Introduction
Autism is defined as a neuro-developmental disorder which mostly affects children by impairing their neural development making it difficult for them to interact with other children and adults socially (Newschaffer et al 2007).
The impairment in their neural developmental network causes the sufferer to engage in repetitive behaviour such as repeating the same words or actions because it affects the information processing part of the brain (Caronna et al 2008).
The causes of autism are mostly genetic although some disorders have been caused by birth defects, exposure to heavy metals or vaccinations which might affect children of three years and below. This disease is mostly common in children during their first two years and it continues to progress without any form of remission (Gerber and Offit 2009).
The prevalence of autism according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been estimated to be about 1 to 2 people per every 1,000 people around the world. The number of children that suffer from autism has been estimated to be 9 per every 1,000 children world wide.
The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has also estimated the ratio of male to females who have autistic disorders to average 4.3:1 (CDC 2010). In the UK, the prevalence rate of children with autism was estimated to be 4.5 per 10,000 children in 1966 while in 1979, the figure rose to 20 per 10,000 children when the criteria for autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) was introduced to determine the prevalence of the disorder in the country.
Before the 1990s, the prevalence rate of autism within the country was estimated to be 4 to 5 cases per 10,000 people. However, according to previous studies conducted by medical researchers and paediatricians, the prevalence rate of autism in 2006 was estimated to be 116 per 10,000 children in the UK.
The researchers noted that the prevalence rate of the disease had increased when compared to the statistics for the previous years. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new data on the prevalence rate of autism and autistic spectrum disorders in 2007 which revealed that prevalence rates of the disorder averaged between 66 to 67 per 10,000 children (Zhang 2008).
Other studies conducted in the UK to determine the prevalence rate of the disorder revealed that 39 per 10,000 children had autism and 77 per 10,000 had autistic spectrum disorders. The total prevalence rate of the disorder in the UK based on the number of children who have been identified with the disease is 44 per 10,000.
Professor Gillian Baird who conducted the study in South London noted that the findings demonstrated children with autism and other autistic spectrum disorders constituted 1% of the child population in Britain (Lister 2006). For years the most suitable estimate for determining the prevalence rate of autism in children three years and below has always been four to five per 10,000 children in the United Kingdom as well as the rest of the world.
The recent studies have however demonstrated that the current diagnostic criteria used to determine the prevalence rate of the disease has been changed to reflect 1 in 500 children with autism and 1 in 166 children with autistic spectrum conditions. These estimates show that the disorder has grown steadily in the UK over the past decades as more and more young children develop autism spectrum conditions (Zhang 2008).
A consensus estimate conducted in 1978 revealed that the prevalence of autism was 4 in 10,000 while the current estimate has shown that autism affects approximately 1% of the population in UK (Cohen et al 2009).
The number of people that have been diagnosed with autism has increased rapidly over the years because of changes to the diagnostic procedures for detecting the disorder. This massive increase can be attributed to a variety of factors which have made it possible to detect and treat children with autism.
These factors include improved recognition and detection technology, changes in the methods used to study the disorder , increasing availability of diagnostic services in many hospitals and specialised care facilities, an increasing awareness by healthcare professionals and parents on ways of dealing with autistic children and the widening criteria that can be used to detect and diagnose the disease.
Such factors have made it easy to determine the various methods and interventions that can be used to deal with the increasing number of autistic children in the UK (Cohen et al 2009).
The purpose of conducting this essay will be to examine the educational intervention of one-to-one support programs during normal school times within a mainstream classroom and also to discuss the challenges faced by teachers and autistic children as well as the advantages and disadvantages of providing one-to-one support to autistic children.
Literature Review
One-to-one educational interventions in treating autism deal with how teachers or class instructors offer children suffering from autism intervention strategies that are meant to address their cognitive and behavioural problems within the classroom setting. One-to-one educational interventions attempt to increase the functional independence of autistic children within the classroom setting where they are able to learn on their own without any assistance from their teachers and peers.
This type of educational intervention is meant to promote self efficacy skills on the part of the autistic child where they are able to do learning tasks on their own. Teachers under the one-to-one support programs design learning programs that they will use to guide the learning of the autistic child.
The main focus of these programs is to reduce the associated deficits of the disease by increasing the independence of the child within the classroom environment and also improving their social interaction with peers (Caronna et al, 2008).
