Rethink+Autism

Rethink Autism is a website found at []. This website is American developed but I believe that it could be extremely useful for teachers everywhere who have students with Autism in their classrooms. The website focuses on assessment, curriculum, training and data tracking. Teachers can subscribe to the website and by doing this can use the resources available. Teachers can subscribe for a year for $59, and have access to a number of resources as well as having access to a team of professionals through email who will answer any questions that you have.

There is a questionnaire available where you enter information about your student and the system generates a range of skills that the teacher can begin to work through and which may need to be included in an ILP. There are a number of videos found on the website which show step-by-step teacher strategies as well as tips and tricks for teaching students with autism. There are also video based training modules to train staff on Applied Behaviour Analysis - which is the most accepted style of teaching those students with autism. There are over 1200 written lesson plans which are divided across 8 categories: Pre-Academic, Academic, Social / Emotional, Daily Living, Motor Skills, Play & Leisure, Expressive Language and Receptive Language, which could be adapted to different lessons. This resource could be used in regards to teacher strategies, assessment tasks and discussions with other teachers and professionals to allow for greater understanding for teachers and greater learning gains for students. The website also caters for children of all ages as well as varying abilities so is able to be utilised by all teachers.

As a beginning teacher, being able to successfully cater for a range of students with special needs is extremely daunting. This website covers all areas of schooling that could be problematic for children with Autism, and areas that I feel I may struggle with. Tips on curriculum and assessment would be extremely helpful for adaptation for students with Autism. I also think that the videos showing behavioural strategies would be extremely useful. I feel that this resource would support teachers and be extremely helpful in helping teachers and in turn allowing students with autism to have a better learning and school experience.

Rethink Autism (2008). Retrieved 8 July 2011 from []