For Parents

As a special educator, part of my job is to ensure children with autism can access school activities and lessons in a way that is meaningful for them. This is different than creating individualized instructional plans and programs, because it involves taking something that already exists and adjusting it in some way – rather than creating something brand new. And, this way of specialized teaching applies to social-emotional learning, too.

There are two main ways of altering educational material and methods to accomplish this goal: accommodations and modifications. The line between these two things often becomes blurry for parents, and the truth is that it can be blurry in practice for educators and other school professionals as well. But it is important to understand the distinction between the two, as well as what they each entail, in order to ask for and utilize them successfully.

In this article, we’ll define accommodations and modifications in a way that is easy to understand and remember. We’ll also give some common examples of accommodations and modifications in an educational setting, and discuss ways to advocate for them appropriately.

Why Do Accommodations and Modifications Matter?

To understand why accommodations and modifications matter, it’s first important to understand the context in which they are typically used. In K-12 educational settings, a tiered or circular approach is often used to gradually increase supports and individualization for students who need extra or specialized support at school. This may be referred to as Response to Intervention (RTI) or Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS).

This means that all students are provided with a robust, high quality educational environment – including the physical space, the curriculum, and the teaching staff – as their foundation for learning. That’s the first tier. Then, at the second tier, students who need some extra support for specific academic or social and behavioral needs can access that as naturalistically as possible in their classroom or in small groups. This is where accommodations and modifications are applied most frequently. But, that doesn’t mean they aren’t useful and even critical in the third tier as well. The third tier is highly supported, individualized education services tailored to the intensive needs of the child.

What Are Modifications?

It will be easier to understand what accommodations are if we first explain modifications. Modifications are what they sound like: changes to an existing lesson, in order to make it more accessible. For example, a modification for a sheet of math problems could be to shorten the amount of problems assigned, or highlight only the ones relevant to the facts the student currently knows by heart. Text could be modified by making the font larger or increasing the space between words. Visual guides might help the student to focus on what they are reading, such as a ruler used under each line of text as it is read to ease efforts to visually track and block out excess visual stimulation or distractions on the page.

Modifications can be relatively easy to implement “on the fly.” This means that a teacher might notice a student is struggling with an assignment in the moment, and make an adjustment right then – even if they didn’t pre-plan to modify the assignment. In this type of situation the teacher is looking to ensure the student accesses the content without having to complete every single practice opportunity, or to assess their mastery of a concept without completing every test item. The teacher will use their educational judgment to note whether the student can move on at pace with the rest of the class with continuing modifications, or if they will need additional time with the material to master it.

Remember, modifications take what is already there and adjust it based on the student’s unique needs or tolerance and endurance – but the content itself remains the same.

What Are Accommodations?

Accommodations, on the other hand, take what is already there and tackle it in a different way. The assignment is replaced with a different assignment altogether. Accommodations are particularly useful when the student is working within the same learning environment as their peers, and with the same subject matter to a certain extent, but have a different learning style. For example, a nonverbal student learning about community helpers alongside their peers who are doing an activity to verbally identify pictures of police officers, firefighters, and other community helpers during a class meeting might do a picture-to-picture or word-to-picture matching activity instead of verbally saying the answers.

Accommodations could also adjust the subject matter within an overall scope and sequence, to a certain extent. For example, a student who is working on single digit addition while the majority of the class is working on double digit addition could receive a worksheet with single digit addition problems during class work time, while still participating in the mathematics lesson at large with the rest of the class. The teacher could even plan ahead to include some single digit practice in the lecture or group practice section of the lesson, utilizing those as review for students who have already mastered the skill but as group instruction opportunities for the student who is currently working on that skill.

In my experience, accommodations are a lot harder to do “on the fly” than modifications. This is because they require some type of preplanning to identify what content the student is working on and what type of accommodation they will benefit from, as well as how to integrate it with what the class as a whole is doing on a daily basis in their lessons. Because of this, accommodations might be best applied when identified in advance and planned for unit by unit, instead of day by day. Then, the teacher can monitor the student’s response in the moment and make further adjustments from there as needed.

