Why IT in education is so important in special school?

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“Students, teachers, schools and other stakeholders will use IT effectively as a tool for enhancing the effectiveness of learning and teaching, with a view to preparing our students for the information age, turning schools into dynamic and interactive learning institutions, and fostering collaboration among schools, parents and the community.”(EMB, 2004)

In normal setting, IT is used mostly as information retrieval, and then knowledge enquiry communication, and then collaboration, and finally, very little as an analytical personal development tool.

However, the priority in special education may be different. It is because their abilities, but the most important is, when we need to satisfy the student’s special needs; we strongly need help by parents and community.

Nowadays, transdisciplinary (or collaborative) teamwork model is running in special schools. There is not only “Different perspectives lead to better decision-making; no one discipline can provide everything that a child and family needs.”(Kilgo J. L., Aldridge J., Denton B., Vogtel L., Vincent J., Burke C., & Unanue R.)

So, parents should be one of the member when we call meeting about teaching and learning for each of the student. Not only because parents have “best understanding” about the students, but also the primary role of parents is to encourage and support students to plan and achieve their educational goals. Parents also should encourage students to develop independent decision-making and self-advocacy skills.

So, as a communication tools with parents, IT can play the very important role that is everytime, everywhere connect with parents and sharing information.

Another function of IT in special education is as an analytical personal development tool. Not like normal setting, special schools have no test or very few writing assessment. How we assess our students learning progress? Mostly using observation and record whether they can finish their given tasks. So, you can imagine that the information and records just like a hill. To have better analysis the student’s development, IT would give the most help. For example, one of my student need to have toilet training, we would like to record when and how, so database is useful to analysis the progress. In short, Database can individualize the intervention to fulfill different educational needs.

“The majority of teachers expressed confident of basic IT skills, such as word processing, use of spreadsheets, presentation software and Internet usage. But they are least certain about advanced multimedia design and WebPages production.” and “…simply replacing chalk and board by multimedia presentations/animations.” (EMB, 2004). However, in special school, drawing the student’s attention to teaching and learning is the most difficult task. “Multi-media simulation” and “non-error interaction”[4] is powerful teaching and learning elements to students.

Then, I would to specify three topics to illustrate how IT in education fulfills its function by some activities.

In special education, we mostly concern how to satisfy the special educational needs of our students. To specialize and to make the discussion more realistic, I would like to introduce one of my students, KaPo. He is a 17 years old boy with moderate mentally handicap.

KaPo’s case is very typical in my school. Autism is called “Autism spectrum disorder” as its full name. As the name says, Autism has no clearly defined single syndrome (Wing, 1996) and no two children with autism have identical characteristics (Koegel, Koegel, Frea & Smith, 1996; Wong & Westwood, 2002), it covers a wide range of behaviors and abilities, and it is a matter of degree, from mild to severe. However, children with autism typically have difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication, interactions and leisure or play activities (ASA, 2005). As the above report mentions, KaPo has behavioral and emotional problem, too. He cannot concentrate to do the given tasks. Actually, he also has some stereotyped behavior patterns to bother his learning, for example, hand flapping, clapping and always washing his hand.

Teaching self-management has been effective at improving a variety of behaviors, including appropriate vocational (McNally, Kompik & Sherman, 1984), and even generalization (Koegel, Koegel & Parks, 1996).

The model is called “teach the individual” model, in which the generalization occurs spontaneously in numerous environments and in the absence of a trained interventions provider after the person is taught a skill in a manner. So, self-management is a “pivotal” behavior (Koegel, Schreibman, Good, Cerniglia, Murphy & Koegel, 1989).

Thus, we have using the multi-media program called “FLASH” to design the so-called “social story” and then upload it on the school website. It just like e-book or karaoke that have a story about what he should do. Unlike the social story in paper, it not only has pictures and himself tells story told by teachers, it even has short film that the main character is student himself and the story, too.

For example, we want to reduce KaPo’s unwilling behavior like crying or shout when he wants to express himself unhappy. We first record the willing behavior (e.g. go to toilet to wash his face) by digital camera, and then record his reading by computer, “when KaPo unhappy, KaPo would go to toilet to wash his face.” Then input both into FLASH. When the lesson, teacher would help him to access “e-social story” to modeling and replace his unwilling behavior.

It gives very strong impression and very good to modeling the unwilling behavior. And also it may have a checklist online, when student watch one part of the social story, he should check the box to move to the next part. Teachers is helping him and teach parents to access and to use this tailor-made online software.

