Hughes to lead pilot program for high school students with autism

Posted on Friday, Dec. 18, 2009 — 10:10 AM

Professor of Special Education Carolyn Hughes has won a $30,000 grant from the Organization for Autism Research to fund a pilot project that will help high school students with autism become more included and involved in their schools and with their peers.

The proposal was one of seven selected out of 75 submitted as part of the organization’s eighth annual Applied Autism Research Competition.

“Many high school students with autism spectrum disorders spend their school days socially isolated from their peers without disabilities even when they are educated in the same classrooms or share the same lunch hours or physical education classes,” Hughes wrote in the grant proposal. “Teaching requisite social interaction skills and promoting social inclusion cannot wait until students with autism spectrum disorder leave the high school environment.”

The pilot project will teach social interaction skills among students with autism spectrum disorder and their peers and promote the inclusion of these students in both academic and non-academic activities throughout their school day and across multiple settings, such as general education classes, physical education classes, the library or cafeteria. Much of the social skills instruction will be led by the students’ peers.

Media contact: Melanie Moran, (615) 322-NEWS
melanie.moran@vanderbilt.edu