This week is my very first week working in an Autism Support Classroom. I must say, I was extremely anxious going into this placement. However, I soon learned that my head teacher as well as the two paraprofessionals were wonderful people and were going to train me as best as they could. 

The Autism Support Classrooms at the Conroy School are extremely unique in that they run on a very organized/rigid philosophy such that the entirety of the program is based off of Skinner and Pavlov's theories. In other words, it is about encouraging the students to ask for things or objects be it sign language or through a picture communication board. The goal is for students to come to a point in their lives where they are able to communicate spontaneously and without prompting. That being said, the program is extremely challenging. As I found out this week in particular, many of the students who are just beginning this program throw tantrums when they do not want to do their work. For many of them, throwing tantrums or crying to get what they want is much easier than using sign language or repeating a phrase to ask for help. 

The following operants used in their curriculum are as follows:

• Tact: the student points to a picture of an object after the teacher says "point to the ______"
• Intraverbal: this form of communication is more complicated. (ex. a teacher may say: "You drive a _____" and the student fills in the correct word
• Echoic: this is basically verbal imitation. The teacher says: "Say cookie" or "Say Brownie" and the student imitated the word.
• Listener Responding: the teacher says something and the child performs the action
• Imitation: The teacher completes a verbal action and asks the child to imitate this verbal action