Various researchers such as Johnson and Myers (2007) have conceded that one-to-one programs are usually successfully when all the school resources are utilised to improve the performance of the child in their learning process.
Such resources include classroom peers where their participation in the one-to-one program occurs when they are prevailed upon by their class teachers to engage with the autistic child during class time sessions; the class teachers or instructors who play a major role in designing the learning programs and techniques that will be used to educate the autistic child and the school administration which provides the necessary learning aids, materials and equipment that will be needed to design the learning program (Johnson and Myers 2007).
Medical researchers and paediatricians have been able to note that teaching children in a highly structured one-to-one support setting is an effective technique of teaching children with autism communication skills, interpersonal skills, social interaction skills and behavioural skills. If autistic children are going to succeed in classroom environments, they need to learn how they will behave and learn within social groups.
One-to-one teaching techniques are able to foster the development of learning skills in autistic children and they have been deemed to be effective in teaching autistic children within a classroom set up of eight to ten children.
The one-to-one teaching of autistic children has also been seen as an essential teaching technique for children who have autism and other mental disorders because it offers personalised training and teaching that allows the child to learn at their own pace through the guidance of their course instructor (Cohen et al 2009).
One-to-one educational programs have been developed in educational systems to help children with autism in acquiring self care and social skills as well as behavioural skills that will enable them to associate well with their peers. These programs have also been designed to improve the functioning behaviours of autistic children and to also help them decrease the severity of symptoms related to their disorder.
Medical studies have showed that interventions that are undertaken on autistic children before the age of three are more than likely to help these children with their compulsive and restrictive behaviour. Interventions therefore need to be undertaken during the formative years of the child’s development to ensure that they are able to develop socially and intellectually (Arndt et al 2005).
The National Research Council has endorsed the use of one-to-one training in teaching autistic children with the main reason being that the needs of the child will be adequately addressed during the learning process. The council recognised that one-to-one interventions provided many autistic children with the opportunity to enter into mainstream educational programs that would be beneficial in their intellectual development.
These programs enable the child to progress from one level of education to another as the teacher equips the child with the necessary educational information for their class grade. The specialised attention that the child gets during these programs is also beneficial as it allows the child to progress at their own rate within the classroom setting (Cohen et al 2009).
Kurtz (2008) notes that one-to-one educational programs are suitable educational interventions for children suffering from autism as they allow them to develop social skills during class interactions with their teachers and peers.
This method of teaching and learning caters for the various stages of an autistic child’s development which include the developmental stage that encompasses intellectual and emotional growth, the individual based development of the child where their communication, social, thinking and learning skills begin to form and the relationship based development of the child where their social interaction skills begin to form.
One-to-one support programs cover all the stages of the autistic’s child’s growth thereby ensuring they are able to operate properly within social settings (Rapin and Tuchman 2008).
One-to-one support programs are also beneficial to autistic children as they allow them to gain receptive processing skills as well as social communication skills that will allow them to communicate and process information they acquire from their instructors.
The scheduled sessions that are developed for one-to-one programs are meant to move the autistic child from one level of the learning program to another thereby developing their intellectual, emotional, thinking, learning and social interaction skills (Kurtz 2008). One-to-one support programs also increase the ability of the child to have emotional connections with their parents, siblings and other people who are important to the child.
This method ensures that the child is able to participate in social relationships by equipping them with emotional and social information. Autistic children under one-to-one support programs are able to become more aware of their environments by being equipped with perceptive and relationship building skills.
This method ensures that children suffering from autistic disorders are able to have a better quality of life in the event their behaviour does not become disruptive or problematic (Siegel 2008).
Because the autistic child gets to learn on a one on one basis with their teachers or instructors, their verbal behaviour becomes improved especially during the reading and speaking assignments which allows them to communicate better with their peers and parents.
As outlined earlier in this discussion, autistic children suffer from an inability to effectively communicate with others as they mostly speak in a repetitive manner where their spoken words are disorderly. This method therefore enables them to verbally relay their emotions and feelings to people that are close to them thereby enhancing social understanding.
The one-to-one approach also improves the organizational and planning abilities of autistic children allowing them to adapt to changes in their daily routines which is important given that most autistic children have restricted daily routines that cannot be subjected to change (Gutstein 2007).