“In the present preliminary review, it was found that the problems and issues faced by special schools are very complex and often quite different from the mainstream schools. There are different categories of special schools catering for children with different special education needs. Use of IT in special schools includes the integration of assistive technologies, which often differ greatly across different categories of special schools. Further, the specific educational objectives often differ greatly across different special school categories to take into account the students’ special contexts. It is recommended here that a separate component of the review study be commissioned to address the specific evaluation questions, methodology and instrumentation necessary for conducting a proper review of IT implementation in special schools.”(EMB, 2004)

You can see that, all interventions for different students must be tailor-made. Assistive technologies, for example, most children with moderate mental handicap can’t use keyboard and mouse, touch-screen is needed. However, it is not enough in school, and also at home. All software and programme must be tailor-made by teachers while they can accessible. Time is very important and consumable to satisfy each students special educational needs.

Another problems so-called “Digital Divide”. Many families haven’t computer and of course can’t online at home. Their social status may be low and haven’t enough knowledge to handle their child or teach them by using IT. When the ongoing training is not stable, the effectiveness would down very quickly. For example, to changing KaPo’s unwilling behavior, social story must be told day by day, if the intervention stopped may be in the long holidays, the unwilling behavior will come again.

By the way, Multimedia and interaction elements in IT in education are used to draw the attention of the children and give them the responses directly, and it is very successful. In future, portal computer or PDA can help children with autism to express themselves (using images, sounds, even short film to communicate) and to have better self-management (give them hints or as a reminder).

Reference

1.       Autism Society of America (ASA). http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=whatisautism.
2.       EMB. (2004). Empowering Learning and Teaching with Information Technology. Hong Kong.
3.       EMB.(2004). Information Technology in Education (ITEd) Evaluation. Summary and Recommendations of the Preliminary Study, pp.201-206. http://www.emb.gov.hk/ited_eval/
4.       Information center on disabilities and gifted education (2005). http://ericec.org/digests/e598.html#top, 10/3/2005
5.       Koegel, R. L., Koegel, L. k. & Parks, D. R. (1996). “Teach the Individual” model of Generalization. In Koegel, R. L. & Koegel L. K. (Eds.) Teaching children with autism: Strategies for initiating positive interactions and improving learning opportunities (pp. 67-77). Baltimore: Brookes.
6.       Koegel, R. L., Schreibman, L., Good, A., Cerniglia, L., Murphy, C. & Koegel, K. L. (1989). How to teach pivotal behaviors to children with autism. Unpublished manuscript, university of California, Santa Barbara.
7.       McNally, R. J., Kompik, J. J. & Sherman, G. (1984). Increasing the productivity of mentally retarded workers through self-management. Analysis and Intervention in Development Disabilities. 4, 129-135.
Westwood, P. (2003), Learning and Learning Difficulties. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong.

[1] ABA stands for Applied Behavior Analysis (Scheuermann & Webber, 2002).
[2] PECS stands for Picture Exchange Communication System
[3] TEACCH stands for Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication-handicapped Children (Connor, 1999).
[4] Sometimes we give wrong response to students answers, this may border students learning. But computer wouldn’t.

Meeting Individual Needs: Case Studies

http://autismmythbusters.com/

Introduction

KaPo, who is a 15 years old boy also with moderate mentally handicap. Before we discuss his case, we are better to know more about his characteristics from some observation of classroom teaching. Here is the conclusion of KaPo’s academic report I wrote in last semester.

“KaPo is stubborn and crabbed; he only will to finish the tasks that he wants to do. When we don’t follow his own ‘routine’, he would be unhappy, sometimes he may cry, shout or jump. However, when he is taking drugs, he can calm down easily. So, we hope that he can keep it on and reinforce him to express feeling by using verbal language at home, too. In academic, he is good in mathematics, and he can calculate arithmetic of primary 1 level, but it is still have space to improve in application. Also he loves computer very much and enjoys the lessons.”

KaPo’s characteristics and performance in the classroom

It is obvious that he is autistic, although there is no clearly defined single syndrome (Wing 1996), and no two children with autism have identical characteristics (Koegel, Koegel, Frea & Smith, 1996; Wong & Westwood 2002), but KaPo has most of typical pattern of behavioral deficits and had been assessed in early childhood.

