Autism Classroom Resources Podcast

We live in a society where consequences seem to be the expectation for certain “bad” behavior. A lot of teachers seem to struggle with knowing what they’ll do when a student demonstrates disruptive behavior. So in this episode, I talk about consequences and how ones you choose may not always be the most productive for your students.

2:51​ - Why all consequences aren’t equal for all students

6:58 - How an action meant to be a punishment can backfire (using a student named “Thomas” as an example)

10:02 - Solutions for “Thomas” when opposite consequences won’t address the student’s behavior

13:08 - Considerations when choosing a consequence to a student’s challenging behavior

I have a love-hate relationship with interactive whiteboards. They have so much potential which I love, but too often they just get used as giant TVs. The interactivity part of the equation gets thrown out the window! So in this episode, I talk about the dos and don’ts of using these boards and how to help students use them constructively in the classroom.

1:35​ - Why this is such a hot topic for me

5:42 - The “don’ts” of using interactive whiteboards

9:35 - The “dos” of using interactive whiteboards

12:43 - Why video modeling may work better than live modeling

15:37 - Some ways you can help your students use whiteboards effectively

How can parents, other caregivers, or service providers be trained in implementing behavioral support for autistic kids? And should you, as a teacher, facilitate it? I get asked these questions often when speaking about behavioral support in the classroom. In this episode, I answer these questions and give you specific ways to help students’ families handle their behavior.

3:52​ - How you train others in managing behavior depends on this

5:34 - The variety of ways in which you can do this type of training for families

7:23 - My general rule for training families who are new to behavioral support training

8:42 - What to do to get parents on board once you know what works for the student

10:07 - What I recommend if you chose to make a visit to the student’s home

12:05 - What to do if parents can’t come to the school and you can’t visit their home

Teachers deal with distracted students all the time. There’s the student who wants to be on the computer instead of reading his assignment or the one who’s waiting for lunch instead of working on her math problems. I get asked questions all the time about these kinds of behavioral support issues. So in this episode, I talk about some of the strategies you can use to deal with students who want to do one thing when it’s time to do something else.

1:58​ - The 1st step to addressing this unwanted behavior

3:55 - What to do if the student’s behavior escalates to the point of being potentially harmful

5:42 - A couple of examples using specific students with potential solutions

11:56 - If the student just doesn’t want to wait to do the desired activity

17:24 - How you can implement the behavioral support strategies talked about in this episode

Being thankful comes with a lot of health and mood benefits. And now that we’re in November, it’s the perfect time of the year to stop, take stock of what has happened to you, and give thanks. Your autistic students should have that opportunity as well, but they get robbed of the benefits if they don’t have the support to give that type of thanks in a way that other people will understand. 

In this episode, I talk about several ways you can help your students with ASD participate in giving thanks on Thanksgiving.

1:57​ - Why people will sometimes assume others aren’t thankful

4:27 - A way of giving thanks visually

5:16 - One unique way of giving thanks through speech

9:06 - Another method that helps for those who struggle with speaking in groups or finding the right words

9:49 - A technique for expressing thanks that most of us tend to think of

11:31 - One strategy for the person who can’t be there in-person

Someone recently asked me about using a first-then schedule. They wanted to know when to use one instead of a regular schedule. A first-then schedule is one of the simplest kinds of visual support you can use for autistic and other special needs kids. So in this episode, I talk about first-then schedules and how and when to use them in the classroom.

1:46​ - What a first-then schedule does and the different forms it can take

2:15 - How this type of schedule can be used for behavioral support in the classroom

5:02 - Using a first-then schedule as a daily schedule

7:28 - A word of warning about using first-then schedules

8:39 - Why creating a first-then schedule doesn’t have to be fancy

For the last few episodes, you’ve heard me talk about visual schedules. But there’s a type of schedule that often gets forgotten about or overlooked by teachers. In this episode, I discuss group or class schedules and why they’re every bit as important as other kinds of schedules to use for your special education classroom.

