News and Knowledge

By Robert L. Koegel, Lynn Kern Koegel, and Kelsey Oliver

In spite of the noted importance of having programs for developing socialization in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), many children with ASD receive no support while they are in school, most notably during times like recess and lunch when there should be many opportunities for social interaction with typical peers. Some students with ASD, in fact, have no such social goals on their IEPs.

Over the last few decades, one of the approaches used to increase social inclusion is based on capitalizing on aspects of autism that previously have been considered to be a weakness. For example, many children with ASD have extremely restricted perseverative interests (those that the student is intensely interested in or exclusively occupied by) that may interfere with their motivation to interact socially with their peers. However, if that extremely desired topic or activity is seamlessly woven into a social activity, we see huge improvements in socialization.

This approach builds on the idea of inclusion as synonymous with fully inclusive education alongside typically developing peers throughout the day by making sure that children with ASD can take part in regular school activities, including, for example, school clubs.

Organizing and Implementing School Clubs

Within a full inclusion context wherein students with ASD participate with their typically developing peers for the entirety of the day, school clubs may provide a context for offering that social activity for students with autism. By participating in clubs, they can to learn to socialize with their typically developing peers in a fun and natural context that incorporates their desired topics or activities. These steps explain how teachers, administrators, and/or parents can set up those kinds of clubs:

• School clubs, games, and activities during recess and lunch periods can be designed to highlight a student’s strengths and incorporate their highly preferred and/or perseverative interests. For example, if the student with ASD has:
  • Extensive knowledge of and interest in movie quotes, organize a movie trivia club that includes questions and activities related to the student’s favorite movies.
  • A perseverative interest in states and their capitals, develop a tag game using an outline of the United States on the playground. The children playing call out a state or a capital and a mode of transportation (hop, skip, run). The last child on the state is the next caller.
  • An intense interest in physics, start a club for young inventors, with experiments and activities related to physics. What kid wouldn’t want to take part in making a volcano explode?
  • An intense interest in drawing, create a cartooning club.
  • An intense interest in numbers, develop a Wild Science Experiment Club in which students count, measure, add, and/or subtract quantities of ingredients for interesting experiments.
• As you may realize, many of these types of clubs may not currently exist at the school. If you are organizing a new club, make sure to design it in a way that appeals to both typically developing children and children with ASD. If the club does exist, it can be modified to align with the specific interests that the child with ASD has. For example, you can include the student’s:
  • Favorite comic book or movie character into the school’s comic book club
  • Preferred video game in the computer club
  • Favorite superheroes in the art club
  • Most liked foods as part of the menus for the cooking club

As You Organize and Supervise

Keep these points in mind when you are developing the clubs or modifying existing clubs that incorporate preferred or perseverative interests:

• Make sure the activity is interesting and fun for all the students. Thus, while the club may be incorporating the child with ASD’s preferred interest, it can be designed around a game or activity that everyone enjoys. For example, working out chemistry problems may not be fun for all of the children, but baking a batch of cookies and figuring out the chemistry of how the heat changes the composition into something tasty is fun for everyone – as is eating the final product!
• Incorporate cooperative arrangements. Set up the game or activity so that students need to rely on one another to continue or complete the activity. For example, during an inclusive Lego club, we provided one small group of students with the Lego pieces and another small group the Lego figurines so that they had natural opportunities to play with one another by asking for pieces or engaging in pretend play.
• Consider an individual’s history with different types of activities. For example, one student we worked with loved talking about and labeling vehicles. Even though cars and trucks were incorporated into art club (e.g., painting picture of vehicles, drawing traffic maps/parking lots, etc.), this student refused to engage in the activities, likely because he had a history of negative experiences with art. We knew he had a positive history with dodgeball so we created a traffic dodgeball club in which students shouted the make or model of a vehicle in order to get back into the game after getting hit by a dodgeball.
• Make sure that paraprofessionals who are involved are close enough to the child with ASD to be attentive without appearing as though they are hovering. This may necessitate gradual fading or careful planning so that the child can be as independent as possible.
• Monitor the child’s progress. If a child is not progressing socially, the club activities may need to be tweaked a little, and careful monitoring will allow you to assess how the child is responding and make any necessary changes. For example, if the activity doesn’t provide enough opportunities for social interaction, modify the activity to include cooperative arrangements, such as providing each child with only some of the components or roles in a game so they would have more opportunities to interact.

Include Social Goals in the IEP

How will you make this happen?  All students with ASD should have social goals in their IEP, and this strategy of arranging inclusive school clubs that incorporate perseverative interests can be included. The IEP should contain specific relevant goals, such as initiating a social interaction, engaging in social reciprocation during social conversation with peers, asking questions, giving compliments, taking turns, and so on. Some students will need quite a bit of support and others will take off in this type of inclusive school setting with little to no extra support. Thus, it is important that a student’s IEP also specify the extent and nature of support they will receive from a paraprofessional during these social clubs.

The benefits of these clubs for students with ASD have been enormous. We often see some of these children completely isolated and appearing unhappy during recess and lunch. Designing a club around their interests can change that. Because the restricted interest is so high on their reinforcer hierarchy, it’s difficult to find anything that is more motivating. In fact, because we’re working in their area of greatest interest and strengths, they often are the most valued members of the peer group.

Developing school clubs that are inclusive of the entire student population while also incorporating the preferred or perseverative interests of a student with ASD seems to be a highly effective strategy for increasing socialization. Many students are driven to seek out their perseverative interest at the expense of socializing with peers. Incorporating their perseverative interests into social clubs create a perfect outlet for combining highly motivating interests with the important goal of peer socialization.

Turning what is often seen as a negative symptom—a restricted interest—into a strength through the use of social clubs that incorporate those interests can facilitate social development for children with ASD. The child’s peers at school benefit as well. When we set up social programs, we often see collateral benefits for peers who are shy, altruistic, or just prefer a little more structure in their day. When inclusion is done properly, it benefits all children.

For more information on how to motivate children with autism, see the PRT Pocket Guide.

Drs. Robert and Lynn Koegel, who lead the Koegel Autism Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, are the developers of Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT). The Koegels and the Center have received OAR research funding for several studies they have conducted. Over the past 30 years, the Koegels, their graduate students, and colleagues have published over 200 research articles in peer-reviewed journals that support the effectiveness of PRT, and have written over 30 books and manuals. PRT is listed by the National Research Council as one of the 10 model programs for autism and is one of four scientifically based practices for autism intervention in the United States.

Kelsey Oliver is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Santa Barbara studying under the Koegels’ mentorship. She has worked in a range of preschools, elementary schools, and middle schools implementing evidence-based interventions and providing training and support to paraprofessionals and teachers. In addition to social skills interventions in inclusive contexts, her research interests include the dissemination of Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) to families, school personnel, and other practitioners.