Academic Achievement and Strategy Instruction to ...

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND STRATEGY INSTRUCTION

Academic Achievement and Strategy Instruction to Support the Learning of Children With High-Functioning Autism PEGGY J. SCHAEFER W H I T B Y , JASON C . TRAVERS, AND JAMIE HARNIK, UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS

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utism is one of the fastest developing childhood disorders (Simpson & Smith My les, 2008). The increase in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has been highlighted in the media once again. As of 2005, the best estimation rates of ASD were 1 out of 150 or 60 per 10,000 for all ASD (Fombonne, 2005). Recently, the National Survey of Children's Health released results from a national telephone survey suggesting that the prevalence of ASD may be closer to 1 in 91 for children aged 3 to 17 years (Kogan et al., 2008). The prevalence of school-age children with ASD has a considerable impact on the schools and teachers who are responsible for their education. According to the Twenty-Eighth Annual Report to Congress on Children With Disabilities, more children with ASD are being served in the general education setting than ever before. In 1990-1991, only 4.8% of children with autism spent 80% or more of the day in the general education setting, compared with 29.1% of children with autism spending 80% or more of the day in the general education setting in 2003-2004 (U.S. Department of Education, 2008). The general education service placement of students with ASD increased at a faster rate than all other disability categories combined (Sansoti & Powell Smith, 2008) and is expected to continue to increase with the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act (West & Whitby, 2008). Children with ASD served in the general education setting are likely to be those with high-functíoning autism or Asperger syndrome (HFA/AS).

Students with HFA/AS can be defined as those students with autistic disorder, pervasive developmental delay-not otherwise specified, or Asperger disorder according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

(American Psychiatric Association, 2004) and have a documented IQ of 80 or higher; some studies include students with a documented IQ of 70 or higher (Prior, 2003). Roughly 50% to 70% of children with an ASD have an IQ greater than 70 (Bertrand, Mars, Boyle, & Bove, 2001; Chakrabarti & Fombonne, 2001). As students with HFA/AS are likely to be served in the general education setting, it is imperative that teachers understand the academic profile of this population to gain an understanding of the learning difficulties this group of children may encounter (Whitby, 2009; Whitby & Mancil, in press). Academic Achievement Profile In a review of the literature on the academic profile of students with HFA/AS, Whitby and Mancil (in press) found consistent academic achievement patterns across research studies, suggesting an academic profile. The findings are as follows. Reading

The review of the literature in reading for students with HFA/AS suggests that basic reading and decoding are intact for students with HFA/AS (Bamhill, Hagiwara, Smith Myles, & Simpson, 2000; Dickerson Mayes & Calhoim, 2003a, 2003b; Goldstein, Minshew, & Siegel, 1994; Griswold, Bamhill, Smith Myles, Hagiwara, & Simpson, 2002; Minshew, Goldstein, Taylor, & Siegel,

1994; Whitby & Mancil, in press). Reading ability is commensurate with IQ up to around age 8 (Dickerson Mayes & Calhoun, 2003a). During the early years, students with HFA/AS may perform at or above their peers on reading tasks. After age 8, typical reading instruction shifts from an emphasis on decoding to an emphasis on comprehension, including abstract concepts such as main ideas, inferences, and causes/effect. The reading curriculum becomes less explicit and increasingly abstract, which may explain the decrease in reading ability when compared with neurotypical peers in the intermediate and secondary grades (Dickerson Mayes & Calhoun, 2003a). Students with HFA/AS have comprehension deficits (Barnhill et al., 2000; Dickerson Mayes & Calhoun, 2003a, 2003b; Goldstein et al., 1994; Griswold et al., 2002; Minshew et al., 1994). Difficulties with comprehension may be due to attention deficits, difficulties with critical thinking and problem solving, difficulties with verbal reasoning, and difficulties adopting the perspective of others (Dickerson Mayes & Calhoun, 2003b; Griswold et al., 2002). Dickerson Mayes and Calhoim (2003b) suggested that roughly 37% of students with HFA/ AS may meet the criteria for a reading learning disability. Writing Both written expression and graphomotor deficits are identified as weaknesses for students with HFA/ AS (Bamhill et al., 2000; Dickerson Mayes & Calhoun, 2003a 2003b; Griswold et al., 2002; Whitby & Mancil, 2009). Graphomotor deficits may be caused by motor coordination FALL

