Portable Visual Guidance System Phase II

In Phase I, we designed and tested a Portable Visual Guidance System (PVGS), which combines a PDA - for user guidance - and an Internet website - for linking the user to an educational support team. Use of the PVGS 1) significantly improved the in vivo social pragmatics of students diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome/Higher Functioning Autism (AS/HFA); 2) revealed additional ways of improving social pragmatics; and 3) improved activity management in scheduling and vocational tasks. In Phase II, we will focus on social pragmatics and two closely related skills: feelings management and assignment management. We aim to: 1. Replicate Phase I success in the most educational setting for AS/HFA high school aged students: mainstream school inclusion classes. 2. Replicate Phase I findings more efficiently, with a less highly trained, on-site coaching staff and with more distant (non-site) expert supervision of that staff. 3. Contrast the outcomes of the curriculum with a diagnosis-matched wait-list control group. 4. Develop and implement software that will enable on-site staff to create and modify individualized guidance and monitoring screens as needs arise. 5. Design a commercially attractive package of software, video training, video-conferenced support, and manuals. 6. Complete the translation of the SymTrend website and all the above tools into Spanish. Significance: Successful completion of Phase II will: 1. Provide a very effective and comprehensive system for teaching social pragmatics and related management skills to AS/HFA persons in an inclusion context. 2. Provide a means of evaluating IEP effectiveness, thereby enabling a better use of special education funds and a reduction of litigation over IEP plan appropriateness and utility. 3. Provide substantial support for our theoretical rationale for curriculum building in Special Education - a rationale that can guide the formulation of IEPs. 4. Provide a theoretical rationale, an intervention framework,