Inclusive Programming for Elementary Students with Autism: A Manual of Social and Communication Skills

This second edition of this award-winning book provides instructional resources and strategies for both teachers and parents of elementary students with autism. Appropriate social and communicative behavior is a fundamental concern for parents, caregivers, and teachers of school children.

Children should be able to move in a safe and socially successful manner through their school years despite changing family culture, their activity level or degree of insight into the consequences of their behavior. One would also hope that they develop a positive character and good values about human rights and social responsibility along the way. The most important long-term goal, however, is that they grow into content, kind, and successful fellow human beings.

This book illustrates more than 120 goals for developing positive personality features, adequate social behavior and communicative competence. Ideas for long- and short-term goals have been selected from existing school programs, general education of values, as well as from parents and teachers.

Sheila Wagner, MEd is a certified special educator who has been in the field of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for over thirty-five years and retired from the positions of assistant director of the Emory Autism Center at Emory University and director of the Monarch School-Age Program. She is the author of Inclusive Programming for Elementary Students with Autism, Inclusive Programming for Middle School Students with Autism, Inclusive Programming for High School Students with Autism, Understanding Asperger’s Syndrome-Fast Facts: A Guide for Teachers and Educators to Address the Needs of the Student, and Special People Special Ways. Ms. Wagner has published widely in this field, including two books (for elementary and high school students with ASD), which both won the Autism Society of America’s Outstanding Literary Work of the Year (2001 & 2010). Sheila resides in Georgia.