This book is an introductory guide that explains in an easy-to-understand manner the basic principles and practical methods of TEACCH, a comprehensive autism support program with a 50-year history that originated in the United States and has spread around the world.
There are many examples of 'visualization and structuring' based on the characteristics of autistic people who are friendly to visual information.

The principle of teaching starts from the fundamental viewpoint that autistic and developmentally disabled people are not developmentally delayed or behind others.
I think their developmental pattern is not lagging behind, but different and unbalanced compared to that of people with typical development.
There are certainly some areas where I am behind, but there are also areas where I am not behind, and there are areas where I am superior to the average person.

In the past, the 'extraordinary abilities' of autistic people were limited to a very small number of functions, but at Teach, I have been thinking about those abilities in a broader sense since I first encountered them.
That is, it was expanded into a general function for living and working together with us, and we are developing that approach even more recently.
Rather than responding therapeutically, educating, and supporting autism in the form of curing or improving it, we aim to enable autistic people to live and work with us while learning and acting more independently while maintaining their autism.
From this perspective, there is no attempt to correct or modify autistic people through treatment or education.

Therefore, rather than focusing on fixing the parts that are lacking, we should focus on the parts that they are naturally good at and help them perform better.
This basic principle and ideology has recently become more strongly recognized and confirmed.

--- p.20

It is well known that both children and adults with autism have a strong affinity for visual information and a strong tendency and characteristic to find meaning and concepts in it and adapt to it.
This trait is also common in high-functioning autistic individuals who appear to have no difficulty using language, such as in everyday conversation.
Therefore, in support situations such as education, the practitioner of the teach program supports a wide range of communication attempts by using visual structured methods to the extent and content necessary according to the functional level of the other party, and the results are correspondingly great.

Several programs have been developed as an extension of this teaching model.
One of them is called the 'Picture Exchange Communication System', commonly known as 'FAX (PECS: Picture Exchange Communication System).'
This is a method of exchanging picture cards to match the visual dominance of autism, and it pursues the practicality and development of communication skills.
There is also a teaching and support method based on the meaning and communication of sentences through social stories, published by Carol Gray in 2000.
She worked as an autism educator for many years in Michigan, USA, and from that experience, she developed an excellent educational method that helps children understand social common sense by using simple sentences using letters and adding illustrations when necessary, tailored to the visual dominance characteristics of autism, while also developing and applying this method to develop individual expression.
The method and program have also received international evaluation and are being applied and developed around the world to suit the functions, characteristics, and culture of each individual with autism.

--- p.25~26

The Teach program's principles are to support individuals with autism to be as independent as possible in their daily lives (studying, leisure activities, employment), while also enabling them to live and work alongside other individuals.
Autism, as Teach Staff sees it, is a complex disorder that significantly disrupts and affects cognitive, social, and behavioral functions, including communication between people.
It is emphasized that therapeutic education to address this severity and complexity must be a comprehensive program that transcends the complexity and severity, and that a simple, single-dimensional treatment and educational approach is not sufficient at all.
The principle that the Teach program consistently emphasizes is,

① The essence of autism is a biological problem involving the central nervous system, which causes confusion and influence in the way they perceive the world and predict situations.
② Therapeutic education should be carried out in a close cooperative relationship between parents (family) and experts.
③ Therapeutic educators should be both specialists and generalists.
④ The treatment education program must be comprehensively coordinated.
⑤ What needs to be supported throughout life
⑥ Therapeutic education will be carried out entirely under the concept of individualization.
am.

--- p.39

Professor Schauffele and other founders of the Teach program already made clear in the mid-1960s the innovative position that autism is caused by the biological peculiarities of the brain.
At that time, the mainstream view in the United States was that the psychoanalytic school of thought was to attribute the cause of autism to the psychopathological problems of the parents.
The Teach program shifted the therapeutic focus from psychotherapy for parents and children to understanding brain disorders, and further changed the direction of therapeutic education by creating teaching materials and environments for learning and living tailored to cognitive needs (information processing functions).

This therapeutic education approach brought about a dramatic change in the role of parents.
Parents are expected to share the position of co-educators with teaching staff, as they are the ones best responsible for treatment and education, rather than the cause of autism.
There is a point where parents know their children better than anyone else.
Meanwhile, the teaching staff, as experts, have a deeper understanding and experience with autism itself.
Therefore, if the two can cooperate and build a partnership, they will be able to achieve much greater results than if each worked independently.