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difficulties coupled with informationprocessing deficits. Written expression may be affected by organization and attention deficits (Barnhill et al., 2000; Dickerson Mayes & Calhoun, 2003a, 2003b; Griswold et al., 2002). Sixty percent of individuals with HFA/AS may present with writing learning disabilities (Dickerson Mayes & Calhoun, 2003b, 2008). Mathematics Many students with HFA/AS have average mathematical abilities (Chiang & Lin, 2007; Dickerson Mayes & Calhoun, 2003a, 2003b; Whitby & Mancil, in press) and perform similarly to neurotypical peers in early years (Dickerson Mayes & Calhoun, 2003a, 2003b; Goldstein et al., 1994). Computational skills appear to be intact; however, complex problem solving within the mathematics domain affects applied mathematical ability (Goldstein et al., 1994; Griswold et al., 2002; Minshew et al., 1994). Organizational and attention skills may also affect multiple-step problem solving (Dickerson Mayes & Calhoun, 2003b). Reading comprehension deficits also affect word problem-solving ability. Deficit areas such as problem solving may account for the significant difference between average- to aboveaverage IQ and average mathematical ability findings in students with HFA/AS (Chiang & Lin, 2007). Higher-level thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving skills that relate to the real world are weaknesses for students with HFA/AS (Barnhill et al., 2000; Dickerson Mayes & Calhoim, 2003a, 2003b; Goldstein et al., 1994; Griswold et al., 2002; Minshew et al., 1994). Dickerson Mayes and Calhoun (2003b, 2008) reported that 23% of students with HFA/AS may present with a mathematics learning disability. Knowing the academic achievement profile and cognitive profile of students with HFA/AS is essential to but not sufficient for developing an effective education 4

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plan. An overall academic profile suggests that one intervention may meet all students' needs. However, this is not accurate. According to Simpson and Smith Myles (2008), if you know one child with autism, you know one child with autism. Given the heterogeneous nature of HFA/ AS, what is true for the group may not always be true for each individual student with HFA/AS (Dickerson Mayes & Calhoun, 2003b). The value of understanding the academic profile provides teachers with a starting point. Teachers may need to gather data via direct observation of student performance in all content areas via curriculum-based assessment. Direct observation allows a teacher to develop a clear understanding of the processes a student is using to solve problems and reason (Barnhill et al., 2000). Through error analysis, a clear understanding of problem solving and reasoning, and an understanding of the overall academic profile of students with HFA/AS, teachers are then able to develop appropriate educational interventions (Barnhill et al., 2000). Once a teacher has developed an understanding of the specific needs of the student, then he or she must have access to evidencebased interventions to address the student's academic needs. Strategy Instruction and Students With HFA/AS With the increase in the number of children with HFA/AS and the effectiveness of early diagnosis and intervention, the social and behavioral impairments may be of less concern and academic goals are within reach (O'Connor & Klein, 2004; Van Bergeijk, Klin, & Volkmar, 2008). However, teachers need to match interventions and strategies to the tmique academic profile to increase the likelihood for student success. Strategy instruction has been validated as an effective academic intervention for children with learning disabilities, and research on

the use of cognitive strategy instruction for children with HFA/ AS has yielded promising results (Simpson, 2005). The following section discusses current research on strategy use and strategy instruction for stijdents with HFA/AS. Pressley, Forrest-Pressley, ElliotFaust, and Miller (1985) defined a strategy as "cognitive operations over and above the processes that are natural consequences of carrying out a task, ranging from one such operation to a sequence of interdependent operations" (p. 2). The purpose of strategy instruction is to help learners independently solve problems by applying systematic thinking skills across different settings and situations (Simpson, 2005). Strategies teach knowledge of procedures (i.e., how to do something). Strategy instruction teaches the rules, processes, or steps that are applied systematically that lead to a problem solution (Simpson, 2005). Cognitive strategies are the thinking skills good problem solvers use to achieve an outcome. Metacognition strategies are the process of self-monitoring the "when" and "where" to apply strategies (Pressley & Harris, 2006). Strategies include cognition for learning purposes such as memorization or comprehension and can be consciously learned activities (Pressley et al., 1985). Bebko and Ricciuti (2008) studied the use of rehearsal strategies with students with HFA/AS to determine (a) if strategy use would be developed spontaneously, (b) if the use of the strategy for this population would increase performance, and (c) what conditions would elicit effective strategy use. Rehearsal is a basic memory strategy that has been studied extensively in the neurotypical population. Neurotypical children develop this strategy as early as 6 years of age and use it effectively (Bebko, 1984). Executive ftmctioning impairments have been directly related to the lack of strategy use, resulting in performance deficits (Bebko &