2:19​ - Something I find happens a lot in self-contained special ed classrooms

4:16 - The different forms that group schedules can take

4:43 - The key to constructing a good group schedule for your students

5:27 - What to do if students are doing different activities at the same time

6:03 - Five reasons why groups schedules are important to use in the classroom

How do you decide what kind of schedule to use for your students? While we focus on visual schedules for autistic classrooms, they’re very useful for a variety of reasons. In this episode, I discuss the different types of schedules, how I decide which type to use, and how I decide when I need to change it to a different kind of schedule.

2:13​ - The different kinds of visual schedules you can use for your students

5:26 - Where I start if I don’t know where a student is in their learning of a schedule

8:07 - The pros and cons of using photo schedules and when I primarily use them

12:14 - What I do with a student with visual impairments

13:09 - Advantages and disadvantages of using a written schedule

16:22 - A quick recap of the episode

Everyone says you must have visuals in an autism classroom. But everyone assumes you know what that means or that these visuals will somehow magically solve students’ behavioral problems. While they can’t do that, they are a really important component of your classroom (and not just for those with autism, either). In this episode, I discuss seven reasons why you need to use visual schedules in your classroom.

3:32​ - The 1st reason helps with your primary goal for students

5:10 - Reason #2 helps cut down on arguments between you and the student

5:54 - Why the actual visual aspect of visual schedules is important

7:07 - How the 4th reason relieves student stress and anxiety

8:40 - Reason number 5 sounds obvious but helps those with difficulty processing information around them

9:38 - The 6th reason reveals a common trait for special ed students (and honestly, a large part of society in general)

10:38 - The final reason why you want to use visual schedules

11:35 - One more thing you need to know to make visual schedules useful in your classroom

Just the facts, ma’am. That’s the attitude you need to have when you’re collecting antecedent behavior consequence data in a functional behavior assessment. Like I talked about last week, you want to keep your emotions out of it. In this episode, I want to get a little more specific and follow up with a couple more things to think about when taking ABC data, including a strategy to help you amend some of them if your classroom staff have difficulty keeping emotions out of it.

1:36​ - What you can do if you think you know the function of the student’s behavior

3:01 - Why making assumptions about the behavior data you gather can backfire

5:40 - Examples of how underlying causes of behavior can be different in the same scenario

7:16 - The mistake to avoid with your factual observations after taking the data

8:57 - One thing that can help if classroom staff struggle with sticking to the facts

Students learn their ABCs, but special ed teachers need to know their ABC. When dealing with challenging behavior from students, you need to collect antecedent behavior consequence data (a.k.a. ABC) so you can figure out the why behind the behavior. In fact, it can give you all kinds of information, but only if you take it correctly. In this episode, I reveal some specific things you need to know in order to correctly collect ABC data.

2:​16 - The first thing you need to know about collecting ABC data

4:07 - What do consequences mean when talking about antecedent behavior consequence data

5:12 - One of the biggest issues I see when using ABC data sheets

6:24 - How to be objective while recording antecedent behavior consequence data

8:56 - Why objectivity in ABC data collection is so important

11:17 - One last thing you must include in your data collection

For a lot of special educators, data is the giant elephant in the room. It gets treated like that kind of a four-letter word when it’s not. Now I’m a huge data geek, so much so that I wrote a book about it. But I know data only helps you if it’s real, reliable, and teachable. So in this episode, I talk about how you can use data in a real classroom, with real students for group instruction.

3:​14 - The key to making data collection feel less painful

4:18 - What we know about taking instructional data and how my naturalistic data sheet is set up

6:29 - How to take data on multiple points for multiple students during group activity

7:45 - Do you necessarily have to be the one to run the group activity?

9:59 - Another way to more easily record instructional data

10:23 - Tips for making instructional data collection work in your classroom

You’ve collected some classroom data, so now what? Leaving it sitting in a binder doesn’t help anybody; therefore, it’s critical that you set up systems for regular analysis. We take this data for legal reasons, to show progress, but most importantly, to troubleshoot any learning issues confronting our students. 

In this episode, I discuss how to make analysis happen and the three elements to consider for developing systems that ensure the data gets analyzed and is practical for your classroom.