As the above report mentions, KaPo has behavioral and emotional problem. It makes that he cannot concentrate to do the given tasks. Actually, he also has some stereotyped behavior patterns to bother his learning, for example, hand flapping, clapping and always want to wash his hand during the lesson.

Another barriers to KaPo’s learning are that, he just repeating what you are saying and asking. It is a typical echolalia, and it seems to be immediate, because it fulfill what Laski, Charlop and Schreibman (1988) defined, “inappropriate repetitions of words and phrases” (p.394). We are not discussing which categories he should be classified, but it makes difficult to learning and teaching, application and generalization. For example, he cans calculate “12398+9872”, but cannot answers “if you bought 3 apples and then bought 2 apples, how many apples did you buy totally?”

Reflection about the school and the teacher

School: Not only in mainstream school, the curriculum in special school is also facing different types of constraints. Parents’ expectation, prevocational and vocational needs and EMB guidelines, for example, EYE programme, have determined curriculum. In KaPo’s case, if we are too focus on the training for working in shelter workshop after graduated, it narrows the whole development of student, although it is “relevant” and important to his future. Moreover, KaPo have emotional fluctuation when he feels off task. If we just follow what he wants to do, he will learn nothing. I am not challenge the learner-centered approach or the concept of “realistic” in “4R Test” (Brennan 1987), but it is really need to concern that did students really know what they are interest or benefit to themselves, especially they are moderate mentally handicap?

The emotional and behavioral problems have been “created”, when we are using the “real” situation, for example, visiting shelter workshop or practice cleaning job, because he didn’t adopt the environment and also strengthens him to have ritual behavior. Moreover, Practice about the cleaning in EYE programme or school leaver programme; it reinforces washing his hands after touching something dirty. Also, in special school setting, it is difficult to gain acceptance from classmates when the interaction between pupils are weak.

Teacher: Task analysis is usually used in teaching the working skills. It is because students can more easily to understand what the task is doing. Also, when the steps are smaller, teacher can use more simple language to teach students to finish the task. However, it has limitations as Westwood (2003, p53) said, “…a limit to how far one can go with this step-by-step reduction of learning without creating separate tasks which by themselves are meaningless.” Actually, KaPo is usually off task when he didn’t know the “meaning” of the task.

Students with moderate mentally handicap have a few responses, so, when we want to make sure that KaPo is listening and understands the instruction, we would like him to speak once again what we are asking him to do. Echolalia is reinforced. Moreover, when teacher using task analysis approach, questioning is not easy and efficient to apply in the direct-teach and demonstration. It may affect KaPo that leaning to distinguish between question and instruction.

Moreover, most of us use Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to reduce the undesirable behavior. Because it is effective, and the research have also provide the evidence (Scheuermann & Webber, 2002; Waterhouse, 2000). We are using positive reinforcement, maybe allow him to play computer after lunch, to stop his problematic behavior. It works, but when he didn’t have the reward, he really depressed and off task more often than we are not using it.

Evaluation of teaching and management program for KaPo

Beside the above matter, some teaching and management program is designed for KaPo.

TEACCH (Treatment and Education of Autisitc and communication-handicap Children):

Whatever it is an intervention strategy or a teaching method, even it is a curriculum and programme, evidence has proved that to be effective, it should be highly structured (Waterhouse, 2000; Smith, 2003). Structured teaching is an important priority because it fits the “culture of autism” (Mesibov, 2002).

TEACCH is respects this culture, in the other words, respects autistic child’s need for structure, routine and predictability in the daily programme in school and home, and uses such devices as a picture time table or schedule to show the child what activity he or she is to do now and what is to come later during other parts of the day (Wong & Westwood, 2002). In short, TEACCH is emphasized structured teaching, and uses a combination of cognitive, behavioral-change strategies (Connor, 1999), visual strategy and also using IEP. So, Individualization, structured learning and environmental adaptation are the defining features of TEACCH (Dempsey and Foreman, 2001).

It is true that KaPo feels more comfortable when structure and organization in the classroom or any other learning environment is provided. It helps student to alleviate or moderate the behavioral and emotional problem caused by poor communication. Moreover, when KaPo is occupied by the working task, it can reduce the time for stereotyped behavior, in long run; it can fade out the rigid behavior.

Self-Management:

Teaching self-management has been effective at improving a variety of behaviors, including appropriate vocational (McNally, Kompik & Sherman, 1984), even generalization (Koegel, Koegel & Parks, 1996).