Ricciuti, 2008). Given that students with HFA/AS may have executive functioning impairments, performance deficits may be directly related to the lack of strategy use. The researchers found that children with high-functioning autism did use the rehearsal strategy spontaneously (64% were identified as spontaneous strategy users). However, children in the study with HFA/AS performed spontaneous rehearsal strategy use similar to children without autism 1 to 2 years younger, indicating an apparent delay of spontaneous rehearsal strategy use of 1 to 2 years. Furthermore, the authors found that by providing external support in meta-cognition, students with moderate- and high-functioning autism increased their performance significantly. Overall, Bebko and Ricciuti (2008) suggested that (a) children with highfunctioning autism may use strategies spontaneously but not always the most effective strategies, (b) the use of strategies does increase performance on tasks for children with highfunctioning autism, and (c) by teaching external cognitive and metacognitive strategies, children with high-functioning autism increase their performance of academic tasks. The results of this study have clear implications for children with HFA/ AS and the practitioners serving them. Children with HFA/AS benefit from strategy instruction and should be taught strategies to reduce the cognitive load. The "hows" of learning must be taught to children with HFA/AS in an explicit format, and external support in the use of strategies may be needed. Cognitive/ meta-cognitive strategy instruction for children with autism must be tailored to meet the unique cognitive profile for children with autism (Bebko & Ricciuti, 2008; Songlee, Miller, Tincani, Sileo, & Perkins, 2008). Strategy instruction has yielded positive outcomes for the social skills development of students with HFA/ AS (Laushey, Heflin, Shippen, Alberto, & Fredrick, 2009; Webb,

Miller, Pierce, Strawser, & Jones, 2004) and the test-taking ability of students with HFA/AS (Songlee et al, 2008). Only three studies have assessed the effectiveness of strategy instruction on the content area performance of students with HFA/ AS (Delano, 2007; O'Connor & Klein, 2004; Whitby, 2009). Anaphoric cueing for reading strategy instruction (O'Connor & Klein, 2004), self-regulation strategy development for writing (Delano, 2007), and Solve It! Problem Solving Routine for mathematics (Whitby, 2009) are presented. Strategy Instruction in Reading Many reading comprehension strategies have been developed and tested for children with learning disabilities. Trabasso and Bouchard (2002) identified the following reading strategies as having significant infiuence on reading comprehension: Comprehension monitoring, graphic organizers, listening actively, mental imagery, mnemonic instruction, prior knowledge activation, question answering, question generation, text structure, summarization, and multiple strategy instruction. Unfortunately, few have been validated for use with students who have HFA/AS. O'Connor and Klein (2004) explored the use of text structure strategies to increase the reading comprehension of students with HFA/AS. O'Connor and Klein (2004) explored the use of procedural facilitation (providing external support to cue strategy use) with learning strategies to increase the reading comprehension of students with HFA. The purpose of the study was to determine if answering prereading questions, completing cloze sentences, and resolving anaphora by identifying antecedents, versus simply reading, would produce a significant difference in reading comprehension when compared with reading without comprehension strategy instruction. The effects of anaphoric cuing.

searching for pronouns in prior text, were significant and produced a medium effect size (Table 1). Anaphoric cuing appeared to assist the student in developing selfmonitoring. This study has educational implications. First, teachers need to instruct students with HFA/AS to look for antecedents of pronouns as they read. Teachers could also highlight pronouns as a cue for students to go back in the text and identify the character in question. Second, as this article was the first of its kind, it suggests that students with HFA/AS do benefit from strategy instruction (Table 1). Strategy Instruction in Writing Writing is a complex process that involves negotiation of rules and mechanics of writing, focusing on organization, form and features, purposes and goals, audience needs, and perspectives and evaluation of the communication between author and reader (Harris, Graham, & Mason, 2003). Self-regulation of the writing process is critical: The writer must be goal oriented, resourceful, and reflective. Skilled writers, and students who succeed at writing, are able to use powerful strategies to help them accomplish specific writing goals (Harris, Graham, & Mason, 2003). Graham, Harris, Mac Arthur, and Schwartz (1991) developed the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD). SRSD instruction provides strategies for all stages of the writing process: planning, writing, revising, editing, and monitoring (Harris, Schmidt, & Graham, 1998). SRSD instruction is scaffolded so that students gradually learn to select and implement strategies independently (Delano, 2007) (Table 2, Table 3). Delano (2007) studied the effects of self-regulated strategy development delivered via a video model on the written language performance of adolescents with HFA/AS. A multiple-baseline design across-participant response was used to determine the effects of the intervention on the number of words FALL

