Environmental Structuring and Support for Children on the Autism Spectrum
A variety of strategies are available to enhance the predictability of – and benefits to be gained – from the environmental setting. The security that comes from being able to anticipate and understand activities, schedules, and expectations significantly enhances autistic kids’ capacity to appropriately respond to various home, classroom, and community demands. Establishing clear behavioral expectations and rules, following routines and schedules, and ensuring physical, environmental, cognitive, and attitudinal support are helpful in creating structure. Establishing and following clear behavioral expectations is one of the simplest and most effective means of establishing structure for children on the autism spectrum. Kids with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) clearly benefit from environments that offer clearly stated examples of desired behaviors. It is extremely important that these rules and expectations be reviewed regularly and that these children have an opportunity to