Transition or Transformation?: Helping Young People With Autistic Spectrum Disorder Set Out on a Hopeful Road Towards Their Adult Lives

172 Pages·2010·4.96 MB·English

by  John Clements

TransiTion or
TransformaTion?
also by John Clements
People with Autism Behaving Badly
Helping People with ASD Move On from Behavioral
and Emotional Challenges
ISBN 978 1 84310 765 1
Assessing Behaviors Regarded as Problematic for People
with Developmental Disabilities
John Clements and Neil Martin
ISBN 978 1 85302 998 1
Behavioural Concerns and Autistic Spectrum Disorders
Explanations and Strategies for Change
John Clements and Ewa Zarkowska
ISBN 978 1 85302 742 0
also by Stephanie Lord
Planning to Learn
Creating and Using a Personal Planner with Young People
on the Autism Spectrum
Keely Harper-Hill and Stephanie Lord
ISBN 978 1 84310 561 9
TransiTion or
TransformaTion?
Helping young people with
autistic spectrum Disorder
set out on a hopeful road
towards their adult lives
John Clements, Julia Hardy and stephanie Lord
with graphics support from matt Whelan
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia
First published in 2010
by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
116 Pentonville Road
London N1 9JB, UK
and
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA
www.jkp.com
Copyright © John Clements, Julia Hardy and Stephanie Lord 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form
(including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether
or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the
written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Safron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N
8TS. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of
this publication should be addressed to the publisher.
Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result
in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Clements, John, 1946 Dec. 1-
Transition or transformation? : helping young people with autistic spectrum disorder
set out on a hopeful road towards their adult lives / John Clements, Julia Hardy and
Stephanie Lord.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-84310-964-8 (alk. paper)
1. Autistic children--Education. 2. Autism spectrum disorders. 3. Autism--In
adulthood. I. Hardy, Julia. II. Lord, Stephanie. III. Title.
LC4717.5.C54 2010
371.94--dc22
2009051752
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84310 964 8
ISBN pdf eBook 978 0 85700 386 7
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
MPG Books Group, Cornwall
ConTenTs
Acknowledgements 7
Introduction transition and transformation 9
Chapter 1 the Beginning 13
Chapter 2 student stories 24
Chapter 3 the staff Perspective 42
Chapter 4 An Understanding of Autism 54
Chapter 5 ethos, Practice and curriculum 63
Chapter 6 the Relationship style 73
Chapter 7 Relationship techniques –
Visual supports for communication 79
Chapter 8 Relationship techniques –
developing a Reflective self 89
Chapter 9 Relationship techniques –
Body Basics and massage 93
Chapter 10 Relationship techniques – Reward,
Punishment and a culture of
celebration 103
Chapter 11 transition or transformation? 115
Chapter 12 organisational supports 123
RefeRences 132
APPendix 1: sAmPle stAff tRAining
mAteRiAls 133
APPendix 2: the Role of edUcAtionAl
PlAcement, edUcAtion PRoVision And
PARents on the school PeRfoRmAnce
of childRen with AUtistic sPectRUm
disoRdeRs 140
Phil Reed, Lisa A. Osborne and Emma Waddington
RefeRences foR APPendix 2 164
index 166
aCknoWLeDgemenTs
We would like to thank all the staf, students and families we worked
with over the time period covered by this book. Their ideas, challenges,
encouragement and support all helped to shape the work described here.
Three members of the senior management team deserve particular mention.
Sarah Sherwood and Bryan Hynard played a huge role by turning training
and ideas into efective practice. They played key leadership roles in
creating exceptional teaching and learning experiences for our students. We
did not always agree with each other, but through a shared commitment
to teamwork we were always able to reach consensus. Keely Harper-Hill
was the speech and language therapist for much of the time period in
question. She was a major driving force behind many of the communication
techniques described here and drafted the frst BERIS manual. She was
an efective and inspirational trainer – she would rehearse the senior
management team until we were word, gesture and mantra perfect. She
directly shaped our own presentation skills and was always there to model
new practice ideas. We would also like to thank Laurence Hime, Principal
Educational Psychologist, for the key role he played in building the skills
of staf in the school, that for the purposes of this book we are referring to
as Risinghill. We were fortunate indeed to have colleagues of this calibre.
A special thanks is due to Professor Phil Reed and his colleagues at
Swansea University who took time out of a busy schedule to provide us (in
Appendix 2) with a very thorough overview of their major research studies
that included Risinghill.
We would also like to thank the team at Jessica Kingsley Publishers and
Jessica herself in particular. She has been a source of great encouragement
and gentle guidance in making sure this work came to publishable
fruition.
Finally we would like to thank our families. Much writing goes on in
‘stolen’ time and can only be achieved with their forbearance. We thank
them for that and for all the other things that they contribute make it
possible for a project like this to be completed.
7
introduction
TransiTion anD TransformaTion
What is this book about?
This is a story of hope. The book describes an approach to working with
a group of articulate adolescents on the autistic spectrum, a group who
presented with highly signifcant behavioural challenges and emotional
difculties and who had been excluded from their previous educational
placements. This work was carried out in a school setting specialised for
students with autistic spectrum difculties and illustrates how unpromising
beginnings can turn into promising developments.
The book describes the support practices adopted at the school, practices
that evolved over a number of years. It considers these practices in some
detail and describes the outcomes achieved for the students both in terms
of specifc behavioural changes and more general changes in self-esteem
and well-being. These changes are refected in the kinds of opportunities
that opened up for our students as they transitioned into early adult life; it
is the contention of the book that these opportunities were much diferent
to what might have been expected for such a disturbed group of young
people.
However, the book goes beyond just enumerating specifc practices.
It locates these practices in a broader, systemic, whole school approach.
In this way support practices for staf become as important as support
practices for students. Education becomes a joint efort, a community of
learning and development rather than something that educators do to
students. The book illustrates how an initially small group of people shaped
a climate and style of working that came to be adopted by the whole staf
group and led to an organisation that as a whole was open, creative and
solution focused. Thus attention is given in the text to key organisational
characteristics and methods of organisational change because without
such a holistic framework of support the individual practices with students
become relatively meaningless.
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