The major limitation or challenge of this type of approach in providing educational support to autistic children is that it proves difficult for the teacher to manage especially in a class of ten children or more. The teacher’s attention is usually divided between managing the learning objectives and outcomes of the autistic child and those of the rest of the class during learning sessions.
This might mean that whatever the teacher set out to cover with the autistic child might not be achievable especially if they are forced to pay attention to the learning needs of the rest of the class (Gutstein 2004). One-to-one learning approaches might also require the teacher to allocate a substantial amount of time from their teaching schedules so that they can be able to develop learning goals and objectives for the autistic child.
This presents a challenge for teachers especially in the event the school administrators and paediatricians concerned with the health of the child have been unable to resolve the work schedule for the affected teacher. The workload therefore becomes too much as they have to handle the needs of the autistic child as well as the needs of the other children within the class.
Heavy workloads therefore results in cases of neglect which means that the educational interventions for the child will not be met. Another limitation of one-to-one programs is that additional costs and resources will be needed to manage the teacher-student sessions that come with this type of support program.
School administrators will have to acquire teaching aids designed for autistic children as well as other materials that are needed for the instructors at an increased additional cost to ensure that the child is properly taught on reading, writing and speaking skills (Robledo and Kucharski 2005).
The availability of one-to-one support programs also presents a major challenge to many schools with autistic children especially in the public schools that are funded by the government. Such schools are unable to provide language services that are useful in the one-to-one support programs because of a shortage of language specialists who can be able to properly communicate with the autistic child.
Certain school districts in the UK and in the US have also been unable to provide the recommended intervention of one-to-one instruction for their autistic students because of the high expense incurred by this type of educational intervention (Howlin 2005).
Challenges Teachers and Children with Autism Face
While most autism experts and paediatricians agree that one-to-one support programs for autistic children are usually beneficial, they present a myriad of challenges to both the teachers and students who interact with the autistic child in the classroom everyday. One such challenge is that a substantial amount of time is needed for the one-to-one sessions every day of the week.
The teacher is meant to set aside about 20 to 40 hours every week to provide support for the autistic child during classroom sessions. The reason why a lot of time is needed for these programs is to ensure that the teacher is able to achieve a high level of success during the one-to-one sessions.
This might prove to be a heavy workload for the teacher who has other students to deal with in the classroom and therefore allocating such a huge amount of time to one student might seem to be a waste of their time (Turkington and Anan 2007).
One-to-one programs are also a challenge to class teachers in the event they have to undergo training to enable them to properly conduct the one-to-one learning sessions. This training might require more of their time and effort which becomes a challenge if they have a large workload to deal with in the classroom.
The teachers might at times be required to work hand in hand with autism experts and therapists to ensure that the behavioural and cognitive problems of the child have been properly addressed.
The challenge lies in trying to strike a meaningful relationship between the teacher and the experts where the teacher might feel that a certain educational strategy would be useful in helping the autistic child to learn while the experts might hold a different opinion of how the one-to-one sessions should be conducted by the teacher (Turkington and Anan 2007).
Teachers also face the challenge of overlooking the educational needs of the other children in the classroom especially if the teacher decides to concentrate on the learning efforts of the autistic child. Trying to achieve a balance between managing the learning needs of the autistic child and managing the needs of the other children in the class becomes a challenge.
Also within the classroom, teachers are faced with the challenge of protecting the autistic child from any victimization from the rest of the class. Children who do not properly understand the condition might make fun of the affected child during class sessions such as reading tasks which might further increase the child’s self esteem issues. It therefore falls on the teacher to keep the rest of the class in check when it comes to the learning needs of autistic children (Levy 2006).
The challenges that children with autism face within the school system are usually based on their behavioural problems and the severity of the disorder in the child’s cognitive capabilities. These factors impact significantly on the type of interactions that the child will have with their peers and teachers within the classroom setting.
Since autistic children suffer from emotional and behavioural problems, the kind of interaction that these children have with their teachers and peers might worsen especially for teachers who have less willingness to teach autistic children.
Various studies conducted by researchers such as Cook and Landrum, Pavri and Monda have shown that children with more advanced autistic tendencies might affect the attitudes of teachers when it comes to interacting with the child (Levy 2006).
Autistic children also face the challenge of being taught by uneducated teachers and classroom instructors who have not received any special training to cater for the educational needs of the autistic child.
Most public school systems lack the necessary funds and resources to train their teachers on how they can be able to meet the learning needs of autistic children which means that the children end up not understanding what is being taught in class.