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Table 1

How TO USE ANAPHORIC CUING TO FACILITATE READING COMPREHENSION IN CHILDREN WITH HFÂ/ÀS

Step

Procedure

Step 1

Create a worksheet of sentences with an underlined anaphora, normally a pronoun, for each sentence. Provide three choices of reference words londer each underlined anaphora. For example, John went swimming because he was hot. Jim, John, Jason Tell the student to pause at each underlined word and to think about who the underlined word refers to. Direct the student to circle the appropriate word. The student may need initial prompting depending on his or her functioning level. You may prompt by pointing to the reference word in the sentence. After the student is successful with answering anaphoric pronoun questions, include places and other anaphoric cuing opportunitíes, such as there and here. Once the student is able to complete this task independently with 80% or above accuracy, you may increase the level of difficulty. Create a paragraph or review a book with a good paragraph with many anaphoric cuing opportunities. Make a worksheet listing WH questions pertaining to the paragraph. For example, "Who went swimming?" "Who was hot?" or "Where did Sara go?" Have the student complete this worksheet independently. Be creative in how you assess anaphoric cuing. You may continue this process through many means. Allow the student to create his or her own anaphoric cuing questions once he or she has mastered answering questions.

Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6

Source: O'Connor & Klein (2004). written and functional essay elements used. During baseline, the number of words written ranged from 11 to 121 and contained few functional essay elements. During the intervention phase on written words, each participant increased the number of words written as well as the duration that they were engaged in the writing task. When the intervention on increasing the number of functional

Table 2

essay elements was introduced, the number of words increased and the number of functional essay elements increased. Again, the time engaged in the writing task also increased. Maintenance results were mixed. Two of the participants maintained the number of words written at 1 week and 3 months. The third participant decreased in the number of words written at the 3-month

How TO IMPLEMENT S R S D EOR WRITING

Stage

Procedure

Stage 1

Assess background knowledge by asking students questions about the writing topic. To promote self-regulation, teach students to have positive self-statements, such as "I can do this. I need to work through this slowly." Provide students with an overview on how to execute their writing techniques. Discuss the strategy with your students and use token boards or behavior charts to offer reinforcement for using this strategy. Create a chart to monitor student performance. Allow students to view their chart to see progression. An outline of the SRSD steps should be created to serve as a visual cue for students. Use the think-aloud method by verbalizing the thinking process of writing a paper. If you have difficult time thinking aloud, create an outline for yourself and read it to your students. For example, "I have to write an essay on mammals. What do I know about mammals? First, I have to remember to use the SRSD model to help me think in order. Ok, I can use the outline on the wall to see what needs to come first." Teach mnemonics and use visual cues to promote memorization. Review writing strategies daily to enhance memory through repetition. Keep students on task with the SRSD strategy. Revisit the outline to help students focus if they derail from the strategy. Use the prompt hierarchy to assist students as needed, from collaborative writing to visual cues for support. Evaluate student's performance by informal assessments. Ask the student questions about his or her writing, e.g., "Where does your story take place?" "Who are the characters?"

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4 Stage 5 Stage 6

Sources: Harris et al. (2003) and Reid & Lienemann (2006). 6

maintenance check. The number of functional essay elements used was not maintained for 2 of the participants and decreased over time for the third participant. Duration of writing time was maintained for all but 1 participant. Overall, the results of this study have a positive impact on the use of strategy instruction for students with HFA/AS (Tables 2 and 3).

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Table 3 P O W T R E E

EXA^MPLE MNEMONMC FOR

SRSD: POW-TREE

Pick my idea Organize my notes Write and say more Topic sentence: tell what you believe! Reasons: 3 or more. Why do I believe this? Will my readers believe this? Explain reasons; say more about each reason Ending: wrap it up right!

Source: Harris et al. (2003).

