A Lack of Autism Training

Valerie,

Great article!  

Another resource that should absolutely be embraced is talking and working with the parents of these kids.  

Grad schools cannot come close to educating these kids effectively enough compared to the knowledge the parents have.  You see, the school day does not end at 2:30 or 3:00 M-F in the home of an autistic child.  It is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Parents (like myself, lol) have become self educated in all areas of this disorder, including education, curriculum, treatment plans, etc.  Plus, they are the expert when it comes to there children.  

Befriend the parents.  You'll be amazed.  

I have learned more in the last 6 years self educating and researching myself then my ENTIRE educational experience, including college!  

But the difference is I had my child as my motivator!

I'm quite the smarty pants, lol!!!!

Love the teachers!!!!

Tiffany B.

I graduated in May of 2009. I truly enjoyed my grad school experience, however, I also did not feel prepared to work with the Autism population after graduation. I remember that we were basically taught what Autism was and about the spectrum (low-function autism-Aspergers). I do not feel that we were really taught any therapy approaches or how to keep data when working on social skills. I do agree with others who say that an SLP should be responsible and continue learning daily, but feel that grad schools should prepare us a little more for the real world. I was very shocked at the amount of Autistic students I encountered after entering this profession. I still struggle daily to create good social goals that you can easily keep data on and track progress. I really wish that the grad school I attended would have discussed goals, data tracking, and therapy approaches that were effective in working with Autistic students.

Autism training, as noted, is much needed.  Also critical and rarely taught is how to deliver the components of the IDEA and best practices in education.  Assessment--how do you know exactly where a child is functioning?  In autism, this can be highly variable across domains.  How do you write MEASURABLE goals?  Johnnie getting better isn't measurable.  Why don't teachers learn how to write goals???? Assess progress?  Investigate validated and research-based approaches?  Employ them?  Reasses them?  Teaching assessment, data collection and analysis is essential to the teaching profession across the board--general and special education.  If teachers understand how to critically evaluate themselves and their students, it will help to drive them to interventions and programs that work.  

Thank you, Kathie. You and Lisa both make excellent points. Yes, the universities do need to teach more, but as Lisa said, we SLPs also need to take initiative to learn more.  That doesn't just apply for autism, but any aspect of our job! I feel like I learn something new almost on a daily basis.  We school-based SLPs should never stop learning!

I graduated with my masters in 2010.  My program had a semester-long course in Autism.  It was an elective but many of us took the course.  We learned about autism differential diagnosis, evaluations to use, and many, many treatment approaches and the evidence behind them.  We also had many clients in our clinic with autism spectrum disorders.  Every graduate student was placed in a social language group (which were offered for 3 different age groups) at some point and many of us also had younger and/or more severe children in dyads or individually.  I also sought out other opportunities to learn more at conferences.  While of course every child is different and I am learning every day, I felt prepared to jump into my job, which includes preschoolers in a categorical autism program and mainstreamed children with ASD.  

You hit one of my soapbox topics, Valorie! A grad school should not teach a specific program but it is their responsibility to expose students to a variety of what is available to this "world of ASD." I agree with Lisa (comment above) that the student needs to take responsibility as well. I also feel that student teaching and clinical hours should allow access to great SLPS like YOU. Grad students should follow good blogs, read, and invite guest PARENT speakers into their programs. I speak in Las Vegas at UNLV and the Community College as a parent and SLP -usually invited by a student. There is such a need. Let me tell your grad student how lucky she is to have someone like you who cares about her student teaching experience SO MUCH. Fill her full of the names and resouces in the field of ASD ~ we know she'll need them. Thank you for this blog.

I have been in the field for several years now, same alma mater, but I have never felt unprepared to work with autistic children. I currently work with individuals on the spectrum ranging from 2 yrs to adulthood.  Graduate school is already so crammed that  I honestly do not see how they could provide more information on autism.  As with other diagnosis, a lot of the responsibility for treatment programs falls on the graduate to research for themselves.  I think if a student knows they will be entering employment with autism on the caseload, they need to research research research.  Also, program fads come and go and I don't think it's the responsibility of the grad schools to emphasise one over another.  At each age level there are tons of methods that are "proven to be the best."  Also, so many of the programs require training from the developmenters themselves in order to use them properly. I'm not sure how they could be taught in more detail at the graduate level.  Yes the grad schools should be mentioning them, but then it should the students taking the bull by the horns to learn more about the what and how.