4:40 - The biggest takeaway from what little research exists on classroom data collection

6:14 - A tool that makes graphing your classroom data easier than ever

9:22 - How my ex-preschool’s strategy can help you fit this into everything else you have to do

10:52 - Two keys to adapting the preschool’s strategy to work for you

12:56 - Why paraprofessionals must get on-board with the analysis process

When it comes to data collection, there’s no one-size-fits-all, and it involves way more than just finding the right datasheet. You have to ensure you build a system with the right data, not more data. So today is all about focusing on data systems. 

In this episode, I walk you through how to get started and what you need to consider when creating your systems for instructional data collection.

3:14​ - The question I get asked a LOT about data collection and why there’s no real answer

4:48 - Why quality over quantity matters when collecting data

6:06 - Two things you must be aware of when you’re collecting data

7:52 - How to get started on building a strategy for data collection

11:04 - Why you need to integrate your data plan with your zoning plan and what to look for afterward

12:41 - The final key about data collection systems I must reveal

Wouldn’t it be nice to have data collection work for you instead of against you? I hear from teachers all the time that data collection is one of the most difficult things to figure out. You get told to take it but not how. In this episode, I cover the three most important aspects of the data you collect and five things you can do to improve your data collection over the next few months.

1:45​ - Three things your collected data must be

3:03 - How to write data-friendly goals

7:37 - How to make a data plan (and why it’s critical)

10:09 - Creating a data collection system for your classroom

12:27 - How to correctly analyze the data you’ve collected

14:25 - Using your data to write your next set of goals

As a leader of the classroom, you’ve done everything you needed to do to set up your staff for success. You’ve created the zoning plan, trained them, and provided feedback to them (and received feedback in kind). But what do you do when things still aren’t going well with the staff? That’s the really hard question I tackle in today’s episode, so buckle in!

1:57​ - What to do if you have concerns about student safety due to a staff member’s behavior

4:13 - The mindset you must have in order to lead classroom staff effectively

6:15 - Where to start when someone on your staff isn’t performing as planned

7:25 - How to address a problem you see with anyone on the classroom staff

10:03 - What to do if the staff member’s issue keeps repeating itself

You went into education wanting to teach kids, not manage adults. But to run a special ed classroom takes a village--one you need to lead--and that takes the form of your classroom staff. I’ve dedicated this month to discuss how to train that staff and so far in this series, I’ve talked about setting up the classroom structure for them and addressed three of the most common roadblocks in training them. 

In this episode, I continue with how you can give meaningful feedback in the classroom when you have no time for one-on-one collaboration.

2:35​ - Why giving feedback is such a critical training tool

4:23 - Why you don’t want to wait to give feedback to your staff

6:15 - My first tip for having meaningful feedback

8:35 - An easy way you can provide feedback

9:28 - A way I love to share positive feedback, in particular

11:13 - The golden ratio of positive-to-negative feedback and how to integrate it

Special education classrooms are unique in that they have a level of supervision not seen in other areas of the school. In running the classroom, you have a staff and are expected to train, but you’re not really a supervisor nor have a hand in selecting who’s on the staff. And with the students taking up so much time, you also don’t have a lot of opportunities to train them, either.

In today’s episode, I focus on three of the biggest roadblocks you’ll face in training your staff and ways you can clear those roadblocks.

3:32​ - How to deal with the first roadblock to training your classroom staff

5:30 - Does everyone on the staff need this?

7:26 - My rule of thumb for handling the second roadblock that can come up

10:57 - Some solutions for clearing arguably the biggest roadblock of all

Teachers struggle a LOT with building and leading their classroom team. I want to structure this month’s podcasts around helping you do both because even if you’re just out of school and surrounded by paraprofessionals with three times as much experience, you need to take the lead. So today, I start with a discussion of the nuts and bolts of building the structure with a classroom staff so they can work as a team.

1:48​ - Why leadership isn’t some big, scary thing

3:55 - An overview of the first part of the structure you’ll need: the classroom zoning plan

6:20 - What a zoning plan doesn’t include and the key to making it work

8:00 - The purpose of the lesson plan and setting up the vision for your classroom

10:50 - What to keep in mind as you build the classroom structure with your staff

You want your students to have the best chance for successful inclusion, no matter the teaching environment. But students with autism, intellectual disabilities, or behavioral issues can sometimes find being in a larger educational setting difficult. So in this episode, I continue my discussion from last week and include four more tips on how to plan and organize for students with ASD entering a general education atmosphere so they can be set up for success.