Additionally, the lack of long-term structures in most school systems to address the needs of autistic children makes it difficult for most parents to find conducive environments for their autistic children (Levy 2006).
Children who are transitioning from intensive behavioural programs into the school based systems might find it difficult to adjust to the learning conditions where the characteristics of autistic children present a great inhibition to inclusion. The benefits of placing autistic children within normal school systems is that they can be able to learn from observing the actions of their peers in the classroom and also in the playground. Being included in peer related programs enables the autistic child to learn real-life skills within realistic contexts and settings.
The challenge however becomes determining whether the child will be socially responsive to such a setting and whether they will actively participate in classroom sessions or playtime activities. Since all autistic children are unresponsive to their environment, they might not be able to gain any valuable educational experiences from such contexts (Handleman et al 2004).
According to Siegel (2008), most parents and educators view one-to-one programs as the first step in teaching children with autism on how to communicate or engage in the socialization process before they are integrated into a classroom setting or social group. One-to-one programs offer autistic children with the opportunity to develop an awareness of their environment and surroundings by focusing on the particular needs of the autistic child.
There are an increasing number of schools that can be able to offer one-to-one teaching for autistic children where the teachers involve the use of various one-to-one teaching techniques that are meant to provide the child with basic social and communication skills.
Some of the most commonly used one-to-one treatment programs for autistic children include relationship development interaction (RDI), peer to peer tutoring, facilitated communication and the DIR/floor time model for educational intervention (Siegel 2008).
Peer-to peer tutoring as an approach of one-to-one support programs in the classroom has grown with significance because it improves the child’s social and communication skills among their peers. This method is also suitable as it develops the behaviour of the child to enable them interact with other children during playtime and study group discussions.
Peer tutoring enables the child to demonstrate their intellectual capability by leading other children in classroom activities such as singing, reading and drawing. All these one-to-one techniques are therefore important addressing the communication disabilities of autistic children as their needs are specifically addressed by tutors, peers and teachers (Gutstein 2007).
Peer to peer tutoring is defined as a one-to-one method of teaching autistic children which focuses on educating autistic children together with non-autistic children where they are able to learn faster by observing the behaviour of their peers during class sessions.
This teaching method is mostly common in inclusion schools and also special education classes where the non-autistic children within the class lead the autistic children through a number of tasks that have specific instructions.
The tutor or teacher who utilises this method in treating autistic children first identifies the behavioural issues that are presented by the autistic students in the class. The teacher then makes a list of these behaviours and categorises them to determine how they can be managed in the class (Kurtz 2008).
A peer tutoring program is then developed based on this list where children who are non autistic become the peer tutors of autistic children in the class for a day or two. The children with autism are also allowed to be tutors to their peers in the class which enables them to develop both interpersonal and leadership skills.
Another way to conduct peer-to-peer support within the classroom is when the autistic child is paired with a normal child. The purpose of doing this is to ensure that the autistic child is able to learn from the actions of the normal child during class assignments. The normal children are able to help their autistic peers with the class assignments, homework and other tasks that have been assigned by the teacher.
Peer tutoring is therefore an important one-to-one teaching method that helps to build the social and behavioural learning objectives of autistic children especially when they are given leadership roles within the classroom setting. Peer support proves beneficial in helping the autistic child to develop friendships with their peers within the classroom (Sailor et al 2009).
The relationship development interaction (RDI) is another approach used in one-to-one support programs for autistic children where dynamic sets are developed to measure intelligence in the autistic child so as to improve their quality of life. This educational intervention allows children to participate in genuine emotional relationships that they are exposed to in their current environment.
The main goal that underlies RDI is to systematically develop emotional relationships through the use of motivational tools which enable the child suffering from autism to successfully interact in various social relationships.
The main aspects that are focused on in the relationship development intervention method are the establishment of building blocks that will be used in fostering social connections that are a common feature in early childhood development (Gerber and Offit 2009).
Relationship interaction development is an important technique because it helps the child to have a stronger relationship with their peers and teachers which will eventually lead to cognitive remediation for the child. Cognitive remediation refers to the process of restoring the optimal neural connectivity of the autistic child through a series of self-discovery activities that will be important in their intellectual development process.
