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St Thomas Times Journal - Autism draft implementation plan in the works for London District Catholic |
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School boards have been given one year to implement the programs and procedures for students with ASD
Wednesday September 26, 2007
By Karen Otto
for The Times-Journal
LONDON, Ont. — One in 166 people is estimated to have autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and that number is rising.
That’s just one thing London District Catholic School Board trustees learned at Monday night’s meeting.
Linda Groen, supervisor of learning services support staff, made a
presentation on ASD to inform trustees of the draft implementation plan
designed this summer to correspond with the Ministry of Education’s
policy and program memorandum 140.
The memo stipulates all Ontario school boards must support the goals
within the memo by using applied behavioural analysis (ABA) programming
for students with ASD. The memo defines ABA as “using methods based on
scientific principles of learning and behaviour to build useful
repertoires of behaviour and reduce problematic ones. In this approach,
the behaviour(s) to be changed are clearly defined and recorded.”
Groen said ASD is a lifelong developmental disorder and the disability
varies from person to person and the symptoms can also vary over time.
The disease is truly a spectrum, she stressed, as it encompasses
everything from childhood disintegrative disease to Asperger’s syndrome.
Part of the ministry’s mandate stipulates boards must offer special
education programs for students with ASD and that won’t be a problem
for the LDCSB, she said.
“We’ve always offered special programs,” Groen said.
Those with ASD often have trouble transitioning between activities and
different settings and Groen said a transition group is already in
place to help with such issues.
Over the summer, those designing the draft plan also created a learning
components pyramid with the base of the pyramid consisting of universal
learning components such as understanding autism, visual strategies and
transition planning.
“The notion is, if we in our classroom do a really good job with those
base components, our children will do really, really well,” she said.
Groen said the board is working with the Thames Valley Children’s
Centre and is using two of the centre’s programs — the Autism
Intervention Program and the School Support Program.
School boards have been given one year to implement the programs and procedures for students with ASD, she said.
“And that’s not very long because money didn’t come along with that to implement programs and procedures,” Groen noted.
Within the LDCSB, 53 elementary school students and 19 secondary
students have been designated as having ASD, but there are likely many
more who haven’t yet been diagnosed, Groen said.
The draft plan has yet to be presented to the special education advisory committee.
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Awareness 