How to Ask for Accommodations and Modifications

If you think your child would benefit from more or different accommodations and modifications than what they are currently receiving in their educational environment, it’s still a good idea to start with inventorying their current menu. This is because when accommodations and modifications are being done well, they often blend into the background of what is happening on a daily basis at school.

A good way to start the conversation is to ask your child’s teacher something along the lines of: can you share with me what accommodations and modifications my child is currently benefiting from, both academically for each subject area, and also socially and behaviorally?

Once you’ve got an outline of what’s happening and what your child is responding to most successfully, you can craft your requests accordingly. For example, if your child’s teacher shares with you that during reading time your child gets more frequent breaks between work tasks so they can engage successfully with the material and not get too tired or bored, you might ask for a similar modification during less structured times of the day when they are struggling to maintain positive interactions with peers for the entirety of lunch, or the entirety of recess. Or, if you have concerns about your child’s ability to understand more abstract concepts like the structure of the U.S. government, you might ask for accommodated material addressing other beginning civics concepts like creating rules, reaching consensus, and following rules.

Finally, if your child has an IEP (Individualized Education Plan), there is a specific section in which accommodations and modifications will be listed. However, these are often listed in boilerplate language, so they will need to be interpreted and applied with specific attention to your child’s needs and their learning contexts at school.

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA Courtney is a behavior analyst, educator, and writer in the Pacific Northwest. She has over fifteen years of experience in the field of autism services, and over ten years of master’s level experience in classroom teaching and ABA therapy. Her areas of expertise include infant and toddler development, parent coaching, ABA clinical leadership and training, P-12 special education, and case consultation for children and young adults with autism and other special needs. Courtney lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.

One of the classic behaviors in autism is perseveration.  It’s where a person likes to talk about something, perform a task or do an activity over and over.  Some people call it an obsession others call it a fixation. Most people see it as a negative thing

Do you have a child that likes to repeat things a lot?  It is enough to make you want to run away because it gets tiring!  

During my time as a therapist I’ve spent a lot of time trying to correct this behavior in my clients.  And by correcting I mean stopping. Anytime a perseveration came up I would find ways to redirect, distract, or ignore the repetition.  It’s a common practice in autism therapy.

Most times these strategies were met with resistance and the situation quickly spiraled downward.

It got me thinking, does perseveration have to be a bad thing? Is it something that needs to be snuffed out? 

No it doesn’t! 

Changing our perspective on repetitive behavior and seeing it as a tool rather than a hindrance will give us the right way to handle perseverative behavior in autism.  

Here’s how….

Special Interest Not A Fixation

When a kid loves to play with trains all day long or listen to a song on repeat instead of seeing it as a fixation look at it as a special interest.

A special interest is something that is special and meaningful to a person with autism.  A passion if you will.

Repeatedly lining up trains may not be something kids get stuck on, it may be something they are trying to figure out how something works.  Hearing the same song over and over may be a form of self regulation not a fixation.

Typical kids can play Minecraft or perfect their baseball batting skills for hours on end.  We see this as a hobby not an obsession. Why should it be any different for kids with autism?

Instead use special interests and….

• Offer opportunities for kids to explore their special interests.  What else can they do with it? What are they learning? How can they share this?
• Use the special interest as a reward after completing a task  
• Schedule special interest time into the day 

Doing this you will see…

• Lower anxiety  
• More relaxed demeanor 
• Decrease in fixation 
• Less need for control from child

Perseverations Communicate Thoughts

Kids with autism are very visual.  They understand and make sense of things better with pictures.  They also communicate their thoughts visually. Sometimes these thoughts are communicated through special interests.

My former colleague, Judy Endow, who is also autistic describes it best. 

“My thinking is comprised of pictures, colors, shapes along with their sound and movement. If I have no way of storing or retrieving information I will need to hold onto that picture until it happens.  As a child, the way I would hold onto a picture – a thought that was important that I didn’t want to forget – would be to talk about it over and over until the event happened.”