These collaborative efforts, which have continued for over 30 years, have made significant contributions to the well-being of people with autism in North Carolina and are now highly regarded by people across the United States and around the world.
It goes without saying that a collaborative relationship between parents and professionals is important.
This is especially true because the best therapeutic education for children with autism is realized through a functional combination of parental concern and professional expertise and insight.
Additionally, because children with autism generally do not provide emotional feedback to their families and therapists, parents and professionals alike often find themselves in a state of emotional isolation.
It is said that when parents and professionals work as partners in such times, they can provide emotional support to each other even if they lack feedback from the child.
They emphasize that collaboration between parents and staff is crucial to the success of the Teach program.

--- p.41~42

In the Teach program, school education is centered on special class education, and specific methods are implemented according to the concept of 'visual structuring'.
Although integrated education with various contents and levels is implemented with children in general classes according to the developmental and functional level of children with autism, the principle remains special education in special classes.
Although various attempts have been made to implement full-fledged integrated education, it is said that when implemented from the beginning of school, it has produced little to no significant results, except for a very small number of high-functioning children.
In contrast, special education has consistently achieved significant results in the independent living of many children, including high-functioning children.

In the school education of the Teach Program, parents can choose from several educational program models.
Among them, the most popular are special classes tailored to children with autism, which are offered in public schools across the United States.
Each class has approximately six students, and one or two specialized teachers trained as generalists are assigned. In classes with a large number of students, assistant teachers are assigned to ensure a student-to-teacher ratio of 3 to 1.

There are also various other class models.
High-functioning autistic children are educated in general education classrooms for a certain amount of time each day or week.
Students receiving integrated education may be assigned assistants as needed.
Additionally, some children with autism participate in classes for children with learning disabilities, either for all or part of the course, while others participate in educational programs for children with mild developmental disabilities.
In addition, there are children with autism who spend a certain amount of time each day or week in the resource room, which is used by children in general education classes.

Recently, there is a teaching method called 'reversed mainstreaming' that has been particularly emphasized in teach programs.
This educational method is actively being implemented in Denmark and Sweden, where the Teach Model has been actively adopted. Children in general education classes go to classes for children with autism and collaborate with teachers to provide learning support. To facilitate interaction and integration, the children with autism are guided by the children in the general education classroom and participate in classes within the general education classroom.
That is, it is a process of gradually moving from reverse integration to general integration.

--- p.45~46

Have a short conversation (5-10 minutes) with your child.
Look out for subtle linguistic features that are unusual or different from those of ordinary children (especially in a social sense).
Some things to note are, for example,

① Understanding abstract expressions such as proverbs
② Social expressions such as ‘thank you’ and ‘enjoy’ are used excessively or incorrectly.
③ When other people talk to you, you either don't respond or overreact.
④ Suddenly change the topic in the middle of a conversation.
⑤ Bring up an unusual topic.
⑥ If there are any other concerns, write them down.


When we evaluate communication skills using communication samples like this, we realize that the true comprehension skills of children and young people with autism are much lower than we imagine, and that we have been significantly ignoring their desire to express (or demand)—that is, their latent emotions and desires for expression.
We find that it is easy to overestimate, especially for high-functioning autistic individuals.

Many children and young adults with autism actually speak, but do not fully understand what they are saying.
Conversely, we can also see that in the case of low-functioning autistic people, their needs are often overlooked and underestimated.

--- p.82

Structuring is designed to help children with autism, who have significant impairments in functions such as meaning, concepts, representations, and cognition, understand the meaning of their living or learning environment and know what to do when providing therapeutic educational support.
Visual structuring of living and learning environments and schedules is being implemented around the world and is showing promising results.
In other words, structuring is a way to present to children with autism what is happening around them and what each of them can do according to their individual functions in an easy-to-understand way.
My first exposure to the concept of structuring and its educational practices was through a report by Michael Rutter and Lawrence Bartak in 1973.
They examined in detail the performance of various types of schooling in London and confirmed that learning guidance using structured methods significantly increased 'focus on the given task' and significantly outperformed other teaching methods in speaking, reading accurately, reading comprehension, and calculation.