The relationship development method is therefore an important technique that can be used to restore the social interaction and connectivity of the child to their school environment since it focuses on specific activities in autistic children that will elicit interactive behaviours (Lam and Aman 2007).
Another one-to-one treatment program for autistic children is the floortime or DIR model which offers a comprehensive framework for understanding and treating children with autism. The acronym DIR stands for three components that make up the floor time model which include developmental, individual difference and relationship-based.
The floortime model of one-to-one treatment focuses on helping autistic children with their communication problems as well as their interpersonal skills rather than on treating them for a particular set of behaviours. The floortime or DIR model was developed by child psychiatrist, Stanley Greenspan, who was also a specialist in autism related disorders.
Greenspan developed a model that would be a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach that would help autistic children with social-emotional functions, psychomotor skills, thinking and learning skills (Kurtz 2008).
The DIR approach basically focuses on floor-time sessions that are meant to enhance the emotional and social interactions that the autistic child has with his/her peers within the school and classroom context so as to facilitate emotional and cognitive growth. The model also focuses on providing therapeutic remedies which can be used to remediate biologically based processing capacities that are necessary in intellectual growth (Myers and Johnson 2007).
The aspect of developmental in the floor time model involves focusing on the developmental aspects of children that are needed for them to grow and mature intellectually and emotionally. This component determines which developmental milestones are important for the autistic child in their childhood so that they can be able to mature intellectually (Kurtz 2008).
The Individual difference component refers to understanding the autistic child’s sensory processing differences which are unique from those of normal children. This particular component of the DIR involves determining how these unique differences will impact on the learning and behavioural patterns of the autistic child.
The relationship-based component of the floor time model focuses on helping the autistic child to develop social interactions and relationships with their primary caregivers and peers which will enable the child to foster social development tendencies. All these components are important in the floor time model as they enable the trained consultant or teacher to design programs that will meet the specific development, relationship and individual needs of the autistic child (Kurtz 2008).
Facilitated communication is another one-to-one method that can be used to teach autistic children within classrooms settings. Facilitated communication involves the teacher physically guiding the learning and communication activities of the autistic child. The tutor or facilitator basically places a hand over the autistic child’s hand or wrist and guides them during the learning process.
The tutor guides the child by holding their hand in identifying various objects, pictures and images to express their thoughts. The purpose of facilitated communication in one-to-one educational support is to enable the child build on their perception, communication and interaction skills.
The child is able to communicate with their hands to the facilitator or tutor allowing them to express their thoughts and opinions. This method also allows autistic children to demonstrate their intelligence levels during the facilitation sessions (Kurtz 2008).
Potential Benefits of One-to-One Programs
The advantages of one-to-one support programs are that they enable children to adapt to mainstream classroom and playground settings where the child is taught on social interaction and communication skills.
These programs cater for the various stages of a child’s development which include the developmental stage that encompasses intellectual and emotional growth, the individual based development of the child where their communication, social, thinking and learning skills begin to form and the relationship based development of the child where their social interaction skills begin to form.
One-to-one support programs also allow the autistic child to learn at their own pace without necessarily being influenced by the learning progress of other children in the classroom (Gutstein 2004).
One-to-one support programs are beneficial to autistic children since they allow them to develop an awareness of their school environment where they observe the actions of their peers, educators and other important elements of the school system improving their cognitive and behavioural abilities.
One-to-one programs that are peer supported are mostly beneficial for autistic children as they learn from observing the learning actions of their peers. Peer tutors provide the much needed guidance for autistic children as they can be able to interact and relate on the same intellectual level. Autistic children who engage in peer-to-peer support groups can be able to accrue the potential benefits that come with taking turns during tutoring sessions or during playtimes (Siegel 2008).
One-to-one support programs ensure that autistic children receive the best educational training from teachers who are more than likely trained to teach children with this disorder. These support programs have structured moment-to-moment activities that ensure the child is able to cover the curriculum within the allocated time for the sessions.
One-to-one support programs provide a degree of consistency and routine for autistic children allowing them to take advantage of the learning opportunities offered to their peers and also to develop intellectually. This form of educational intervention is also beneficial for the autistic child as it allows the instructor to improve their speech and language difficulties.
In the event the programs are offered in consultation with an autism expert, the instructor might be able to develop language therapy sessions that will allow the child to improve on their speech and language difficulties (Goldstein 2002).
