Observational learning and school
Learning in regular education and the mainstream classroom often pose a great challenge for children with autism spectrum disorders. There are of course many and different reasons for this, varying from child to child and from school to school. But one of the challenges may be failure to learn from observating others.
Observational learning involves learning from observing others behaviors and contingencies, and differs from imitation in that it also involves observating the discriminative stimuli and the reinforcers.
Even if schools have changed, children are often required to acquire knowledge by observational learning. And for those children with autism showing difficulties in acquiring new skills by this will struggle to effective participate and learn in the regular classroom.
There has been published much on observational learning in general, but it seems like that there is few published studies on promoting observational learning per se for preschool children with autism within the EIBI litterature (as I have been able to track). Some children master this form of learning without special interventions at some point during EIBI, but again some children seems to struggle even if they have reached a skill level matching their classmates. Experience shows that unless these children get extra teaching and training on observation learning there may be additional challenges in school.
So each assessment protocoll and curriculum for preschool children should include measures and objectives related to observational learning.
Related posts: