A site-based professional development leading to successful TEACCH implementation for students with ASD in China

Abstract

The education for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is arguably still the greatest challenge in China. Many schools have very limited knowledge about effective teaching approaches for students with ASD. Chinese special school teachers find it difficult to implement a variety of new teaching approaches by just listening to theories without seeing how they actually work. This workshop presents a project of close collaboration with the Shenyang Institute of Education in North China, providing site-based and reform-oriented professional development for 7 special schools. Its purpose is to implement the TEACCH approach and a combination of some behavioral principles to improve the learning of students with ASD. The year-long project started in October 2014 and has had a significant impact on the whole school practice. It has influenced teachers’ teaching approaches, their attitude and enlightened their teaching strategies to work with students with ASD. The process is a bottom up process of asking for changes in schools by teachers who are involved in the project. This is very different from the usual top down tradition in China’s education practice. The teachers were trained and empowered to become school mentors and parents were educated to help their children at home. In this conference workshop, the speaker will introduce the different phases of the professional development process and explain how each of these processes have lead to a different but significant impact on teachers’ learning of the approach. Many of the videos used during the process will be shown. The choice of the site-based professional development model where teachers could see the immediate real change of their ASD students’ learning behaviors has confirmed the “seeing is believing” principle. This has highly motivated the teachers to learn the theories afterwards. This very important key element of success has brought a different impact compared with the teachers’ past experience of attending training simply on theories. This on-site professional development model has been very useful for teachers’ training given their fundamental knowledge was limited. Conference participants will have opportunities to understand and critically evaluate the process of this project. This model, when adopted, will also make a difference in school leaders and trainers in conducting teachers’ training.