Week one at the PALS Autism School adult program has been great. It has been an adjustment going from long practicum where we were teaching everything, to CFE where I have taken on a more observational role for the first week. Now that I have spent a week observing I am exciting to begin teaching lessons in week two.

The adult program is fantastic! It is made up of a variety of life skills lessons that include things such as practicing with money, grocery shopping, social thinking and preparing for work in the community.

What I have found the most interesting so far is the token reward system used by almost all of the students. We have learned a lot about various types of motivation and what has the best long term results vs. short term results. During long practicum I was in a classroom where it was not in the classroom culture to use extrinsic motivation and thus there were no reward systems in place. Seeing how a reward system where students are collecting tokens to work towards a prize, works, has been a new experience. It is clear that this population of students thrives off of this system and requires the extrinsic motivation to focus on expected behaviours for everyday adult life. It is very clear how they respond and react to gaining or for some students losing tokens. I have a lot of questions already about this type of token system and the research that is out there regarding a token system and adults or children who have autism.

Overall, it has been a big change from teaching children to teaching adults. I look forward to the following two weeks when I begin to lead more of the lessons and learn more about managing a group of 4-5 students all with varying needs and abilities.