The Ziggurat Model by Dr. Ruth Aspie and Dr. Barry Grossman is an amazing educational supports system that is quickly becoming the gold standard (along with CAPS by Shawn Henry and Brenda Myles). I believe you can probably find a full description either on this site or at
www.asperger.net Anyway, while it is a comprehensive system, I'm using portions of this program to help my kids in their IEP meeting and elsewhere.
One of their worksheets is called the ISSI, or Individuals Strengths and Skills Inventory. It's broken into the following categories: Social; Behavior/Interests and Activities; Communication; Sensory and Biological; Cognitive; Motor; Emotional. Under each category there is a place to list the strengths and skills of that child/student. I find it especially important that we first acknowledge the strengths our child has before beginning to look at their challenges because we can often find ways to use those strengths to overcome challenges. It helps the staff see the positive things in our child and helps them find unique ways to relate to him. For example, under interests a child may love frogs. The teacher may then use that information when purchasing rewards/reinforcers in the future. Also, it is helpful information will filling out that strengths portion of the IEP.
Another tool I find helpful is the Underlying Characteristics Checklist, or UCC. It lists various interesting challenges under categories such as Sensory, Motor, etc... It is part of a whole comprehensive program, but while the UCC isn't technically for use alone I've found it to be a wonderful way to provide a snapshot of how these kids operate in the world. By filling it out many parents and staff discover ways that AS/HFA or Classic autism impacts specific kids and raises their awareness of those challenges. It legitimizes things that we think of as arbitrary and puts them under specific headings. So, let's say we check, "Has difficulty understanding others non-verbal communication", it may be the first time a teacher has a concrete example that this is related to autism and go, "Ohhh, is that why he doesn't stop making noise in class when I give him a firm look?" Instead of simply seeing it as disrespectful behavior, it can generate discussion leading to solutions to compensate for that difficulty or helping to teach related skills to overcome it.
These tools are ideally used as part of the entire ZM, but as a parent it's overwhelming for me to try to implement the entire thing on my own. I believe by introducing some of the helpful components, or tools, in the ZM it will cast a favorable light on the program so that eventually the school district will adopt it. In the meanwhile, they have good information about my children through the ZM worksheets.
You can learn more about the ZM on Dr. Aspie and Dr. Grossman's website
www.texasautism.com as well as see their training schedule.
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