David Celiberti, PhD, BCBA-D
Association for Science in Autism Treatment
Amy Bukszpan, PhD, BCBA-D
Florida Atlantic University
Photographed by Pavil Danilyuk (pexels.com)
First and foremost, thank you for your important work serving students with autism. We hope you have had an opportunity to explore our array of resources for educators and learn more about how we can support your important work. We hope this article highlights the myriad of ways teachers can help strengthen the connection between science-based information and the students, families, and schools they serve.
Educators are so much more than consumers of accurate, high-quality information. They are essential partners in advancing science-based education and treatment for autistic individuals. Through their daily interactions with students, collaboration with colleagues and families, their influence in schools, and respected standing in their communities, teachers are uniquely positioned to advance the use of accurate, evidence-based information to guide educational practice.
Teachers serve as educators, yes, but they are so much more. Teachers are advocates, collaborators, and contributors of evidence-based information and education. They assist colleagues and families to distinguish reliable information from pseudoscience and promote the use of evidence-based practices in educational settings. They are our advocates and our leaders, striving for effective supports and access for students, sharing experiences and perspectives to strengthen the resources available for the broader autism community.
We invite teachers to engage with ASAT not only by using our resources, but also by helping us extend and strengthen the visibility of ASAT and the reach of science-based information. Here are several ways you can support and participate in this shared effort while helping more people discover our vast array of free resources:
- Be a partner in sharing information about ASAT
Educators play an integral role in bridging families, colleagues, and other professionals with trustworthy, science-based information. As an educator, you have both the access and opportunities to act in partnership with families and communities in the development and education of all students. This is done by fostering both trust and safety in the teaching environments and by promoting communities that are in the best interests of the students. Families and communities rely on educators to support their students in the most appropriate ways, and this doesn’t stop when a student leaves the classroom. The classroom is only the beginning. Sharing information about ASAT with families and communities helps extend your reach as an educator, ensuring continuity of knowledge and supports from the classroom to the home. Consider sharing the link to our website and share sign-up details for our free monthly publication with members of your professional and community networks.
If you are interested, you could have your colleagues subscribe to our free monthly publication via this sign-up sheet (please encourage them to write legibly). Please scan completed sheets and send them via email (newsletter@asatonline.org) or mail them to:
ASAT
PO Box 1447
Hoboken, New Jersey 07030
- Be an educator and advocate for evidence-based practice
Teachers play a critical role in bringing research and evidence-based practices into everyday educational environments. Not everyone has the time, skills, or resources to navigate the large amount of information available about autism, and sadly, much of this information is not accurate. Teachers can help by directing families, colleagues, and community members toward accessible, science-based resources.
ASAT resources can be shared in classrooms, professional development activities, faculty discussions, and conversations with families to encourage thoughtful consideration of science-based approaches to autism education and treatment. Did you know that our hundreds of articles are freely available? Each page of the ASAT website includes options to share at the bottom of the page, making it easy to distribute articles or resources with colleagues, families, and other members of your professional and community networks. Depending on the resource and available sharing options, you can share the page electronically, through social media, or print it as a PDF for use in training classroom staff, professional development activities, interdepartmental meetings, faculty discussions, community outreach events, and conversations with families and caregivers.
Teachers are in a powerful position to advocate for students and families by promoting access to effective, scientifically supported educational practices. Advocacy can take many forms, from raising questions about an intervention being considered for a student, to encouraging colleagues and administrators to examine the evidence behind educational practices. By striving to make evidence part of the conversation, teachers can help encourage informed decision-making and meaningful educational opportunities for autistic students.
- Be a collaborator across the autism community
Supporting autistic students is a collaborative effort. Teachers must work alongside families, special educators, related-service professionals, administrators, religious and community leaders, and other members of a student’s support team to ensure meaningful and optimal outcomes. By sharing ASAT resources with these partners, educators can help foster a common foundation of science-based information and encourage productive, informed collaboration.
