LEARNING
connections
Special Needs 30 • Instructional Strategies 32 • Multidisciplinary 34, 36 • Social Studies 38 • Mathematics 39
Whiteboards Engage Autistic Students
By Kathleen McClaskey and Randy Welch
The interactive whiteboard is “training the students’ attention.”
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improve their ability to generalize
skills beyond the classroom. To accomplish these goals we had to change
the accepted paradigm of education
for autistic learners and overcome
several hurdles.
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If you were to walk into a class for
autistic students, you would see
almost as many adults as children
and very little interaction between
students. Group instruction would
consist of a teacher talking while other
adults reinforce, and often interpret,
the instruction for their students. Any
technology in the classroom would reflect the teaching methodology. There
would be individual computer stations
with touch screens and software that
would duplicate discreet trial practices and individual communication
devices for students.
Students with autism struggle with
attention deficits, which are exacerbated by their lack of social interest
and reciprocal relationships. Typically,
autistic students do not engage in reciprocal play or social learning. They
must be taught skills directly, and they
generally will not learn them by observation. Teaching them involves a great
deal of individual instruction.
At Spaulding Youth Center in
Northfield, New Hampshire, the
Autism, Communication, and Technology (ACT) Project purchased
interactive whiteboards in the spring
of 2006 for five classrooms that served
students with autism or neurological
disorders. The students ranged in ages
from 7 to 20.
Our main focus was on increasing
group instruction in hopes of proving
that students were capable of social
learning. We also hypothesized that
increased group instruction and social
learning would help students develop
communication skills and would
Transforming the Teacher
Theresa, an experienced teacher of
students with autism, had minimal
experience using software with her
students, and she was apprehensive
about using this new tool. But her
fears turned to enthusiasm almost immediately as she began experimenting
with Writeboard and Kidspiration.
When testing the interactive whiteboard, Theresa was surprised by how
engaged her students were as they
used Kidspiration to create a story
using pictures. The graphics helped
nonverbal students tell stories that
they longed to relay.
Theresa decided that she wanted
to develop her morning activity for
the entire group of six children using
the whiteboard software along with
an interactive Web site. She started
with an attendance activity that allowed students to circle their photos
to indicate they were present. Using
Starfall, students then took turns
selecting and moving objects on a
calendar and navigating the program.
Next she used Starfall to introduce the
sounds of letters. The morning activity wrapped up with a story from an
electronic book from the Reading is