3:00​ - How to be proactive with providing behavioral support for successful inclusion

6:43 - Why you don’t want to wait to provide support for a behavioral problem until after it occurs

8:13 - What you need to consider about reinforcements in the new, larger environment

10:57 - An important inclusion step educators often forget about

14:18 - How to make sure you prepare your staff

How can autistic students be successful and make the most progress in a general education setting? Whether they’re spending time in a specialist class like music or art or a full day in general education, there are some core things you can do to make sure the core program still works for them. In the first episode of this two-part series, I reveal some of the structure and support you can provide for students with ASD in larger environments.

3:45​ - The first step in planning successful inclusion for a special needs student

4:53 - An example of how the first step can play out with a student

7:33 - Effectively communicate your goals to the staff

8:58 - A really good strategy for identifying primary goals and sharing them with others

10:14 - Don’t forget about these (I’ve seen so many general ed classrooms that don’t have them)

If you’ve been listening for a while, you’ve heard me talk about student engagement. I’ve talked about the need to keep them engaged and things to do to keep them engaged. But this time, I want to talk about it very explicitly in terms of why it’s the key to everything for students with ASD and other disabilities.

2:29​ - What engagement means and what it looks like

4:36 - Why engagement is so important for your students

8:20 - The trick about engaging students you need to be aware of

9:04 - How to keep engagement on track during transitions

11:51 - How to schedule engaging activities when you have less staff on hand to help

14:52 - How to plan for unexpected breaks that can wreak havoc in your engagement scheduling

How was the Special Educator Academy born? One of my biggest dreams has always been to create a place where special educators could come together and learn from each other. And Facebook, while great for connecting, wasn’t going to cut it. In this episode, I reveal how I came up with the idea for the academy, what if offers to educators like you, commonly asked questions about it, and how you can make use of it (even if you think you don’t have time).

00:56​ - What it was like to work as a school consultant pre-Internet

4:38 - How the academy has changed over time to make it easier to find answers to your questions

7:00 - An area the academy covers that I know is always in need

9:03 - How the academy is designed to used in very small doses of time and still be worth it

12:09 - What the academy is intended to be

July’s here! It’s an interesting month for us teachers. Everyone tends to slow down this time of year, go on vacation, and just relax and chill. But those of us in the teaching world take some time out of our summer to gear up for the new school year. So to move you forward in that direction, today I want to give you some idea of materials I’d prioritize as you sit by the pool and think about how you want to set up your classroom.

1:30​ - How I used to spend my summers prepping for the classroom

5:12 - Ways to set up your visual schedules

6:33 - Making the use of visual schedules much easier (attention newer teachers!)

8:43 - What kind of picture schedule should you use?

12:29 - Ways to create materials for independent task work

14:09 - Why work tasks are important and the kinds of tasks you want to include

Students (and not just autistic ones) can get stuck on specific topics or items that they just can’t seem to let go. But these obsessions serve a purpose for the student. It’s your job to figure out what that is and how to handle it. In this episode, I take a look at perseverations, functions they can serve, and some strategies you can use to address them in your classroom.

2:06​ - How to know when you have a student who perseverates

3:54 - Figuring out what function perseveration serves for the student

10:37 - Ways to handle obsession-based perseveration

14:13 - My favorite concrete way to set limits on perseveration

17:09 - How to handle object-based perseveration

The things I hear about visual schedules and autism always amaze me. I might hear some myths once or twice while others stick around for years. Some teachers don’t think they need to use them for their autistic students, but even some who do can have implicit biases that cause their visual schedules to not be as effective as they should.

So in this episode, I want to set the record straight. If you’re a teacher or someone trying to help others who work with individuals on the spectrum, then these myth busters will help you see how visual schedules can aid your students with autism.

2:52​ - Busting myth #1 about high-functioning students with autism

4:27 - The myth that scapegoats visual schedules for the way autistic students behave

5:49 - My counter to myth #3 about dependency on visual schedules

7:14 - The myth I see people embrace most often that drives me nuts

8:43 - Why visual schedules are more than just daily picture schedules

I’ve talked about what makes a good behavior management system in the classroom. Today, I want to talk specifically about three classroom management systems you can use in a group setting. Not only can you use these systems in a general or special education classroom, but you can even tailor one of them to the individual student. So there should be something to match the needs of all different kinds of classrooms and kids.

