Smooth Transitions: Helping Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder Navigate the School Day

In school, students are expected to navigate different types of transitions every day, including those between instructors, subjects, and instructional formats, as well as classrooms. Despite the routines that many teachers develop to facilitate efficient transitions and maximize instructional time, many learners with ASD continue to struggle with change during the day. As a result, these students require even more structure and thoughtful planning to be successful. This article describes how the learning characteristics of students with ASD may affect transitions during the school day. Transition supports are techniques used to support students with ASD. For students with ASD, using transition supports may reduce the amount of time that it takes to transition, increase appropriate behavior during transitions, facilitate less reliance on adult prompting, and encourage successful participation in school and community outings (Sterling-Turner & Jordan, 2007). Presented here is a four-step sequence for implementing transition supports for students with ASD. These are: (1) identifying problematic transitions; (2) selecting appropriate transition supports; (3) implementing transition supports; and (4) collecting data and problem solving. Each step is detailed and includes guiding questions that can assist school teams in supporting students with ASD. Implementation of these supports requires a relatively small investment of time and resources, while the benefits of these techniques include an improved quality in a student's school experience as well as additional time for instruction.