This totally makes sense!  Kids that verbalize their perseveration are usually trying to tell us something. 

Next time a child talks about the same topic repeatedly look for…

• Emotional state of the child. What is their mood like as they are retelling the story?
• Look for hidden meanings behind what they are saying
• Breakdown what they are saying into smaller increments 
• Translate/paraphrase what they are saying back to them 

Need an example?  I had a client that often talked about tree grinders and jumped up and down.  At first it may appear he loves tree grinders. Interestingly though he would bring the topic up when he was anxious, getting upset, or didn’t like an activity.  

Was he just sharing his love of tree grinders? No, he was recalling a time he got agitated when a tree grinder chopped up trees  near his house. The sound was upsetting. He didn’t have the words to tell me he was upset about something at the moment. Rather he had a way of retelling a time he got upset to let me know he was feeling angry now.

As soon as I was able to figure out what he was saying he would calm down when he felt understood.

Doing this you will see…

• Child feels understood
• Better to attend to their needs
• Decrease in repetitive stories
• Teach skills in identifying feelings and learn new words to express themselves

The right way to handle perseverative behavior in autism is to see it has a positive not a negative.  Repetitive behaviors are like a window into our kids minds. It helps us their preferences, hear their stories, and understand their feelings.  

Elizabeth Purpero

Elizabeth Purpero is a licensed school counselor and licensed professional counselor-in-training.  She has her master’s in counseling psychology.  Elizabeth has worked as an autism therapist with children and teens.  During her career, she has worked in intensive at-home therapy programs utilizing ABA and play therapy along with OT and speech therapy techniques.  She has also worked as a mental health therapist helping clients address their mental health issues as it relates to autism.  Elizabeth’s background working with the autism community has greatly helped her work with students in schools too.  She has helped teachers implement effective strategies, create goals for IEP’s and make classrooms more sensory-friendly.  Mark Twain once said, “Write what you know about,” and Elizabeth enjoys writing about autism-related topics and providing additional resources to help those impacted by autism.

All kids need help to learn critical social emotional skills. That’s how they form a foundation to successfully interact with others, accomplish collaborative projects, and participate on a team. Children begin practicing early social emotional skills as infants. Crying to get a need met, accepting comfort after getting hurt, and imitating a sound or action are all beginning skills on the way to more complex social emotional understanding and behaviors later in life.

Once babies progress beyond these early methods of communicating their emotions and exploring social relationships, they become children who need a lot of help to figure out social emotional expectations and act accordingly. They experience feelings and emotions that are as intense as you or I do, but they don’t yet have a way to think about and express them with nearly the same sophistication.

The first step on the road to a vibrant repertoire of social emotional behaviors and skills is to learn and practice social emotional awareness. Social emotional awareness is the ability to identify one’s thoughts and feelings, as well as identify indicators of feelings and emotions in others. When social emotional awareness is established, children can then begin learning how to manage their own emotions and interact successfully with others in a range of social situations, from playdates to group projects in school.

Children with autism may need extra guidance and teaching to successfully acquire and generalize social emotional awareness. They might need more opportunities to practice naming and expressing feelings and emotions. This is something that you can do at home, in your community, and when visiting or traveling to new environments. 

Here’s how to teach social emotional awareness to your child with autism.

Start With Them

Your child’s own emotions are a great starting point for teaching awareness, as they are intimately familiar with them. For example, your child may do things like jump up and down or nod their head when they are happy. Or, they could fall to the floor or stomp their feet when they are sad or mad. These nonverbal indicators of emotions give you an opportunity to talk about emotions as they are experienced. This provides context for your child to learn how to tell the difference between what they feel across different experiences. 

