Autism spectrum disorder 

(ASD) is a range of neurodevelopmental disorders predominantly

characterized by impaired social functioning and communication disturbances (Stöppler, 2019). The

conspicuous characteristics of autism spectrum disorder can include difficulty with social interaction

and communication with other people, restricted interested, repetitive behaviors and even self-

abusive behavior. In Danny’s case, he showed an omen of ASD when he was 2, that is his body

made a natural reaction of avoidance behaviors to usual auditory, he resisted going to the beach due

to the sound of wind and wave were overstimulating to his hearing sense. Later when Danny started

to grow, he encountered problems on social interactions and weak in using both verbal and non-

verbal communication. He exhibited lesser eye-contact and showed weird behaviors such as hand

flicking and hand flapping. At age between 18 months to 2 years old, normal children can already

begin to form two-to-four words sentences. Danny was delated in speech development. He did not

start to speak, he made queer sounds instead of imitating adult’s words or talk. Danny had a fixated

interest. He was indulged in certain toys e.g. trains and dolls, lining up the toys like trains and enjoy

the play on his own. Sometimes, the stereotyped or repetitive motor movement performed on Danny.

He did repeat behaviors like jumping and spinning in circles for a long period of time. Moreover, he

had a low security awareness. For example, he will put his fingers to the on fired-candles. He had no

fear or understanding of danger. All these reactions and behaviors are the symptoms of autism

spectrum disorder.
From the above, Danny is weak in understanding social cues, intense focused on something and

repetitive movements. Therefore, he should be improved on his communication skills and his

ongoing behaviors. More opportunities for Danny to express his own ideas is encouraged, like using

visual supports that include pictures and symbols. For examples, the case video showed that after

Danny joined the SPEAK program, he was able to use picture cards to express himself that he wants

a juice and he tried to say the sentence. Simple language and repeat instructions also suit the

educational needs of Danny. Such as repeat “Danny, left.”, instead of saying “Danny, please turn

left.” Because children with ASD usually take times to process information. Simple sentence helps

them easier to remember the sentence structures and understand the instruction. Repeat instructions

can also check their understanding of vocabularies and sentences. Then, on the social development

side, offering daily routine, for instance, saying good morning and goodbye, washing hand before

eating etc., helps ASD children to notice and understand the world around them. And also, to distract

Danny to reduce the frequency of performing repeat behaviors. Furthermore, Danny needs to

practice speaking and learn daily vocabularies. Since he has intense interested toys, he can actually

learn from his interests by inviting him to share about his toys or providing some teaching materials

about his interested train such as playing the cartoon video “Thomas and Friends”, he can learn

colors and number concepts through his interests.

The activity designed for Danny is mainly focusing on sentence understanding in language

development, it called “Open the fridge”. One teacher should play with Danny together. It takes
about 20 minutes for the whole activity. The objective of activity is the let him understand a short

sentence that is formed by an object and a place. As at the last of the video showed that Danny were

improving in progress, he can define different objects in photos and respond to simple orders (he

smiled at the camera when his mom asked to). So, the activity is now teaching him to respond to

some simple instructions and teach him understand the relationship of different objects (e.g. fridge

and box are used to keep food inside) together with different objects name in daily living (e.g. food

name). The activity needs to prepare a toy fridge, toy food, basket, food-box, action card “put”, food

card and place card.