As Koegel, Koegel & Parks (1996) stated that many of the most widely used methods of promoting generalization are based on a “teach exemplars” model, in which generalization is programmed to occur in different environments by actually teaching the individual in one environment after another. It is effective, but not practical. Not only because it is time consuming, in KaPo’s case, but also have emotional problem when adopting a new environment.

The second model is called “teach the individual” model, in which the generalization is occurs spontaneously in numerous environments and in the absence of a trained interventions provider after the person is taught a skill in a manner. So, self-management is a “pivotal” behavior (Koegel, Schreibman, Good, Cerniglia, Murphy & Koegel, 1989).

Consider the functional reinforcers, computer or IT should be used as self-management device. It is effective not only because KaPo like to play computer very much, but also because multimedia and interaction can draw him the attention and give him the responses directly. In future, portal computer or PDA can help autistic children to express themselves (using images, sounds, even short film to communicate) and to have better self-management (give them hints or as a reminder).

Conclusion

According to Snell and Brown (2000) child with intellectual disability will have experienced difficulty in making friends and gaining acceptance—particularly if he or she has some irritating or challenging behaviors. Even in the class, many students didn’t like KaPo when he cry and jump. So, to reduce or to eliminate rigid and stereotypic behaviors and maladaptive behaviors are not only for the ways that to foster further development in the child and to promote learning, but also to alleviate family distress. All interventions, teachings, programs, and IEPs are archiving this common goal.

References

1.    Brennan, W. K. (1987), Changing special education now (2nd ed). Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

2.    Connor, M. (1999). Children on the autistic spectrum: Guidelines for mainstream practice. Support for Learning, 14 (2) 80-86.

3.    Dempsey, I. & Foreman, P. (2001). A review of educational approaches for individual with autism. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 48 (1), 103-116.

4.     Koegel, R. L., Koegel, L. k., Frea, W. D. & Smith A. E. (1996). Emerging interventions for children with autism: Longitudinal and lifestyle implications. In Koegel, R. L. & Koegel L. K. (Eds.) Teaching children with autism: Strategies for initiating positive interactions and improving learning opportunities (pp. 1-15). Baltimore: Brookes.

5.     Koegel, R. L., Koegel, L. k. & Parks, D. R. (1996). “Teach the Individual” model of Generalization. In Koegel, R. L. & Koegel L. K. (Eds.) Teaching children with autism: Strategies for initiating positive interactions and improving learning opportunities (pp. 67-77). Baltimore: Brookes.

6.     Koegel, R. L., Schreibman, L., Good, A., Cerniglia, L., Murphy, C. & Koegel, K. L. (1989). How to teach pivotal behaviors to children with autism. Unpublished manuscript, university of California, Santa Barbara.

7.     Laski, K., Charlop, M., & Schreibman, L. (1988). Training parents to use the natural language paradigm to increase their autistic children’s speech. Journal of Applied Bahavior Analysis, 21, 391-400.

8.     McNally, R. J., Kompik, J. J. & Sherman, G. (1984). Increasing the productivity of mentally retarded workers through self-management. Analysis and Intervention in Development Disabilities. 4, 129-135

9.     Mesibov, G. B. (2002), TEACCH – What is TEACCH? http://www.teacch.com/aboutus.htm, 10/18/2002

10.  Scheuermann, B. & Webber, J. (2002). Autism: Teaching does make a difference. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth-Thomson.

11.   Smith, D. D. (2003). Introduction to Special Education (5th Edn). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

12.  Snell, M. E., and Brown, F. (2000). Instruction of Students with Severe Disabilities (5th edn), Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.

13.  Waterhouse, S. (2000). A positive approach to autism. London: Jessica Kingsley.

14.  Westwood, P. (2003), Learning and Learning Difficulties. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong

15.  Wing. L. (1996). The Autistic Spectrum, London: Constable.

16.  Wong, Y. Y. & Westwood, P. (2002). The teaching and management of children with autism. Hon Kong Special Education Forum, 5 (1), 46-72

Additional readings

17.  Horner, R. H., Junlap, G., Koegel, R. L. (Eds). (1988) Generalization and maintenance: Lifestyle changes in applied settings. Baltimore: Brookes