These conversations can begin with important questions: What does the available evidence tell us? How strong and reliable is that evidence? Does the evidence apply to this student, setting, or situation? What does it suggest we should do in practice? Can we effectively adapt a practice to an educational environment while maintaining the integrity of the intervention? How will we know whether an approach is helping this student? What information or data should we collect? How do we know if we are addressing meaningful goals for our students? And how do we track progress? If the student is not making meaningful progress, what should we reconsider or change? Even our most knowledgeable team members, with the best intentions and best interests of our students, can inadvertently stumble into the unknown or misinformed when it comes to autism interventions and treatment. However, sharing reliable information can help these partners begin with a common understanding of what is known, what is not known, and what may be misinformation about autism education and treatment. From this shared foundation, teams can have more productive conversations about selecting, implementing, and evaluating educational practices that are responsive to the individual student.
- Help make science-based information accessible across languages
Consider sharing our translated one-page flyers, available in English and more than thirty other languages, with families, colleagues, and community members who may benefit from accessible information about autism. Language differences should not be a barrier to finding reliable information about autism education and treatment. Educators can help expand access by making these resources available to families and colleagues who prefer to receive information in a language other than English. The flyers provide concise, accessible information about both our website and our free monthly publication, Science in Autism Treatment, that can be shared during conversations with families, professional meetings, community outreach activities, or through email and other communication channels.
- Contribute your experience and expertise
Teachers bring valuable perspectives on what happens when evidence-based practices are implemented in real educational settings. Consequently, ASAT wants to provide resources that are responsive to your needs. Thus, your questions, suggestions, experiences, and recommendations can help us identify topics and resources that would be most useful to educators, the community, and the families they serve. Tell us what you are encountering in your educational settings and what information would help you to make better-informed decisions. We welcome your feedback at info@asatonline.org.
- Help amplify science-based information
Information has a greater impact when it reaches beyond the people who initially seek it out. You can help amplify ASAT’s work by sharing our resources and newly published content with your professional and personal networks.
Follow ASAT on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and consider sharing our content with others. Every click, “like,” and “share” can help educators and other professionals connect more people with reliable, trustworthy information and resources.
You can also broaden the reach of ASAT’s work in your local community. Consider posting printed flyers in common community spaces, such as libraries, meeting rooms, bulletin boards, and local markets. Sharing translated PDFs through community social media pages and websites can also help make valuable information accessible to a wider audience.
If you would like to receive pre-written social media posts highlighting our newly published content, please email us at dceliberti@asatonline.org. With your help, we can make reliable information easier for more people to find, access, and share.
- Become more directly involved
For educators and others who would like to contribute more directly to ASAT’s work, consider applying to our Externship Program. The 150-hour Externship is a personalized, flexible program open to individuals with a wide range of experiences and backgrounds (e.g., psychology, education, medicine, applied behavior analysis), from high school through advanced graduate training. You can read more about this experience here.
The Externship is an incredible opportunity for educators, students, and others to move beyond sharing and applying ASAT’s resources. As an extern, you become directly involved in our work and mission here at ASAT. If you are interested in supporting ASAT in other concrete, time-limited ways, please visit this page.
Your Role is Critical in Supporting ASAT’s Mission
Whether you share one of our articles with a parent, introduce evidence-based information into a team discussion, provide feedback to a colleague struggling with how to measure an intervention’s effectiveness, or become more deeply involved in ASAT’s work and mission, your participation can help strengthen the connection between science, education, and the lives of autistic individuals and their families.
Teachers do not have to be researchers to contribute to science-based practice. They do not have to be autism experts to help others find reliable information. And they do not have to take on a formal role within ASAT to make an impact. Every time a teacher asks for evidence, shares a trustworthy resource, challenges an unsupported claim, advocates for an effective practice, or helps a family find reliable information, that teacher contributes to a culture in which science and evidence matter. As a teacher, we invite you to be an essential part of that effort.
Reference for this article:
Celiberti, D., & Bukszpan, A. (2026). How teachers can help us. Science in Autism Treatment, 23(9).
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