Portage and Autism Ranking:

Aims and Claims

Aims

The aim of portage is to help pre-school children with special education needs to develop in five key developmental areas. Those areas are self-help skills, motor skills, cognition, social emotional skills, and communication.

According to Barakat, R., Drylie, L. and Nash, J. (2004)

"While there are not specific concepts and skills to be learned, the program tends to focus on behaviors identified for each individual child, based on their disability, and target skills identified from the initial assessment.  The individually developed goals that identify a child’s target skills and behaviors are consistently evaluated and adjusted accordingly as the child demonstrates the desired outcomes."

Claims

Various people have made claims for portage when used with children with a range of special needs. For example, according to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate at the Department of Education which conducted a survey of 13 portage services in 1998.

"The findings of the survey were generally encouraging; most of the work seen indicated that systematic and effective teaching and learning were taking place. The results compiled and opinions expressed by parents, home teachers and the various professionals involved in the project, indicated that the majority of the children had made accelerated progress."

There are much more limited claims for the use of portage and families with an autistic child. For example Reed, Osbourne and Corness (2005) found that portage provided a significant level of support for families who had young autistic children.

Updated

17 Jun 2022

Last Review

01 Jan 2017

Next Review

01 May 2023