1:40​ - How to implement one of my favorite classroom management strategies: the marble jar system

5:14 - A variation of the marble jar system I’ve used in the past

6:36 - One disadvantage to using the marble jar system

7:06 - How to execute a strategy that’s been around since the late 60s-early 70s

11:40 - One disadvantage to be aware of when using this 2nd strategy

14:29 - The classroom management strategy that can be individualized

Not getting hit by a student is better than getting hit and having to respond. I think that’s a statement we can all agree on. However, focusing on the form of student behavior requires waiting for the behavior to happen, though. Focusing on the function of the behavior instead allows you to do plenty of things to prevent the behavior from happening.

So how can you support appropriate student behavior while discouraging inappropriate behavior? In this episode, I discuss what you can do to prevent behavioral problems through your classroom setup.

3:45​ - How to have clearly defined expectations in place

6:29 - How to ensure your rules are understandable and not overwhelming for students

9:05 - How to have clear routines and procedures

13:50 - How to have planned responses to challenging behavior that avoid behavior reinforcement

17:36 - Differentiating the responses to behavior based on student needs

20:15 - How to avoid downtime by keeping students actively engaged in learning activities throughout the day

22:16 - Quickly recapping the strategies to prevent challenging behavior

I want to veer off track a little today. I’ve dedicated this month to discuss the relationship between communication and behavior. But in this episode, I talk about what happens when you put your amazing behavior plan in place... and it still doesn’t work, despite your best efforts. What do you do then? Tune in to find out my step-by-step process!

1:36​ - How to know if, how, when, and where behavior has actually changed

6:14 - Discovering if your behavior strategies are being implemented correctly

8:10 - Another common thing you might discover by talking with your staff

8:59 - Have you given the plan implementation enough time to work? If so, consider these questions

10:34 - What to do if problem behavior hasn’t decreased despite demonstrations of replacement behavior from the student

12:06 - When all else fails (a.k.a. going back to the drawing board)

13:56 - An important reminder about the FBA process (especially if you need some consolation)

Communication doesn’t explain all challenging behavior in students with autism. What if behavior related to anxiety or sensory input gets reinforced inside the body? Those students who function in the average to above-average range still face hurdles, and one of them is an increased rate of anxiety and depression. In this episode, I discuss how you can address those with communication responses in your functional behavior assessment.

5:12​ - The conversation with an Academy member that got me thinking

8:28 - The tricky nature of proper behavior analysis for students with anxiety disorders

11:14 - Keep this in mind when attempting to fit anxiety into the functional behavior analysis process

13:46 - An example of a behavior hypothesis for the FBA that takes anxiety into account

17:14 - Further illustrating why behavior and communication aren’t always necessarily the same

Instructing small kids to “use their words” to replace problematic behavior with communication skills might be enough. But for your students who’ve built up habits around their challenging behavior, it’s not so easy. It takes some thought and planning to make it work. In this episode, I talk about functional communication training and how this process of teaching communication skills as a replacement to challenging behavior can be hugely effective and work really well in the classroom... when done right.

3:47​ - The first step in functional communication training

4:41 - The single biggest decision you’ll make in your FC training

7:28 - Some guidelines to help you be efficient with step two of the process

10:57 - How I would approach implementing FCT in the classroom

13:08 - The keys to making functional communication training stick for the student

It always amazes me when I talk to people about positive behavioral support and find out what they think about it. I’ve been mystified by some of the definitions I’ve heard out there. Today, I really want to get into the nitty gritty of positive behavioral interventions and support (PBIS). So in this episode, I talk about what PBIS is, where it came from, and where it’s gone since its arrival.

2:16​ - The origins of positive behavioral interventions and support

6:37 - The myth that PBIS isn’t based on science

8:03 - How school-based positive behavioral support data helps teachers with administrations

9:07 - Why PBIS is different from ABA (applied behavior analysis)

11:44 - The element of PBIS I find the most challenging (and the most interesting)

13:05 - How some states, school districts, and organizations may approach using PBIS

You’ve more than likely heard the old story about what it means when a boy pulls a girl’s pigtails, right? I bet many of you were skeptical when someone first told you that that behavior was a form of communication and made it sound like an okay thing. And while it isn’t okay, there is a very strong connection between communication and behavior.

