McClannahan, L.E. & Krantz, P.J. (1998). Activity schedules for children with autism: Teaching independent behavior. Bethesda, MD: Woodbine House.
Reviewed by Catherine Maurice, PhD
ASAT Co-Founder and Advisory Board Member
Currently, popular works on autism intervention tend to fall into a few broad categories including, but not limited to:
Group A
Group B
Group C
McClannahan and Krantz have written such a book. Their Activity Schedules for Children with Autism offers practical, step by step advice on how parents and teachers can help children to learn and to function with greatly reduced adult supervision. Using the teaching tool called “activity schedules”—sets of pictures or words that cue a child to engage in a sequence of activities—they demonstrate how children can be taught to independently engage in everything from playing with toys to holding social conversation without reliance on constant adult prompting. For the many parents who cannot access good, center- based programs for their child; this book represents a generous source of truly expert knowledge and concrete assistance. For those who want to increase their effectiveness in working with autistic children, this work provides clear discussion and clear examples of an important teaching tool. Chapters cover topics of assessing a child’s readiness to use activity schedules, as well as constructing, introducing, monitoring and fading such schedules. Apparent throughout the work is the authors’ deep and caring commitment to increase independence, choice and social interaction for the children they serve.
Citation for this article:
Maurice, C.(1999). Book review: Unwrapping the gifts of independence and choice: Activity schedules for children with autism: Teaching independent behavior. Science in Autism Treatment, 1(1), 12.