Autistic Spectrum Disorder

The child is unable to process information effectively due to neurological impairment, especially complex and multi-modal interpersonal signals. (biology and cognition)
Inability to decipher and process information leads to feeling overwhelmed, perplexed, confused, and anxious (emotion)
Withdrawal or disengagement as strategies for avoiding negative emotional experience (motivation and behavior)
While other children can gratify various needs through social interaction, children with autism have to use other means such as auto-stimulation, control and manipulating objects, maintaining rigid order/pattern (motivation, behavior, environment)

Through systematic learning, the child can master effective agentive, interpersonal and social strategies and skills. These will lead to need gratification, displacing the original symptoms.
In SSLD, the child does not only learn specific skills (e.g., eye contact, verbal requests) but also learns how to learn - imitation, observation learning, and symbolically mediated learning
SSLD learning is grounded in real life, involving people in the child's life world (parents, siblings, peers)

Learning how to learn: emphasis on observation learning (including symbolic mediation) as the most important mode of human learning
Focus on behavior, yet connecting it with the key domains of human experience and environmental realities
Individualized and systematic learning of adaptive skills and strategies
The child comes before the structure or system, which is used to facilitate the child's learning. We modify the structure to suit the child, not the other way around.
Multiple contingency thinking: Program design takes into consideration of the child's circumstances and needs, developmental status,
Comprehensive attention to all domains: biology, motivation, emotion, cognition, behavior, and environment
Maximize opportunity, time, and space for learning
Maximize opportunity, time, and space for learning

Created with

Infantile Autism and Autistic Spectrum disorder