Feedback, Report, and Recommendations

Abstract

The recommendations for home, school, and the community included in an assessment report typically contain the most important information for parents, physicians, or school personnel. When to recommend various therapies including Applied Behavior Analysis, speech or occupational therapies as well as psychotherapy or psychiatric services is clarified for different individuals. How to respond to sensory defensiveness as well as academic challenges with reading or writing is important to handle properly so as not to create or worsen behavioral challenges. When individuals with autism have comorbid conditions like anxiety or AD/HD, additional recommendations are needed and vary depending on the severity of ASD as well as the intellectual capacity of each participant. Promoting emotional and social development is not just as simple as providing access to a social skills group especially given the language, attentional, and memory challenges that typically accompany autism. When behavioral challenges exist, it is important to determine whether rigidity, maladaptive learning history, or seizures underlay the difficulty as recommendations typically vary depending on the cause. Even setting up the homework environment and completing assignments can be challenging when an individual with autism lacks motivation to please others. These and other situations are addressed with comprehensive recommendations for each area of weakness or deficit.