention, and/or language skills. Functional communication is an essential life skill and should be a primary area of focus for all individuals with ASD. ACE developed a toolkit to assist educators and families with some of the basic functional communication and social exchanges necessary for individuals to get their needs met while developing social skills in the process. Each lesson consists of the following: Description of the skill, why it is important to teach, the differences in this skill for individuals with autism, teaching considerations, materials needed to teach the skill, activities to teach the communication skill, social skill extension activities, and additional resources. You can download the toolkit in its entirety or individual lessons.

Communication and Social Skills Lesson Plans

Printable Resources

VCU Autism Center for Education Resources

Courses

Foundations of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Evidence-Based Practices to Teach Students with ASD

Webcasts

Introduction to the Hidden Curriculum Part 1

Strategies and Supports to Address the Hidden Curriculum

Supporting Social Emotional Development in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The Social Side of ASD

Understanding Challenging Behaviors and the Need for Social Skills Training

Teaching Communication to Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Supporting a Person with Asperger's Syndrome

Effective Communication System for Students with ASD

Determining an Effective Communication System for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Seminars

Introduction to Communication Skills

Introduction to Functional Communication

Communication Skills for Increasing Interactions

Introduction to Modes of Communication

Introduction to Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) with Individuals with ASD

Pragmatic Skills

Tools for Teaching Communication Skills

More Tools for Teaching Communication Skills

Introduction to Teaching Young Children with ASD to Verbally Communicate

How To Videos

Tools

The Expressive and Receptive Communication Inventory for Emerging Language Learners

The Augmentative and Alternative Communication Inventory

Communication Guidelines and Resources

All students with ASD need to be able to communicate effectively across environments and for a variety of purposes. Because of this, we have developed Communication Guidelines and Resources to support educational team members in enhancing the communication abilities of students with ASD and to create lifelong learners. The Communication Guidelines and Resources are designed to:

• Enhance understanding of what communication is,
• Enhance understanding of why communication is important, and
• Advance expectations, knowledge, and skills related to communication based assessments, strategies, and supports.

Please go to the Communication Guidelines and Resources page for more information and to access a wide array of resources that can be used to assist in building critical communication skills with your students.

Guides and Fact Sheets

VCU-ACE has developed two fact sheets related to communication: Autism Q & A: Introduction to Alternative and Augmentative Communication and Autism Q & A: Introduction to Teaching Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder to Verbally Communicate.

Communication Tools

The Expressive and Receptive Communication Inventory for Emerging Language Learners will assist educators in determining needs related to expanding the communication abilities of a student with ASD. It is designed to identify potential goals and determine priority areas for expansion of expressive and receptive communication skills in an effective and efficient manner so instruction may begin immediately.

Selecting an appropriate Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) system or systems is never an easy task. There are many systems that provide an array of features. When selecting a system(s) it is important to make the best decision possible that will allow the individual to actively communicate across environments in a meaningful way. However, it is equally as important to ensure a decision is made expeditiously so the individual has an effective way to communicate as quickly as possible. The Augmentative and Alternative Communication Inventory can help with this process.