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The Autism Consortium
Mission Statement:
The mission
of the Autism Consortium is to improve the quality of life
for individuals with autism and their families through building
community awareness, providing professional development activities,
and supporting families.
About the Consortium :
Founded in 1995,
the Autism Consortium has been providing individualized training,
consultation, and system support to school districts throughout
the United States. Our services
focus on individuals with Autism across the spectrum, across
age spans, and across levels of functioning. Located
in Fort Lauderdale, on the campus of Nova Southeastern University,
the Autism Consortium is a unit of the Mailman Segal Institute
for Early Childhood Studies.
Our Model:
Our model for instruction for
students with autism focuses on three separate goal areas: independent
functioning, communication, and socialization. We believe
the path to these core skills rests on the development of a
strong individual education program for each student and a
highly structured classroom environment that allows meeting
these individual needs within the classroom context. These
three areas of growth represent high priority needs for all
students with autism, from those being educated in self-contained
special education environments to those included in general
education settings. We believe that teachers must be
trained in a wide variety of research-based strategies so that
they can develop programs to meet the individual needs of each
student with whom they interact. In the area of independence
these strategies may include: systematic instruction
techniques, prompting and prompt fading, using independent
work systems, following visual schedules, using visual cues
to complete tasks, and using assistive technology. In
the area of communication these strategies may include: using
augmentative communication, milieu language teaching, pivotal
response teaching, and environmental arrangement strategies. In
the areas of socialization these strategies may include: direct
instruction, peer models, and social stories.
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