Functional Routines & Task Analysis for Students with Autism

For students with autism, the routines and activities of daily living can be challenging. In this lesson, you will learn about functional routines
and task analysis, which can be used to teach students to master these situations.

Functional Routines and Task Analysis

Functional routines are regularly occurring events that require a consistent set of behaviors to achieve a goal. For
example, a functional routine for getting ready for school might include getting dressed, eating breakfast, brushing teeth,
and packing a backpack. This set of behaviors is expected on a regular basis, and achieves the goal of going to school.
Some functional routines have a broader scope, such as getting ready for school or packing up to go home. Some
functional routines have a narrower focus, such as washing hands or writing down homework.

In order to complete functional routines, teachers and parents must use task analysis. Task analysis is the process of
breaking a task into its component steps. After identifying the steps required to complete a task, you must ensure that the
student has the necessary skills to complete each step. Then the steps are explicitly taught so that the student is equipped
to complete the entire task. When you think carefully, you may be surprised how many steps and skills are involved in a
simple task.

If a student is struggling, it is important for teachers and parents to work together to identify functional routines that are
relevant to the student and prioritize which routines to address rst. These routines may be classroom routines or
academic tasks. In the next two sections, we will look at a couple speci c examples of how to use task analysis to explicitly
teach functional routines to a struggling student.

Classroom Routines: Arrival Procedures

Transitions can be a confusing time for students with autism. The rst transition of the day, arrival, sets the tone for the
rest of the day, so it is bene cial to create a functional routine based on the classroom's arrival procedures. Let's look at a
sample classroom.

1. Begin by analyzing the task: what are the expectations for the student?

Remove coat/hat and place on hook.

Remove homework folder from backpack. Place homework in the teacher's bin and place folder in desk.

Hang backpack on hook.

Go to the classroom lunch chart. Select popsicle stick with name and place it in the appropriate column: lunch from home, buying hot
lunch, or buying cold lunch.

Sit in desk and begin work on morning work that is listed on the board.

2. Identify: what component skills are necessary to participate in this functional routine?

Motor skills: zip/unzip, hang, remove items, place items in correct locations.

Identi cation of one's own space - coat hook, desk.

Communication of personal choice - lunch selection.

Organization and initiative - performing steps independently.

3. Assess the student: do they have the skills necessary to perform each step? Teach skills individually if necessary.

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 Note: At this point in the process, it may become necessary to introduce modi cations or accommodations.

Accommodation: If the coat hooks are labelled with names, for a student who is not yet able to read their own name, their
photograph could be added beside their name.

Modi cation: For a student who lacks motor skills and cannot hang the jacket/backpack on a hook, a modi cation might be a crate
beside the hook where that student can place their belongings.

4. Teach the task. Once the student has been taught component skills, put them together and teach the steps in order.

With the student alone in the appropriate area, model the arrival routine.

Support the student in performing practice runs of the arrival routine in the appropriate area without others present.

During arrival time, support the student in performing the arrival routine.

Reduce support until the student is able to perform the arrival routine independently.

Academic Tasks: Summarize an Article

Functional routines are part of a variety of academic tasks. As an example, let's examine the steps of summarizing an
article.

1. Begin by analyzing the task: what are the expectations for the student?

Read the article.

In three to four sentences, summarize the main idea of the article.

2. Identify: what component skills are necessary to participate in this routine?

Read the article.

Find the main idea.

Discriminate between important and unimportant details.

Restate the main idea in your own words.

Write complete sentences.

3. Assess the student: do they have the necessary skills to perform each step? If not, teach the steps individually.

The steps to this academic task have likely been taught to the whole class if this assignment is being given. A student with autism may
need additional teaching on each of these skills.

Accommodations may come into play here as well. For example, a student with weaker writing skills might be permitted to dictate or
type a summary.

4. Teach the task.

Model the task for the student.

Support the student to practice the task during class.

Support the student to perform the task at a regularly occurring time.

Decrease support until the student can perform the task independently.

Lesson Summary
Functional routines are events that regularly occur where a student must perform consistent behaviors. Task analysis
can be used to break those routines into speci c steps and skills, which can then be taught to the student. Then, a student
can be taught to perform the routines rst in isolation, then in the natural context of the school day. The steps for task
analysis are:

1. Analyze the task /

 2. Identify component skills

3. Assess the student's needs for accommodations or modi cations

4. Teach the task

Task analysis is especially helpful for students with autism.