Relative interaction development techniques have proven to be beneficial one-to-one support programs for autistic children as their social and communication skills are improved where the teacher elicits some verbal emotions from the autistic child. RDI improves the ability of the child to relay their emotions and feelings to the people who are close to the child thereby improving social interactions.
Social and emotional skills allow autistic children to be more aware of their environments as their perceptive skills become increased with every relationship building exercise they are engaged in. One-to-one support programs ensure that the child’s learning process is supported throughout every step by the teacher or facilitator so that they can be able to achieve the learning outcomes set by their teacher (Dodd 2005).
According to various studies conducted on autism and the educational interventions that can be used for autistic children (Eikeseth et al 2002: Howard et al 2005: Sallows and Graupner 2005), one-to-one support programs have proven to be efficient in providing autistic children with early intensive behavioural treatment that is important in increasing the academic performance of these children as well as increasing their IQ levels and adaptive behaviour.
When combined with other educational interventions such as applied behavioural analysis, the support programs increase the adaptive behaviour of children that suffer from autism. The studies conducted on this method of treating autism have mostly focused on the treatment of unwanted behaviours such as communication impairment and repetitive behaviour (Lovaas 2003).
Potential Disadvantages of one-to-one Programs
A major disadvantage of this method of treating autism is that it focuses on establishing relationships rather than on academic learning and thinking. While these relationships are important to the child, they do not teach the child on how they can be able to form interactions during the learning process.
One-to-one programs in class settings that have eight children or more might fail to be successful because the teacher’s attention will be divided amongst the rest of the class. Some of the approaches used in one-to-one training mostly focus on play times rather than on academic learning which makes this method weak in educational programs (Myers and Johnson 2007).
One-to-one support programs also prove to be disadvantageous when the attention of the teacher is focused on the autistic child rather than on the whole class. Time and attention is taken away from the rest of the class who might in the end feel neglected by the teacher especially if it is a class of ten to twenty students (Lieberman et al 2004).
One-to-one support programs that are administered within the mainstream context pose a challenge to the academic education of autistic children when the teachers who conduct the sessions lack the necessary training to guide the autistic child’s learning process. Teachers who are in mainstream classes within the public school systems lack the proper training and skills that can be used to accommodate the special needs of the autistic child within the general education classes.
Research work has revealed that teachers who are not aware of the learning needs required by autistic children are more than likely to resist having these children in their classrooms. The negative impact of this is that it can lead to a form of regression in autistic children which in the end affects their classroom productivity and educational outcomes (Suomi et al 2003).
Another limitation of one-to-one support programs is that they are generally expensive to operate especially for public schools that are required by the state government to provide special education classes without any additional funds.
The cost of one-to-one support programs according to a 2005 Special Education Expenditures Program (SEEP) report developed by the United States revealed that the cost for student’s in special education programs such as one-to-one educational interventions amounts to $10, 558 when compared to the cost charged for regular education amongst normal children which averaged $6,556 (Schiller et al 2007)
Suggestions and Recommendations
While one-to-one support programs present various challenges, studies conducted on this form of educational intervention have revealed that the benefits far outweigh the challenges. One-to-one support programs need to be improved on to ensure that there are no challenges presented to the student and teacher during the learning process and that the objectives of the program have been met by both the autistic child and instructor.
There should be access to these programs especially in the public school systems to ensure that autistic children from poor income families are able to access special educational services that will meet their learning needs. More awareness needs to be created on the importance of one-to-one support programs especially in the mainstream so that both the teachers and students are able to adapt to the autistic child’s educational needs.
This will also improve peer-to-peer tutoring where normal children will be willing to provide assistance to autistic children during class assignments and tasks. A major recommendation for the study is that more research needs to be conducted on one-to-one support programs in educating autistic children as very few authors used in the study have been able to provide substantive information that can be used to explain this type of educational intervention.
Conclusion
The discussion has focused on one-to-one support programs in the classroom setting by focusing on the challenges, benefits and limitations of this type of programs on the education of an autistic child. The essay has been able to provide an in-depth analysis of one-to-one support programs by examining the various approaches used in teaching autistic child within the classroom.
The study has been able to determine that one-to-one programs ensure that children are able to achieve the learning objectives set by the trained instructors so that they can achieve academic excellence. Overall one-to-one support programs have been termed to be effective especially in developing the communication, behavioural and interpersonal skills of the autistic child
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