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 does the SCERTS’ focus
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 are sensitive to goals or activities 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 may result in problems for optimum arousal for learning.
4. The child may remain preoccupied with 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 to foster a sense of competence.
■ Recognize and support 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 give the turn back to
child.
■ Provide 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.
■ Interpret problem behavior as communicative styles and respond to problem
behavior.
■ Honor protests or rejections as communicative styles too and respond
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.
SCERTS ASSESSMENT PROTOCOL
1. Determining the stage – Social Partner stage/ Language Partner Stage/
Communication Partner stage
2. SAP Observation Form – An extensive list of goals and objectives to determine as
well as assess the level of achievement of a particular goal (of a particular objective)
that falls under the umbrella of any of the SCERTs model domains. The form also
enables to practitioner to assess the acquisition of a certain goal as well as the
generalizability and hence the mastery achieved in that skill. This is done by scoring
each goal over the year (divided in 4 Qtrs.) for the occurrence in one or more than one
settings or situations.
3. SCERT Profile- an assessment of the progress of skill acquisition in a more holistic
manner looking at objectives rather than the individual goals over the year for
example shares attention is seen as a singular objective to be assessed rather than the
4 component skills under that objective. The row in front of each objective contains
boxes that represent those component skills making up a whole. The practitioner
shades these boxes according to the progress of the child.
 Formulating an IEP
 Name
 IEP duration
 Prompt Hierarchy
 Goal – the general SCERT domain as well as the specific objective
and sometimes even a particular goal depending on the child’s level
of assistance required.
 Progression points- Baseline, Expected and Exceeded.
 How this goal will be supported- at school and at home.
 Evaluation Review
 Personnel developing and implementing the IEP.
A.F’S INDIVIDULAIZED THERAPY PLAN.
Prompting Hierarchy: Physical Prompt (PP), verbal or modelling Prompt (SP), Gestural Prompt (GP), No Prompt (NP)
Name: A.F I.E.P time duration- March-May , 2020

Goals Progression points How this will be supported Evaluation and review
Social Communication Baseline: A.F performs one activity
Joint Attention reluctantly before temper tantrums take
In school,​
 To improve o seat place in order to escape work
behavior Expected: ​A.F will perform 2 activities in a  Infusing motivating material and topics in activities
row remaining seated in his place
Exceeded:​A.F will be able to remain seated  Designing activities to be developmentally sensible.
for at least 20-25 minutes during work.
At home,

 Parents can simplify the task given to the child according

Baseline: A.F does not make eye contact or
shifts gaze between people.
Expected: A.F will make eye contact when 
addressed, will be able to shift gaze from
 To teach sharing person to object following command with
attention with eye VP.
contact and close/distal Exceeded: A.F will be able to maintain eye
contact point. contact, shift gaze and follow
to the developmental level and incorporate preferred/liked
items in the task to improve on seat behavior.
In School,
Waiting for and encouraging initiation ( with the help of
ICWs or other activities)
 Offering varied learning opportunities like following
commands, visual cues etc.
At Home,

contact and distal point without prompts Use the same supports to reinforce shared attention.
Social Baseline: A.F does not
Communication imitate or model gestures or
Symbol use: verbalizations.
Expected: A.F will e able to
 Learning by imitate familiar actions and
imitation of sounds within 10 seconds of
familiar presenting a model and
actions and develop spontaneity in
sounds imitating actions and sounds
after modeled.
Exceeded:​A.F will imitate
familiar actions and sound
later without a modelling
prompt.
Evaluation Key: Developing Expected
Developed by: Ms. Iqra Naz
Clinical Psychologist.
In School,
 Providing visual for expressive
communication and generative
language
o Action cards
o I want/I need visuals
 Offering repeated learning opportunities
At Home,
 Parents can do this by incorporating the
vocabulary or actions needed in the
given setting by modelling the desired
action or verbalizations and provided
the same supports.
Exceeded
 Types of Activities
■ Goal Directed Activities
■ Cooperative Turn-taking Games
■ Theme Oriented Activities
 Multiple goals targeted within activities
■ Activities in SCERTS model are never designed to focus solely on an
isolated skill or single skill domain.
■ An activity may target as many as 2-3 or more primary skills
■ For example cooking
1. Social communication (requesting, modelling, observing)
2. Emotional regulation (maintaining attention, requesting a break when
needed or requesting help)
3. Use of transactional support (using visual support such as a visual
sequence or number of trials)
■ It is the coordination of these skills not the application of each skill
individually that leads to competence and independence in the child.
Other examples include, FCT, ICWs etc.