Autism Classroom Observation

For this task, I observed a teacher in a moderate/severe Autism classroom. I chose to conduct my observation during the class’ calendar time, this is one of the few opportunities during the day when the teacher conducts whole group instruction. During the 30 minutes in which I observed, the teacher interacted with the students for 34 opportunities total. She gave nine opportunities to respond; 16 reprimands/corrective commands; 9 general praise statements, and zero behavior specific praise statements.

After analyzing the data, I was able to identify a sequential verbal pattern. The teacher would ask a question and give all students the opportunity to respond, the first student to call out correctly, would then come to the white board and answer.

After the student answered the question, she would give a general praise statement, like “good job” and follow up with a direction, i.e. “Ok, go sit down”. This sequential pattern, was a conditioned behavior, for both the teacher and the students. I draw this conclusion based on the fact that, before the student could even process the general praise statement, he was immediately turned and headed back toward his seat. During the 30 minute observation, I also noticed that the teacher had no tolerance for one specific student, out of the 16 reprimands/corrective statements 11 were directed at this student, even though several of the students were displaying the same behavior, i.e. head on the table. The second identifiable pattern is, she did not give behavior specific praises. The student who had 16 reprimands, should have also had 16 behavior specific praises. This is one practice I will make a habit, when I am a highly qualified teacher. I must note that if a student answered incorrectly she would give the opportunity again by saying, “try again”, however, follow with “no that’s not right, you lose your turn”. In my classroom I will use this as a teaching opportunity, not a punishment. When the teacher would give a general praise statement it was always indirect and non-specific. For example, she said “you go A.A.” when the student answered the question correctly. Go where? I was just glad the child did not leave, considering students with autism have a literal interpretation of language. She ought to have given him a specific praise like, “I so proud of you A.A. for knowing the month”. That is another testament to the importance of specific praise. The students seemed more engaged and satisfied just to take a turn, not necessarily for the reinforcement of her general praise statements.