18.  Poon, K. F. (2002). Meeting Special Needs in Mainstream Classrooms. Hong Kong: Longman

19.  Prizant, B. M. & Rydell, P. J. (1993). Assessment and intervention considerations for unconventional verbal behavior. In Reichle, J. & Wacker, W. (Eds). Communicative approaches to the management of challenging behavior. Baltimore: Brookes

20. Quill, K.A. (1995). Teaching children with autism. Delmar.

21.  Robert, L., Koegel & Koegel, L. K. (1996). Teaching children with autism. Baltimore: Brookes

22. Rutter,M.(1985). The treatment of autistic children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 26:193-214.

23. Rydell, P. J. & Prizant, B. M. (1995). Assessment and intervention strategies for children who use echolalia. In Quill, K. A. (ed). Teaching children with autism (pp105-132). NY: Delmar.

24. Schopler, E. & Reichler, R. J. (1979). Individualized assessment and treatment for autistic and developmentally disabled children (2nd ed). Austin, TX: PRO-ED

25. Worthington, A, (1999). The Fulton special education digest. London: Fulton

2003/12/31

Why do we expect pupils to go to school?

http://teaching.monster.com/benefits/articles/2073-special-education-an-introduction-for-new-teachers

Introduction: The role of the aims of education

One of the arguments, which is used to reject or to ignore discussing the aims of education among teachers, is that: we are just required to follow what the government stated in the official documents. There has no room for us to discuss. Or the aims of education is variant, different people has different points of view. There has no model answer for this question. However, the aims of education is very important for teachers, not only because it affect on our teaching, but also is a process that for reflect what is education and what we have done.

The background of the special school

I am teaching in special school, the children with moderate mental handicap. To satisfy all their diverse special needs, we use eleven methods for ten students.

They often have learning difficulties in attending to the relevant aspects of a learning situation, in storing information in long term-memory, in generalizing what they learn, and in language (Westwood, 2003). And also some of them are children with autism. Children with autism typically have difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication, interactions and leisure or play activates (ASA, 2004).

The interventions usually are ABA[1], PECS[2], visual strategies, TEACCH[3], situation teaching and learning, Snoezelen and Interactive Process Approach, Life Application Training (生活流程教學), social stories, even mediation and psychotherapy.

These all interventions need long-term training and co-operation with parents. So, the bottleneck of their education is not only their own abilities, but also whether the parents willing to co-operate.

Taking one of my students as an example, whose name Stonely, his abilities are pretty good. He came to my school in this year, but he had already picked up the schedule of schooling. He can just only utter some sound but understands what you said. We all believe that he can learn more while he experiences more. However, his mother rejects most of the school activities. When we had taught some self-care skills, such as washing head, he couldn’t practice at home, and finally he forgot what he had learnt.

The consensus in school on the aims of education

From the above, we can see that it has a very close relationship among school, teachers, students, and parents. The co-operation is demanding. If the aims of education of each membership are different, it is very difficult to have a successful education. Now we are investigating what students, teachers, parents and school believe to be the purpose of education, see whether they believe same aim or thinking in different ways.

Talking about the students first. As we saw in Stonely’s case, students are very enjoying in school’s life. It is because unlike mainstream school, students have much fewer activities than normal students when both of them are not going to school. It may because students with special needs need much more care from parents when they are outing.

In fact, nowadays, normal students have many reasons to reject going to school. Because of Internet, information and knowledge is easily acquired. Also, the knowledge grow rapidly, it seems that teaching in school cannot follow the main trend of knowledge expand. Taking computer studies as an example, many students blame that what they learnt in school is ten years ago technology or programme, for example, Basic and Logo. They are not popular or even vanish in IT’s world.

If they want to make friends or be “socialization”, they can go to centers or join some interest group in society. If go to school for the economic reason, that is training as an employee. It seems much more effective when they are learning from doing. That means they can have on job training rather than going to school. We does not say that it is no use to go to school, but it seems it has many alternative way to achieve what students expected doing in school.

Students in my school have no such reasons, or may be they cannot achieve that level of critical thinking or reflection. But through their smiles, we can see or even feel that they enjoy the lesson, activities and school’s life. For them, it is clear that the aims of education are improving their qualities of their life.

However, parents have different thought about schooling and education. From the interviews in the parent’s day, we can see that the topics, which the parent’s most interested is where do their children go after, graduated. Of course, they also concern whether their children enjoy the school’s life, but their expectations about what children learnt in school are not very much. Taking about Stonely, why his mother rejects the outgoing activities? From the dialog with his mother, we know that she worried about the safety of the activities. It seems that emphasis is on ‘care’ more than education.

