TEACCH and Autism Ranking:

Aims and Claims

Aims

According to Mesibov et al (2004),

“Structured Teaching … has two complementary goals: 1) increasing the individual's skills and 2) making the environment more comprehensible and more suited to the individual's needs. In other words, some of the work facilitates changes in the individual, and some involves changes in the environment. To achieve the first goal, we introduce and have the individual practice new skills and behaviors. Of equal importance, however, is the work of developing situational modifications and supports so that the environment is in line with the individual's abilities and ways of understanding and learning.”

Claims 

There have been various claims made for the TEACCH Autism Program or for programmes which follow the TEACCH model.  For example, 

• Braiden et al (2012) claimed that “Results indicate a statistically significant decrease in parental stress and increase in children's expressive and receptive language skills from pre-testing to post-testing.”
• D’Elia et al (2014) claimed that “Findings suggest that a low intensity home and school TEACCH program may provide benefits for children with ASD by reducing autistic symptoms and maladaptive behaviors. Furthermore, a decrease in parental stress indicates that parents' involvement in the rehabilitation program is a crucial factor and contributes greatly to treatment efficacy.”
• Ozonoff and Cathcart (1998) claimed that “Results demonstrated that children in the treatment group improved significantly more than those in the control group on the PEP-R subtests of imitation, fine motor, gross motor, and nonverbal conceptual skills, as well as in overall PEP-R scores.”
• Panerai et al (1998) claimed that “Results showed an increase in working skills and functional communication abilities.  In addition, the structured teaching seemed to reduce the disadaptive behaviors allowing an easier management of behavior problems.”
• Tsang et al (2007) claimed that “…the program promoted such children’s pivotal learning abilities like imitation, perception, fine motor, eye-hand coordination and gross motor skills (i.e., CPEP-R scores), as well as cognitive functioning.”

Updated

16 Jun 2022

Last Review

01 Nov 2017

Next Review

01 Jul 2024