Constructing Functional Profiles of strength and weaknesses of ASD Students: The Roadmap to Treatment

While children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are a growing demographic globally, they embody one of the most puzzling neurodevelopmental disorders. The greatest dilemma for stakeholders such as physicians, speech language clinicians, and families in this complex and dynamic disorder is its heterogeneity: it entails individual and varied developmental pathways along the entire life-span, demanding early and ongoing interventions that are diverse, flexible, and responsive to these children’s high needs. The concept of chronogeneity can clarify the common patterns of change across children with ASD, and paths of children who do better or worse than expected. Canadian research found that adaptive functioning and autistic symptom severity are independent factors that seriously impact the development of children with ASD, and both must be the focus of interventions as improvement in each is relatively independent. Furthermore, adaptive functioning rather than IQ is what determines the kinds of supports that are needed. To this end, the affected child’s individual functional profile of strength and weaknesses is needed as it dictates the treatment required, one that is based on a flexible set of interventions tailored to the child’s profile. This workshop is based on a research and a clinical approach to intervention with children and adolescents with ASD and includes factors ‘not commonly’ examined by Speech Language Clinicians. The learning objectives of this workshop are: 1. to demonstrate functional profiles of strengths and weaknesses of students with ASD, 2. to define clinically and operationally the evaluation variables that comprise a functional profile, and 3. to construct goals for treatment based on the individuals’ functional profile.