SCERTS

■ SCERTS focuses on the social communication, emotional regulation and

transactional supports needed by the child with Autism Spectrum disorder.
■ The main aim of the program is to make the child competent , confident and
active participant in social activities.
■ The program focuses upon:
1. Joint attention of the child that helps the child learn shared attention, shared
emotions and relay intentions to the partner.
2. Symbol use is the style in which the child communicates.
What SCERTS focuses on?
■ SCERTS model focuses on programmatic goals based on the current research
on ASD and child development.
■ The main focus is however on dimensions such as social communication,
emotional regulation and implementations with appropriate transactional
support.
■ They focus on questions such as :
1. What are the social communicative skills a child needs to be actively engaged
and participate and learn?
2. What skills the child already demonstrates, his strengths?
3. To answer these questions SAP assessment forms are made in SCERTS.
4. It establishes the bases of Joint Attention and Symbol Use for social
communication of the child.
5. What emotional regulatory abilities are needed to address the primary needs
for emotional regulation of the child?
6. What emotional regulation strategies does the child already exhibit?
7. The answer to all that is in the SAP assessment as well.
8. Which transactional support (Including peer and academic support) can a child
benefit from?
9. What supports are already available to the child as demonstrated by SAP.
10. What supports provide help to family and professionals?
Do’s and Don'ts of Goal
setting
■ The goals should be appropriate for the child's developmental capacities of
social Communication ( Language play), emotional Regulatory capacity and
social cognitive abilities.
■ Children with ASD too sensitive to goals or activities too either too challenging
or under challenging for them
■ If the child is going through that then the following problems can arise, which
help us understand that the goals we chose are not appropriate :
1. The child might be bored, tries to escape the activity.
2. The child might be too challenged or overwhelmed leading to resistance to
activity.
3. Lack of motivation my may result in problems for optimum arousal for
learning.
4. The child may remain preoccupied with the inwardly focus rather than the
social partner Infront of him.
5. If attempts are made to make the child learn an academic skill beyond their
capacity they might use rote memory strategy rather than understanding the
concept.
6. The child might develop a negative emotional memory of the event or the
activity and refrain from it in the future.
What is expected of the
partner?
■ Follow the child’s attention by looking at or talking about what has the child’s
attention.
■ Attune to the child’s emotions and pace by mirroring the emotional tone of the
child’s behavior.
■ Respond to the child’s signals by to foster a sense of competence.
■ Recognizes and supports the child’s behavior and language strategies to regulate
arousal by responding appropriately to the child’s attempts at regulation.
■ Recognizing the signs of dysregulation and offer support.
■ Imitate the child’s verbal and nonverbal behavior and gives the turn back to
child.
■ Provides information or assistance to regulate state.
■ Offering breaks from activity when the child’s behavior suggests the need to.
■ Facilitate reengagement in the interaction and activity after breaks by
demonstrating appropriate arousal.
How to initiate activity?
The partner can facilitate initiation of activities or interactions in the following
ways:
1. Offers choices verbally or nonverbally.
2. Waits for and encourages initiation using nonverbal and vocal signals.
3. Provides a balance of initiated and respondent turns.
4. Allows the child to initiate and terminate activities when appropriate.
How to foster independence
in the child and help them
adjust to the setting ?
■ Use nonverbal cues to support understanding.
■ Interprets problem behavior as communicative styles and respond to problem
behavior.
■ Honors protests or rejections as communicative styles too and responds
appropriately.
■ Adjust the complexity of the language input to the child’s developmental level.
■ Adjust quality of language input to the child’s developmental level which
includes adjustment in context of the conversation and paralinguistic features.
 How to set stage for
engagement with the child?
■ Get down on the child’s level when communicating.
■ Secure the child’s attention verbally or nonverbally.
■ Use appropriate proximity and nonverbals with the child to encourage
interaction
■ Use appropriate tone and choice of words to maximize the child’s arousal and
interest.
■ Share emotions, internal state and intentions to the child.