Since May is Better Speech and Hearing Month, I’m switching gears and making this month’s podcast theme about the connection between communication and behavior. In this episode, I share some of the research I’ve found about how communication impacts behavior, how behavior grows out of communication deficits, and what all that means for intervention purposes.

4:42​ - What research shows about the development of communicative intentions of children in the past 50 years

6:40 - Why language-impaired kids show more behavior problems than other kids their age

9:22 - Why some with developmental disabilities experience a decrease in problem behavior

10:22 - Why it’s not enough to teach students just any communication skills

11:08 - A quick rundown of what functional communication training is

All month long I’ve been talking about the controversial topic of applied behavior analysis on this podcast. In today’s episode, I wrap up the series about ABA by discussing what teaching programs are and why they’re important. You’ll also learn how to really boost your instruction and your student’s learning across the classroom.

2:16​ - What teaching programs are and what they look like

4:41 - Why having a specific teaching program for your autistic students is important

5:46 - What happens when I do training on task analyses

7:06 - Four reasons why you must have a written teaching program in place

Are you sabotaging instruction in your classroom without realizing it? Luckily, you can easily catch and fix it as long as you know there might be an issue. In this episode, I slightly shift gears away from talking about ABA to discuss ways you could be sabotaging your own instruction. You’ll hear about seven saboteurs and how to find out if you’re committing one of them.

3:50​ - Instruction saboteurs #1 and #2: How your facial expressions give you away

5:31 - Saboteur #3: Why you should watch your hands

6:49 - Saboteur #4: Beware of these verbal cues

8:25 - A pretty obvious saboteur to avoid

8:53 - How saboteur #6 can cause hiccups with functional instruction

10:08 - The most subtle saboteur of them all

11:07 - Why it’s critical to ensure you’re teaching what you mean to teach and how to avoid these issues

What is naturalistic instruction? In today’s episode, I talk about what it is and how implementing it in a classroom setting can be a little tricky. I also give you a few strategies, along with other tips, to help make it easier for you to use this type of instruction and still make an impact for your students.

2:06​ - Reiterating an important point I made about applied behavior analysis in the previous episode

3:28 - Defining what naturalistic instruction is

5:37 - The principles of naturalistic intervention

7:06 - An example of incidental teaching to give you an idea of a naturalistic strategy

9:16 - Another thing that’s tough about naturalistic instruction in the classroom

11: 23 - Some tips and resources to boost naturalistic instruction success

Applied behavior analysis has been a sticky issue in the autism community. A number of people advocate very strongly against it. Being a board-certified behavior analyst myself, I’m not against it. But I still recognize that it has its problems. In this episode, however, I want to focus on what applied behavior analysis really is and talk about some of its misconceptions and strengths.

3:37​ - Why applied behavior analysis isn’t just about teaching

4:57 - How behavior analysts train to apply ABA to real-life problems

6:58 - One of the biggest myths I hear about applied behavior analysis

7:46 - Another thing applied behavior analysis is NOT

8:48 - A tendency some people have with ABA that drives me nuts

11:13 - What originally attracted me to applied behavior analysis

12:14 - The most common myth about ABA and why the misconception exists

14:15 - Remember this if you come up against lots of resistance when you’re teaching

Today marks the completion of my podcast episode series on independent work systems! Over the last few weeks, I’ve talked about why we use these systems in the classroom as well as critical elements and frequently made mistakes in implementing them. In this episode, I wrap it up by discussing some of the most common questions I get about these independent work systems and some of the things educators struggle with when setting them up.

1:58​ - What do you do if a student never finishes the work?

5:53 - How do you get your staff to stop talking when prompting students?

8:15 - Does a student need to have their own independent work system?

11:26 - What if a student doesn’t yet have any skills independently to practice in the system?