Use Easy Words

Starting with simple emotion words like happy, sad, mad, and excited makes it easier for your child to make the connection between a range of experiences that all produce a similar emotion. For example, you could use the word “excited” to describe your child’s emotions when they get to have their favorite cereal at breakfast, when you get home from work, and when their favorite book is picked for the bedtime story. Of course, you want to use many emotion words over time to increase your child’s social emotional literacy, and help them know what to do across a wide range of situations that produce complex emotions. To do this, you could pick one or two new emotion words to introduce each week, in addition to the basic, universal words you use all the time. 

Teach Expression

Part of social emotional awareness is learning how to communicate emotions. This communication doesn’t have to be verbal. You can start teaching nonverbal expression of emotions early. A good starting place is the “If You’re Happy And You Know It” song. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that the expressions you choose are age appropriate in a range of situations. For example, stomping one’s feet when mad is OK for a toddler or very small child, but squeezing a stuffed animal or pillow may be more appropriate for preschoolers and kindergarteners. You can also teach expressions that involve a social component, to lay the foundation for social skill development later. For example, teach giving a high five as an expression of feeling proud. 

Say Complicated Things For Them

Your child will often feel big emotions that are too complex for them to articulate, especially in the moment. This could happen when they are feeling happy and excited – or overstimulated – as well as when they feel frustrated or disappointed. During these situations, it is a good idea to get down on your child’s level and explain what you see happening. For example, you could say: “I saw that you got skipped over for the circle time activity. It’s so disappointing when you don’t get a turn. Sometimes we don’t have control over what happens to our turn in a large group. That would make me feel sad, too.”

Paying attention to complex social situations and their impact on your child, and then giving them the words to describe the situation and feelings is a good way to help them build awareness. You don’t have to fix the problem in the moment, if it can’t be fixed – the teachable moment can be about noticing and describing feelings and emotions that environmental factors produce. Also, this lets your child know they’re not isolated in their feelings. 

Use Books

Today, there are many books for children specifically designed to teach social emotional awareness. These books help families learn about and begin to practice emotion regulation skills, in addition to showing common scenarios that produce emotions your child is likely to feel. These books also plant the seeds for learning social skills, like conflict resolution through demonstrating sharing. If you type “social emotional learning” into your Amazon search box, and filter for Children’s Books, you’ll find lots of books like this.

You can also use books that are not specifically designed to teach social emotional awareness and skills. For example, the Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems provides lots of opportunities to pause and name feelings and emotions the characters are having during the course of the book. As your child gets older, you can talk about what the characters did to identify and express their emotions, as well as solve problems when they occurred. Talk about other solutions they could have used, as well.

Let Unhappy Emotions Be OK

As a parent, you naturally want to solve problems for your child, and make them feel better when they are frustrated or sad. You could place all of your effort into trying to eliminate the cause of their disappointment. However, it’s important to be intentional in letting your child feel their emotions and letting them know that’s OK, too. Sometimes it will not be possible to make the source of unhappy emotions go away. By allowing room for these feelings and validating them, you’ll help your child build resilience so they can stay calm and regulate intense emotions as they get older.

Talk About Your Own Emotions

Parents often screen what they say and do around their child, and this is positive to a certain extent. You want your child to trust that you can help them navigate situations that are uncertain or uncomfortable for them. You also want to be thoughtful in what emotions you demonstrate in front of your child and what social situations you will talk about with them, being mindful of what is age appropriate.

However, don’t eliminate discussion of your own social experiences and emotions from your vocabulary around your child entirely. It’s important that they see and hear you experiencing a range of emotions so that they can learn from your model. For example, if you knock over a cup of milk before you have a chance to give it to them at breakfast, you could take a breath, then say calmly, “this is so frustrating! I was all ready to give this to you, and it surprised me when I knocked it over. Now I have more work to do. And I’m worried we will be late. But I am going to take a deep breath, clean this up, and get you some more milk. I know within a few hours, this won’t bother me at all anymore.”

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA

Courtney Gutierrez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA Courtney is a behavior analyst, educator, and writer in the Pacific Northwest. She has over fifteen years of experience in the field of autism services, and over ten years of master’s level experience in classroom teaching and ABA therapy. Her areas of expertise include infant and toddler development, parent coaching, ABA clinical leadership and training, P-12 special education, and case consultation for children and young adults with autism and other special needs. Courtney lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.

