THE TISDALE RECORDER - WEDNESDAY, JULY 31,2002

PROGRAM HELD IN NIPAWIN

          AIDS IN DEVELOPMENT OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN

           Saskatchewan Families for Effective Autism Treatment held a summer program which ran from July 2 to July 19 at Alex Wright School in Nipawin.

          The program was made possible by a grant from the Provincial government as well as donations made by the Tisdale Kinsmen Club, Tisdale Royal Canadian Legion Branch #50, and the Tisdale Beta Sigma Phi chapter.

          Five students, two from Nipawin and three from Tisdale, were supplied with an aide who worked with the children through a series of centers which aided the students in fine motor skills, gross motor skills, as well as discrete trial instruction (DTI).

          The children would arrive at the school and prepare for the day’s events between 9:30 and9:50 each morning.  At that time they were greeted by their teacher Paticia Meszaros and the five teaching aides Martina Huvenaars, Sherrie Cleaveley, Amanda Klimm, Jan Ireland, Shirley Miller, and Kim Wood.

          After a brief morning circle, where they would greet each other by singing a song and saying good morning, they would then break off into their own learning centers for the structured part of the day. 

          In the centers children would rotate between play stations such as a water table, sand table, kitchen center, and art center which consisted of an easel, crayons, paint and scissors.

          There were also stations which helped with fine motor skills such as printing, cutting, and gluing as well as gross motor skills such as walking on a balance beam and jumping on a trampoline.

          The DTI centers were where aids utilized a specific type of teaching to maximize learning.  This teaching process is used to develop social, communication, and self help skills and can be beneficial to any age or population.

          This technique involved breaking a skill into smaller parts then teaching on sub-skill at a time until learned.  It also provides concentrated teaching and prompting and prompt fading as necessary and in the end using reinforcement procedures.

          Discrete trial teaching ensures that learning is an active process.  Brad Hayes, parent of an autistic child says, “we can not rely on autistic children to simply absorb information through passive exposure.”

          With DTI teaching, a very small unit of information is presented and the student’s response is immediately sought.  This contrasts with continuous trial or more traditional teaching methods which present large amounts of information with no clearly defined target response on the student’s part.

          The program saw the return of Autism Specialist Dr. Jan Butz for one day as well as Anjie Neufeld, speech language specialist for two days.

          In addition to structured learning times the students were given free time where they often went out of the classroom and into the community for some social interaction.   Hayes says a variety of events were planned including a trip to a petting zoo, swimming, a shopping trip to the store and even a visit to the Nipawin Exhibition.

          The program concluded on July 19 with a teddy bear picnic held at the Nipawin Regional Park.

          This program was just one of several SaskFeat sponsors throughout the year to aid in the development of autistic children.