How to Support Pupils with Autism Transition Between Instructional Activities
Classroom transition times are challenging for most teachers but get even more arduous when working with pupils with autism. This is the time when teachers try to move pupils from one lesson, space, or event to the other. It can be as complicated as changing equipment or as simple as one teacher walking out and another walking in. While it is widely understood in the field of education that effective transitions are critical for effective classroom management, it can also be the perfect recipe for classroom chaos if not planned properly.
In an interview with a couple of teachers within the 360 Educators network, we learned that transition times are also the periods when noise levels increase, academic engagement ceases and movement is ceaseless until the teacher presses pause. This means both teachers and pupils can lose significant instructional hours if transitions are not managed or structured properly. Pupils with autism in particular exhibit a host of problem behaviors ranging from aggression to tantrums during these periods. The most observed include (a) refusal to stop the current activity, (b) refusal to move to the next activity, (c) disturbing or distracting peers, (d) disruptive behavior to escape a difficult or nonpreferred activity, (e) impatience to move and not wait for one’s turn, and (f) problems entering and engaging in a new activity. Most researchers have attributed these problem behaviors to sensory issues that instigate a hyper-focus on enjoyable activities or behavioral difficulties that present deficits in understanding communication cues (Zolyomi & Tennis, 2017).
This blog post presents some of the effective ways special educators support autistic pupils to transition seamlessly between instructional activities.
The first and simplest intervention is verbal prompts, also known as auditory cues. For non-autistic children, verbal prompts in transition time could mean a brief announcement that it’s time to end a current activity and move on to something else. However, when working with autistic children, using verbal prompts in isolation does not always work. In addition to verbal cues, other forms of auditory cues such as alarms, timers, bells, technology countdown boards, and activity songs are more effective methods of signaling students to initiate transitions. Ferguson, Ashbaugh, O’Reilly, and McLaugh-lin (2004) trained students with severe behavior disorders to respond to a ringing bell as a cue to “freeze” and listen for a verbal prompt to clean up and move to circle time. The use of auditory cues in combination with verbal prompts ultimately resulted in increased compliance with transitional instructions.
In addition to verbal prompts and other auditory cues, one additional intervention that deserves mention is the technique of building behavioral momentum. Although behavioral momentum procedures are slightly more intrusive than simple verbal prompts, they are particularly well suited for transitions in which the student is expected to move from a more reinforcing activity to a less reinforcing activity. It is a technique used in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) that can be applied to education settings to increase compliance with instructions that learners will naturally resist. Highly effective special educators used behavioral momentum with students exhibiting problem behavior associated with transitions from the playground to the classroom. Decreases in problem behaviors were noted when students were presented with a series of high-probability requests (e.g., “Give me five,” “Say your name”, etc.) before issuing the instruction to transition inside. Behavioral momentum has been used successfully to increase compliance among children with autism (Romano & Roll, 2000), and thus may be applicable to compliance with classroom transitions as well.
Additionally, visual supports go a long way to help pupils with autism mitigate communication difficulties and transition smoothly between instructional activities. For example, task sequence instruction strips, labels for objects, and choice boards have been used to aid transitions from school and home settings. These visual aids provide additional predictability in the daily activities of autistic pupils. Research has indicated that using visual supports during transitions can decrease challenging behavior and increase compliance with transition demands (Schmit, Alper, Raschke, & Ryndak, 2000). In one study, photo cues were used with a young boy with autism during transitions from one classroom activity to another, from the playground to inside the classroom, and from one room within the school to another (Schmit et al., 2000). At transition times, the staff presented the student with a photo of the location where he would be going. This allowed him to see where he was expected to go and provided additional predictability in his day. Other formats of visual support, such as tactile symbols or written words could be used to provide similar information to individuals. It is helpful for the individual to carry the visual support with him/her to the assigned location or task if possible. Real-time observation revealed that pupils who carried their visual support continually referenced the information about what the next transitional activity should be and where. Once arriving at the destination, it’s important to consider creating a designated “spot” for the individual to place the information, such as a table or small box. This indicates to the autistic child that he/she has arrived at the correct place for the activity. Where transitions involve movement from one location to another, it is best the distance is within a teacher’s eyesight.
Last but not least are activity schedules. Although a single visual prompt may be effective in addressing problems during transitions, integrating visual prompts within an activity schedule have proven to be more effective by increasing independence in pupils with autism (Deel et al, 2021). Activity schedule can be described as a visual support system that combines images, writings and drawings in a sequential format to represent a targeted sequence of activities a student should carry out at different times in a day. They provide predictability throughout the student’s day and allows him or her to anticipate changes in the daily routine. Further, students get increased time to process upcoming changes and are better prepared to transition from one activity to the other (McClannahan & Krantz, 2019). Best of all, activity schedules are easy to construct and can be applied to existing routines in general education classrooms with minimal effort.
We hope this helps you support autistic pupils to transition smoothly between instructional activities. It is however important to mention that getting autistic learners to quickly drop everything and prepare to change activities does take some practice. Hence, these interventions must be adopted with as much intention as patience.
References
Sterling‐Turner, H. E., & Jordan, S. S. (2007). Interventions addressing transition difficulties for individuals with autism. Psychology in the Schools, 44(7), 681–690.
Dettmer, S., Simpson, R. L., Myles, B. S., & Ganz, J. B. (2000). The use of visual supports to facilitate transitions of students with autism. Focus on autism and other developmental disabilities, 15(3), 163–169.
West, E. A. (2008). Effects of verbal cues versus pictorial cues on the transfer of stimulus control for children with autism. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 23(4), 229–241.
Cowan, R. J., Abel, L., & Candel, L. (2017). A meta-analysis of single-subject research on behavioral momentum to enhance success in students with autism. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 47, 1464–1477.
Banda, D. R., Grimmett, E., & Hart, S. L. (2009). Activity schedules: Helping students with autism spectrum disorders in general education classrooms manage transition issues. Teaching Exceptional Children, 41(4), 16–21.
Deel, N. M., Brodhead, M. T., Akers, J. S., White, A. N., & Miranda, D. R. G. (2021). Teaching choice‐making within activity schedules to children with autism. Behavioral Interventions, 36(4), 731–744.
McClannahan, L. E., & Krantz, P. J. (2019). In search of solutions to prompt dependence: Teaching children with autism to use photographic activity schedules. In Environment and behavior (pp. 271–278). Routledge.
Zolyomi, A., & Tennis, J. T. (2017). The Autism prism: A domain analysis paper examining neurodiversity. NASKO, 139–172.