Need To Calm Down?  There’s a Space For That!

Creating calming and sensory-friendly spaces in the home.

Home.  It’s where we are most comfortable and secure.  It’s where we can be free to unwind and relax after a long day. We usually know exactly where to go to do just that.  Our room, favorite chair or spot on the couch.  

Home should be this way for kids with autism too.  Yet if kids have difficulty with self-regulation or have sensory issues home may not feel this way to them.

Does your child feel at home in spite of their sensory processing?

The good thing is you can help your child feel at home by creating calming and sensory-friendly spaces.  Keep reading for some tips on how to do just that.

Knowing Your Child’s Sensory Needs

Kids with sensory issues often have difficulty taking in information through their senses.  They process things differently. The things they see, hear, touch, smell or taste can be challenging, no matter where they are, including home.

Home needs to be set up for them so that they can have a break from the world.  It needs to be more than just sending your child to their room and shutting the door though.  Creating calming spaces that are geared specifically to your kiddo’s needs is key.

Take note of your child at home and make a list of things and spaces they gravitate towards and triggers that set them off.  

Is there a fragrance they don’t like?  Too much light in an area? A favorite corner they gravitate towards?  Knowing these types of things in your child can be your guide as you create calming and sensory-friendly spaces throughout your home.

Calming Spaces

Kids love having choices and options, your child should have different places they can go to calm down or relax.  So where can your child go in your home?

One place to start is their bedroom.  Whether it’s to calm down from sensory overload or simply just wanting a break to play, the bedroom should be a reflection of your child so they can be in that spot without having to worry about their sensory input.

Moving beyond bedrooms it’s a good idea to have other spaces where your kid can retreat.  Perhaps your child prefers quiet spots and a room that gets less traffic can be a place for them.  Maybe your child loves to move around and the basement, which provides space to run and jump, is a good area for them.

Sensory Friendly Spaces

Once you figure out where the calming spaces are in your home, it’s time to bring in tools to make it more sensory friendly.

To help kids feel like their bedroom is their domain take stock of things like temperature, lighting, and sounds and make adjustments if needed.  If your child is old enough, get them involved to help arrange furniture, select decor or make changes.

I had a client whose room was in front of the house and got a lot of road noise.  A white sound machine helped fix that problem. Another client’s bedroom got the afternoon sun, room darkening shades resolved that issue.  Taking it a step further, I had another client who absolutely loved dinosaurs so his room was covered from floor to ceiling with dinosaurs. It was his space to play and talk about dinosaurs all he wanted.

Depending on your child’s sensory needs, bring in equipment or toys and set them up in their favorite places around your home.  Let’s say your child self regulates through deep pressure or jumping. Set up a foam cushion chair or mini trampoline. If your child calms by playing with fidgets or chewing make sure they have easy access to those things.

It’s also a good idea to make any necessary adjustments throughout your entire home to help your child feel more comfortable.  Little things like the type of light bulbs used or putting up visuals can make a world of difference.

Creating calming and sensory friendly spaces in the home can have such a positive impact on your child.  Following these tips will ensure that when your kid walks through the front door they will truly feel at home.

Elizabeth Purpero

Elizabeth Purpero is a licensed school counselor and licensed professional counselor-in-training.  She has her master’s in counseling psychology.  Elizabeth has worked as an autism therapist with children and teens.  During her career, she has worked in intensive at-home therapy programs utilizing ABA and play therapy along with OT and speech therapy techniques.  She has also worked as a mental health therapist helping clients address their mental health issues as it relates to autism.  Elizabeth’s background working with the autism community has greatly helped her work with students in schools too.  She has helped teachers implement effective strategies, create goals for IEP’s and make classrooms more sensory-friendly.  Mark Twain once said, “Write what you know about,” and Elizabeth enjoys writing about autism-related topics and providing additional resources to help those impacted by autism.