When implemented correctly, independent work systems are amazing! It drives me crazy when people reduce them to busy work, because every single element within an independent work system exists for a reason. In this episode, I talk about the most common mistakes I see with these systems in classrooms and how you can avoid them so that your students can develop independence as quickly as possible.

3:21​ - Why “program slippage” happens to both new and highly experienced classroom staff

5:29 - The students who still needed a place to finish

9:05 - The importance of a clear start and end to independent work tasks

9:56 - A certain kind of task I often see included that shouldn’t be

11:53 - Don’t make this mistake, especially with young kids

14:19 - A smart student who still needed this motivator to complete his work

17:26 - A useful tip to help you catch program slippage quickly

Every special education classroom should have some kind of independent work system. Even students in general ed, with or without autism, need one too. Some people don’t believe that, but I’ve successfully used systems for students without autism (and there are research studies out there that back me up). In this episode, I talk about why independent work systems are so important and the benefits they provide for the classroom and the students.

0:39 - The simple reason behind my passion for building independence in students

7:09​ - Classroom benefits of having an independent work system in place

8:34 - The many ways an independent work system benefits your students

11:39 - What you can do once students get independent with their system

12:45 - What independent work systems are and are NOT designed to do

If you follow me on social media, you can probably tell that I love independent work systems! Social media has made sharing tasks among each other much easier compared to the days before the arrival of Pinterest and Instagram. But it also means you have access to tons of misinformation, and there’s a lot of it out there when it comes to independent work systems.

What is an independent work system, though? Today, I’m kicking off a new series of episodes about independent work systems by clearing up those misconceptions, defining what the system is, and discussing what it's truly designed to be.

5:32 - Defining what an independent work system is and the four questions it must answer

8:55 - Why these systems are effective tools for students

9:31 - The critical element I often see get left out of independent work systems

10:58 - What the work structure in the system is designed to do for the student

11:42 - A must-have element for a student to complete the work system and the only thing it’s designed to teach

Do you remember when you asked a teacher at some point, “But when am I ever going to use this?” You understood that you had to learn things merely to get to the next stage of learning. But you probably had a teacher who made something like geometry finally make sense by showing how it could help you figure out the amount of paint you needed for a room, not just solve the x in the equation on the board or in the math book.

That’s why I love teaching life and functional skills and squeezing academics into student activities they think are fun! Cooking is an excellent example because it offers tons of opportunities to practice so many different kinds of skills. In this episode, I talk about some of those skills you can teach and generalize with cooking in the classroom.

2:07​ - Thoughts for those thinking, “But I can’t do cooking in the classroom!”

3:29 - Learning readiness skills and what they do and don’t mean

5:11 - The many many levels of math skills you can teach with cooking

8:48 - Why cooking doesn’t have to be a “one and done” activity for your students

9:17 - The functional literacy skills that come with cooking

11:16 - How students learn social skills through classroom cooking activities

I’ve mentioned my sister (who’s on the autism spectrum) in a previous episode. Looking back, she’s one of the reasons why I’ve been so focused on life skills instruction in my work. She moved through the general education system, and even got an accounting associate’s degree, without extra help.

However, she struggled to generalize her knowledge to everyday situations. In this episode, I want to talk about not only ways to get your students engaged in life skills instruction but also how to vary your teaching so they can generalize their skills for functioning in daily living.

0:43 - How my sister got through school and demonstrated a struggle with generalizing knowledge

4:47 - Keeping students actively engaged while working on reading comprehension life skill activities

7:22 - An engaging tool for students that doesn’t seem like a reading activity on its surface

8:45 - One of my favorite ways to work on functional reading and math

10:14 - A strategy I used in a life skills program for elementary students with severe challenging behaviors

I want to see color when I walk into a room. I don’t want to live in a world that’s robbed of color. Yet, walking into a transition classroom devoid of it inspired an idea. So in today’s episode, I want to talk about life skills classroom materials and what to look for when you buy them, make them, or find them.

0:54 - The depressing classroom set-up that sparked one of my life skills products

3:49 - How we tend to approach teaching adults with autism

5:38 - Why I created my real-life photo matching file folder tasks

6:41 - How to incorporate the written word into the file folder tasks and ways to customize the materials

8:13 - How to use the file folder tasks for teaching students math skills

11:40 - Avoid doing this when looking for materials for older students in life skills classes

Today, I’m shifting from morning meeting to life skills in the special education classroom. Even if you think you know what the term “life skills” means, it doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone, including every parent and school system. Making that assumption can sometimes get you in trouble.