The activity starts with a role play, pretending they just went home from the supermarket and putting

the food into the fridge. Teacher will place the toy food on the table and then put the action card,

food card, and place card into the sentence. Reading out “Put an apple into the fridge.” and

demonstrate how and where should put the apple into. After that, teacher can show another food card

like banana, saying “Put a banana into the fridge.” and to encourage Danny try to put the toy banana

into the correct space. If he picks the wrong toy food or put into the wrong place, teacher must

emphasize on the important word and let him try again. In case he still does not respond to the

sentence, teacher must assist Danny by holding his hand to put the toy food when teacher read out

the sentence. But if Danny does all process successfully, teacher should praise him and depict like

“Yes, Danny you are right! Put the banana into the fridge!”. Repeat the steps in order to let Danny

practice more sentence understanding. If Danny performs well, the activity level can increase by
adding more interferences such as more choices of toy food or more food utensils. So that Danny

need to be more careful to listen to the sentence in order to make a right choice. However, if Danny

cannot meet the target, teacher can lower the activity level by adjusting the sentence and repeat

practicing. For examples, give two different food utensils to choose or repeat taking out the same toy

food from the food basket. When all toy food has been put into the fridge, the activity is finished.

Teacher can sing a nursery song to end the procedure. Teacher must show the “End” card after the

song so that Danny knows it is the end of the game.

So how can the activity help Danny practice and learn new concept? First, teaching is regulated.

With the adjustment on game levels can teach Danny step by step depends on his developmental

milestone so that he will not be forced to express over-complexed meanings. At the same time, the

activity used daily life behavior to let SEN children to understand the world around them, lead them

learn the right vocabularies and sentences in different living scenarios to improve oral and language

skills. Then, visual supports can improve understanding. They help to provide structure and routine,

encourage independence, build confidence, improve understanding, avoid frustration and anxiety,

and provide opportunities to interact with others. They can make communication physical and

consistent, rather than fleeting and inconsistent like spoken words can be (Anonymous, 2019).

Therefore, teacher will provide visual cues, oral prompts and action assistance to Danny. It helps

autism spectrum disorder children easier to receive message more specifically. Action photos and
oral instructions can assist them understand the meaning of words so that they can understand why

they are doing the action.

Teacher also play multiple roles in the activity. As the stage manager, teacher can make similar

learning environment to let Danny be familiar and trust the environment. When teacher is holding the

activity, teacher has to use simple and clear sentence and to emphasize on important word, such as

highlighting or read it aloud. Meanwhile, teacher need to adjust his speech according to the

observation of Danny’s responds. For instance, teacher’s tone should stay steady if Danny is over-

reacted. Also, being a scaffolder, teacher should often give responds including facial expressions,

body movements or spoken languages. They provide language stimulation and proper language

inputs to Danny such as complete sentences and extended sentences. So that Danny can practice new

language skills through participating into the activity. Furthermore, teacher being a facilitator,

through offering repeat practice can help Danny consolidate learned skills. Last but not least, teacher

must be aware of adaptation and ways of learning of different special education needs children, for

examples, if Danny is using the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), which allows

people with little or no communication abilities to communicate using pictures (Anonymous, 2019),

then teacher must adjust and prepare special activity cards for Danny in order to satisfy Danny’s

learning needs.

To conclude, from Danny’s video, we can see that he has autism spectrum disorder. He showed some

typical ASD child’s behaviors such as he has intense interest of certain toys, repeat behaviors of
jumping and spinning in circles, and his speech develop later than normal children. However, after

Danny joined the SPEAK program at Howard T Ennis, he can communicate through pictures and

imitate parent’s sentences. Therefore, to support Danny’s further language development, the activity

“Open the fridge” is designed for him, that is asking Danny to identify different names of food,

matching the food card and putting the food into the correct place. In this game, Danny can

understand a “double-nouns” sentence and listen to the instructions. The activity is based on daily

life experiences. So, Danny can participate and adopt the learning quickly and easily.

Reference List
Stöppler, M. C. (2019, June 29). Autism: Check Your Symptoms and Signs. Retrieved from

https://www.medicinenet.com/autism_symptoms_and_signs/symptoms.htm

The National Autistic Society - Visual supports. (2019, June). Retrieved from

https://www.autism.org.uk/about/strategies/visual-supports.aspx

The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS). (2019). Retrieved from

https://www.nationalautismresources.com/the-picture-exchange-communication-system-pecs/