So, what is the teacher’s point of views? Although it is not a ‘model answer’ because it has labeling effect which we didn’t want, but the fact is every teachers in special education are doing the same things, that is transform students to have a normal life, to fulfill or even to expand their potential and capacity. Once we can see the improvement of the students abilities, although it has no significance to mention, we have the most successful feeling and proud for that change.

The aims of education of my school are follow the mission statement of Hong Chi Association (2003).

“Hong Chi Association is dedicated to serving people with mental handicap and their families. We believe that people with mental handicap have the same rights and freedoms as other members of the community. They should be given every opportunity to develop physically, intellectually, socially and emotionally. And they should be encouraged and helped to participate fully in family and community life. All forms of discrimination against people with mental handicap are wrong. We will listen to the needs and wishes of people with mental handicap and their families, educate and train them so that they can develop to their full potential, assist them to find jobs and to live as independently as possible, and promote understanding and acceptance of people with mental handicap.”

To use categories, which learnt in lecture, it is obvious that the aims of education of my school can be classify as social and economic reconstruction. To promote understanding and acceptance of people with mental handicap, that mean the needs is here, why? It is because she thinks that the society has inequalities or misunderstanding about mental handicaps. To change it, to promote. It is a future centered. Parents care whether teaching can fulfill the requirement of future jobs; it is similar to economic and social efficiency. Of course, teachers and students can be classifying as personal enlightenment and empowerment because we concern about qualities of life. All above these are unlike official aims of education in Hong Kong in Education Commission (2000), which is include all elements, but has no focus.

From the above analysis, we can see that there has no consensus on the aims of education among government, school, teachers, students and parents.

The concept of education and the aims of the education

John Dewey (1859-1952) said that education as such has no aims; it is people involved in education, teachers, schools, governments, parents, and even students, who have aims. But people have often tried to clarify or defend their own aims by asking what are, or what should be, the aims of education.

As Haydon (1996) said that “to ask what the aims of education are—when this is a philosophical question and not an empirical question about what actual teachers and others are aiming at—is to suppose that certain aims are implicit in the concept of education. Thus, the question about the aims of education can be reducing to debate about the central features, and the boundaries, of the concept of education.

Under this background, most philosopher of education now would probably agree that the important question about the aims of education is a normative one: what should teachers (and others in related positions of influence) be aiming at? Debate around this question is effectively debate about what the aims of schooling ought to be.

So, the articulation of a concept of education may well furnish a central part of the answer. In analyzing the concept of education by Peters (1966), there have explicit three characteristics of education processes as follows:

• That ‘education’ implies the transmission of what is worth-while to those who become committed to it;
• That ‘education’ must involve knowledge and understanding and some kind of cognitive perspectives, which are not inert;
• That ‘education’ at least rules out some procedures of transmission, on the ground that they lack wittingness and voluntariess.
• Therefore, “education processes are voluntarily pursed and cognitively involved desirable changes.”

Teachers as mediators

What should teachers do? To facing the different aims of education, the tensions between individual and societal, vocational and academic, economic and democratic, stability and change, local and global, etc. And as White (1982) said that the list of aims is almost endless. As in the introduction mention, I think it is a process that reflects what is education and what we have done. To balance those tensions, to improve students qualities of life, and to involved desirable changes, that is our jobs and no cook-book to tell us how to do is the best.

Reference

1. Autism Society of America (ASA). http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=whatisautism. 4/3/2004.
2. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. NY: Macmillan.
3.  Haydon, G.. (1996). Aim of Education. In J.J. Chambliss (ed) (1996). Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia. NY: Garland.
4. Hong Chi Association (2004). http://www.hongchi.org.hk/ 1/4/2004.
5.  Peters, R. (1966). Ethics and Education. London: George Allen and Unwin
6. Poon-McBrayer, K. F. & Lian, M. G.. J. (2002). Special Needs Education: Children with Exceptionalities. HK: The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
7. Westwood, P. (2003), Learning and Learning Difficulties. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong.
8. White, J. (1982). The Aims of Education Restated. London: Routledge.

[1] ABA stands for Applied Behavior Analysis (Scheuermann & Webber, 2002).

[2] PECS stands for Picture Exchange Communication System

[3] TEACCH stands for Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication-handicapped Children (Connor, 1999).

2004/5/29