Teacher's Corner

Using Special Interests in the Classroom
by Kathy Wadman
(Feb. 02)

Many children and youth with autism and Asperger Syndrome have special interests or obsessions that impact every area of their life. Throughout the years, many educators have felt that they must extinguish actions and thoughts associated with the interest in order for the child or youth to make academic and behavioral progress in a school setting. In many incidences, this approach has not bee successful. After attempting to eliminate obsessive interests for may years I decided that I needed a new approach. I began using the not only as a motivator but also as a key part of the child's curriculum.

Kyle is a delightful eight-year-old boy with a diagnosis of autism. Kyle spends part of his school day in a special education resource room and the remainder of the day in a second grade-classroom. His services include paraeducator support in the general education classroom, as needed, and direct instruction in the resource room for math, written language and reading.

Developing curriculum for Kyle proved difficult initially. His short attention span and limited verbal language made it almost impossible to measure reading comprehension. In addition, his apparent lack of interest in anything academic compounded the situation. However, it was determined that Kyle had a strong interest in dogs as he often mentioned his dog, Fly. As a result, he was encouraged to talk about his dog with those who worked with him during social skills training as well as during unstructured time. Gradually, it became clear that using this topic could be key to Kyle's academic and social success.

As a result the following tasks were incorporated into Kyle's day:

1. Encourage Kyle to ask others about their dogs. This became Kyle's way to initiate conversation with adults and peers. At first Kyle would ask, "Do you have a dog?" Later this was expanded to asking specific questions about the dog such as "What type of dog do you have?" "What color is your dog?" and so on. A POWER CARD provided visual support reminding Kyle of appropriate questions he could ask.
   
   
2. Create a picture book of different dogs. As a start, pictures of dogs were cut out of magazines or downloaded from the Internet. Soon, those who knew Kyle provided photographs of their dogs to be added to the picture book. Kyle also added written text to the picture book describing the dogs providing handwriting and keyboarding practice. Kyle looked at the picture book with adults and peers during free time and used the pictures to initiate conversation. Finally, the picture book was also used as a reinforcer--Kyle was motivated to complete assignments so he could look at the picture book.
   
   
3. Adapt Kyle's curriculum to incorporate his interest in dogs. Whenever possible Kyle's curriculum was modified to include his area of interest. For example, math word problems included references to dogs and reading included stories about dogs.

Encouraging Kyle's interest in dogs allowed him the opportunity to make academic gains, increased his time on task and improved his ability to communicate. It also improved his social status among his peers as the other second graders regarded Kyle as the "expert on dogs."