But there are also some myths about life skills that need eliminating. So in this episode, I kick off a new series about teaching functional life skills and bust some of the myths that people have about them.

3:01​ - Defining what functional means to me and what life skills are

5:02 - Tackling the first myth about life skills for autism that has developed over the years

6:52 - Another misconception that stems from the idea that programs must be “all or none”

9:01 - Busting the life skill myth I hear most often, especially in the autism community

10:48 - Why you shouldn’t wait until you notice a problem before you start teaching functional skills

12:01 - The biggest functional life skills myth of all and how my family plays into my perspective on it

Surprise! You thought I was done with the morning meeting series on the podcast. I thought I was done too and said so in the last episode. But I’d forgotten that I hadn’t covered how to get morning meeting right for older students yet. So today, I want to talk about age-respectful activities and walk you through what a morning meeting can look like for middle or high school students.

3:03​ - What I mean when I use the term “age respectful” for activities

7:03 - An example of a morning meeting for a middle or high school classroom

10:55 - Another important skill you can make into a functional activity

12:24 - How I incorporate some kind of music and movement activity for students during the day

14:38 - An activity I use to settle students down after music and movement time

For a lot of special educators, data is the giant elephant in the room. It gets treated like that kind of a four-letter word when it’s not. Now I’m a huge data geek, so much so that I wrote a book about it. But I know data only helps you if it’s real, reliable, and teachable. So in this episode, I talk about how you can use data in a real classroom, with real students for group instruction.

3:14 - The key to making data collection feel less painful

4:18 - What we know about taking instructional data and how my naturalistic data sheet is set up

6:29 - How to take data on multiple points for multiple students during group activity

7:45 - Do you necessarily have to be the one to run the group activity?

9:59 - Another way to more easily record instructional data

10:23 - Tips for making instructional data collection work in your classroom

In the last couple of episodes, I’ve talked about why morning meeting or circle time is important and the skills you can teach in whole group instruction. There are strategies you can really capitalize on during morning meeting/circle time while others might come as a surprise to you as a possibility in a group. So in this episode, I discuss those strategies for teaching skills to students in group instruction.

2:09 - How explicit teacher-focused instruction can enhance your generalization instruction with students

3:38 - A misconception about using discrete trials in morning meeting and circle time

5:09 - The surprising similarity of instructional strategies across different disciplines

6:20 - A quick overview of the steps of discrete trials and ways you can implement them in group instruction

8:04 - How pivotal response training is like incidental teaching on steroids

9:26 - Other strategies to teach skills during circle time or morning meeting

11:14 - An alternative to choral responding that’s one of my favorite tools to use in any group activity

Circle time or morning meeting? While what we call it depends on the age of the students, the need to effectively teach skills during this time is still the same. So in this episode, I discuss the importance of targeting both curriculum skills and individual goals for various age groups, as well as the kind of skills to teach.

2:26 - Why circle time/morning meeting is a good time to address curriculum goals

3:08 - Five common areas to consider regarding general goals of morning meeting for the group

4:07 - The three different types of instruction I use for daily scheduled activities

6:02 - Discussing specific skill targets to meet in group instruction

8:35 - Ways to implement social skills for younger and older students

12:10 - Ways to implement communication language and learning readiness skills for all age groups

Confession time. Early on in my career, I hated morning meeting. I thought it was a complete waste of time and dreaded when anybody asked me to run it because I didn’t feel confident in my ability to do it well or make it fun.

Moving to South Florida changed that. I got to work with educators there who modeled circle and class meetings done right and ones where things didn’t go so well. In this episode, I want to talk about why group activities are so important and intimidate some educators.

3:06 - Skills that autistic students need to learn that morning meeting can provide

4:24 - Why these kinds of group activities are important for students of all ages

6:47 - The necessity to teach in a respectful and relevant way, especially for older students

9:22 - How group instruction helps autistic students in the three areas where they have difficulties

11:10 - Some challenges that teachers face with group activities