Even before that, Professor Schauffler, the founder of the Teach Program in North Carolina, USA, had already explained in 1971 that therapeutic education in a structured setting was particularly beneficial for low-functioning autistic children. As described in the previous chapter, it was about 10 years later, in the summer of 1982, that I actually visited the place, experienced the reality for the first time, and was impressed by the great results.
Nowadays, there is a growing body of evidence that providing visual information is beneficial even for people with high-functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome.

--- p.97~98

For example, in the North Carolina Teach program, you can see young people who can't communicate verbally but learn to communicate using cards and go bowling alone to enjoy the game.
They have been guided to engage in social activities as leisure activities, similar to extracurricular activities at school, since middle school.
Non-verbal children follow their chaperones to the sports center with a file containing a picture of a shoe, a letter card with their foot size, and a communication card with a request to a bowling alley employee to take their hand and tell them which lane to go to play.
There you will learn in a specific way where and in what order you should submit the cards.
Meanwhile, sports center staff are asked by the teaching department staff to learn how to work with individuals with autism.

--- p.137

Autistic people are happy to talk to people who understand them.
It's even more lively when exchanging texts or sentences.
My family has a bulletin board on their website where many high-functioning autistic people can text each other with confidence.
I even find it strange why people with autism are said to have communication difficulties.
In short, when dealing with people who do not understand autistic people well, isn't it possible that they fall into a state of communication disorder?
This feeling is reinforced when I visit North Carolina and encounter people with autism in teaching clinics, schools, group homes, and workplaces.
They are communicating very lively with the staff, teachers, and coaches through words and picture cards.

A young man who was a graduate student at the university where I work has been conducting research on employment support for people with autism since his undergraduate days.
He recently met with many people by requesting interviews and coverage from high-functioning autistic people in various places.
They say that the one thing they all always say is that they wish they could be understood.
It is also said that autistic people only express their feelings to people they believe truly understand them.

High-functioning autistic people have constantly heard from family, classmates, teachers, and other people around them that they are spoiled children or that they are insensitive and only say what they want to say.
Asking them to understand and trust those around them seems beyond their capabilities.

--- p.183~184

Charles Hart, a father of a child with autism and a national expert on the well-being of children with autism and their families, said:
If I had to point out one of the most fundamental difficulties of autistic people, it would be that I think of myself as “a person who suffers because he or she cannot forget the facts of the past.”
The emotional wounds and pain of the distant past come back as if they had just happened.
There is also something like that in the message sent to me.
Decades of words like “Cheer up” and “Do it right” suddenly came back to me, but the words I just heard, “Don’t try too hard,” kept ringing in my head, so I became confused and “frozen in place.”
People around him do not notice him and act as if nothing is wrong.
“I envy the dullness of people with typical development,” he says, “but I hate it.”

Teach staff advise parents and educators to teach their children to avoid failure as much as possible.
To do so, we must thoroughly diagnose and evaluate, and then research and teach assignments and teaching materials accordingly.
Maps are an essential tool for visual structuring of various levels and content.
Before experiencing numerous failures and confusion, before experiencing severe psychological trauma, so-called early detection and early appropriate education are of utmost importance.
However, although this is important the higher the function, the greater the difficulty.
This is because parents have a hard time accepting the fact that their child has a developmental disability because he or she is high-functioning.

To date, we have developed a considerable number of methods for early and accurate diagnosis and evaluation, as well as appropriate parenting and intervention.
The specific responses are individual and diverse.
However, the basic principles are common regardless of the level of function.
This is because autistic people have a unique commonality in that they have qualitative differences in interpersonal relationships and communication skills, and their interests, interests, and activities tend to be limited to a narrow range.
However, because of this, from the time they were in daycare or kindergarten, they were often called a 'spoiled child' by people who misunderstood or did not understand them, or they were always told that they 'talk and act as they please', 'are not able to read other people's feelings', or 'are good at playing with blocks or puzzles, but are not good at playing with rules with friends'.

No matter how high-functioning you are, if you don't meet people who understand you, it will be difficult or impossible to adapt stably in relationships with others.
We must begin addressing the challenges faced by individual autistic individuals by understanding that even their own families may initially fail to understand or refuse to accept the facts.

--- p.189~190