Strategy Instruction in Mathematics The Solve It! Prohlem Solving Routine is a strategy instruction curriculum package developed by Montague (1996) that research suggests is an effective intervention in assisting children with HFA/AS to learn how to solve mathematical word problems. The curriculum consists of teaching students seven cognitive strategies and three metacognitive strategies. The seven cognitive strategies are read, paraphrase, visualize, hypothesize, estimate, compute, and check. The three meta-cognitive strategies include self-management, selfquestioning, and self-evaluation. The meta-cognitive strategies are say, ask, and check. The strategies employed in the curriculum are thought to facilitate linguistic and numerical information processing, formations Table 4 How TO IMPLEMENT SOLVE Step 1 Step 2: model Step 3: guided Step 4: independent practice Step 5

Step 6: generalization

for visual representations in memory, comprehension of prohlem information, and development plarming for prohlem solution (Mesler, 2004). The insti-uctional model includes four components: (a) assessing performance and appropriate identification of students for the instructional program, (h) explicit instruction in the acquisition and application of strategies for mathematical problem solving, (c) process modeling, and (d) evaluating student outcomes, with an emphasis on strategy maintenance and generalization (Montague, 2003) (Table 4, Table 5). Whitby (2009) studied the effects of the Solve it! Problem Solving Strategy on the multiple-step w^orld problem-solving ability of middle school students with HFA/AS. The purpose of the study was to

determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the use of the Solve It! Problem Solving Routine to increase the mathematical word problemsolving ability of children with HFA/ AS. The students were taught Solve It! during noncontent course time at their schools. Generalization data were collected in each participant's regular education mathematics classroom. Four weeks after the completion of the study, maintenance data were collected. The results of the study indicate a functional relationship between the use of the Solve It! Problem Solving Routine and the percentage correct on curriculum-based mathematical word problems. The subjects obtained efficient use of strategy in five training sessions and applied the strategy successfully for five acquisition sessions. Percentage correct on mathematical word problems ranged from 20% during baseline to 100% during training and acquisition trials. Error analysis indicated reading comprehension interference and probable executive functioning interference (Tables 4 and 5). The "hows" of learning must be taught to children with autism in an explicit format, and external support in the use of strategies may be needed. Cognitive/meta-cognitive

IT! PROBLEM SOLVING ROUTINE

Implement mathematical problem solving preassessment (Montague, 1996) to determine need for intervention. Teach strategy using an explicit teaching model for at least three teaching sessions and until all students have memorized the steps in the strategy. Provide guided instruction on uses of the strategy until students have achieved 80% mastery. Provide weekly opportunities for independent practice. Conduct error analysis on independent practice work samples. If student achievement goes below 80%, conduct a refresher lesson. Implement mathematical problem solving postassessment. If student achievement is below 80%, conduct error analysis and determine appropriate instructional support level. Continue teaching Solve it! Problem Solving Routine at the adjusted instructional level. Embed use of the strategy in all mathematical word problem solving across the curriculum. Provide modeling, guided practice, and independent practice across the curriculum.

Sources: Montague (1996, 2003). FALL

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Table 5

SOLVE IT! PROBLEM SOLVING ROUTINE R P V - H E C C

Cognitive Strategy Read for understanding Paraphrase: use your own words Visualize: a picture or diagram Hypothesis: a plan to solve the problem Estimate: predict the answer Compute: do the arithmetic Check: make sure everything is right

Meta-cognltive Strategy Say: Read the problem. If I don't understand, read it again. Ask: Have I read the problem and understood the problem? Check: For understanding as I solve the problem. Say: Underline the important information. Put the problem in my own words. Ask: Have I underlined the important information? What is the question? What am I looking for? Check: That the information goes with the question. Say: Make a drawing or a diagram Ask: Does the picture fit the problem? Check: The picture against the problem information. Say: Decide how many steps and operations are needed. Ask: If I do —, what will I get? If I do —, then what do I do next? How many steps are needed? Check: That your plan makes sense. Say: Round the numbers, do the problem in my head, and write the estimate. Ask: Did I round up and down? Did I write my estimate? Check: That I used all the important information. Say: Do the operations in the right order. Ask: How does my answer compare to my estimate? Does my answer make sense? Are the decimals or money signs in the right places? Check: That all the operations were done in the right order. Say: Make sure everything is right. Ask: Have I checked every step? Have I checked the computation? Is my answer right? Check: Have I checked every step? Have I checked the computation? Is my answer right?

Source: Montague (2003).

Strategy instruction for children with HFA/AS must be tailored to meet the unique cognitive profile for children with HFA/AS (Bebko & Ricciuti, 2008; Songlee et al., 2008). Cognitive strategy instruction is an appropriate intervention for students with HFA/AS as students with HFA/AS do use strategies spontaneously (Bebko & Riciutti, 2008), are able to benefit from strategy instruction (Bebko & Ricciuti, 2000; Delano, 2007; O'Conner & Klein, 2004; Songlee et al., 2008; Webb et al., 2004, Whitby, 2009), and may need procedural facilitation to support the use, generalization, and maintenance of the strategy (Bebko & Riciutti, 2008).

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