Purpose and Learning Outcome
The purpose of the assessment for Company Keepers is to determine which social and communication skills teens need to learn or enhance to become successful adults. Most of the interventions taught to the autism population have been created for early intervention programs up to the age of twelve. After the age of twelve, there is very little data reported about interventions needed for teens and young adults to use in college or on the job site. To use an analogy: we are giving hearing aids to young children under the age of twelve, but after age twelve, we do not upgrade or update the hearing aids so the children must try to find coping skills on their own using outdated technology. Some of the communication skills the teens will work on include: greeting each other with a smile, saying “Hi or Hello” and the person's name, initiating a conversation, staying on topic without going into extraneous items like “when is your teacher's birthday?” while others are discussing their classes, hold a 2-way conversation; change topics in an appropriate manner, talk about others' interests, wait his/her turn to speak or ask for help if needed.
Some of the social skills will include: shaking hands, making and sustaining eye contact, patiently wait turn when playing games, not disrupt game if not winning or show good sportsmanship
Learning Outcome
Teens will be able to improve their verbal and social skills 60% of the time, graduating to 80% of the time. At first verbal cues will be used, then hand signals, finally no cues should be needed.
Assessment Context: Teens will demonstrate and be observed as to whether or not they greet other people in the room. If the teens do not greet others, a mentor or program supervisor will review the rules of entering a room, they will be asked to go back to the door, enter again and greet everyone in the room.
Holistic Rubric:
Please rate the teen's ability in the following areas:
Conversation
| Is your teen able to: | Always | Almost always | Sometimes | Rarely | Never |
| Hold a 2-way conversation | | | | | |
| Initiate a conversation | | | | | |
| Change topics in an appropriate manner | | | | | |
| Talk about others' interests | | | | | |
| Wait his/her turn to speak | | | | | |
| Ask questions about different topics | | | | | |
| Expand answers beyond basic “yes” and “no” | | | | | |
| Greet people verbally | | | | | |
| Ask for help if needed | | | | | |
Social Skills
| Is your teen able to: | Always | Almost Always | Sometimes | Rarely | Never |
| Look people in the eye | | | | | |
| Greet people with handshake | | | | | |
| Patiently wait turn when playing games | | | | | |
| Not disrupt game if not winning | | | | | |
| Shows good sportsmanship | | | | | |
Testing Constraints: Company Keepers is an after school program operated by a private nonprofit organization, Autism Integration Mentoring Programs, Inc. Due to the relaxed nature of the program, there are no tests that will be given, it will be through observation of program supervisors and mentors that the teens will be rated at to their skill levels and areas where improvement is needed. It is hard to put any time restraints on the learning of these skills. Due to the nature of autism, some may have no problem with eye contact, while others cannot make eye contact at all. Some people with autism can learn a new behavior after only a few times with very few cues, others will always require cues to do remember a new behavior.
The teens will be able to ask the mentors for help in any aspect of learning or reinforcing the verbal and /or social skills. That is the job of the mentors to act as role models and guides for learning.
