Disability & Accessibility

Skills Launches Web-Based Program Planning Tool for High Functioning Students with Autism

• By Leila Meyer
• 03/11/15

Skills has unveiled Skills Advanced Cognition, a Web-based system designed to help parents, educators and professionals plan intervention programs for high functioning students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Students with high functioning ASD may have difficulty with social skills such as sustaining conversation, understanding social rules or understanding sarcasm or irony. They also may have obsessive interest in a particular subject. Skills Advanced Cognition is designed to help educators plan lessons on topics such as sensory perspective taking, disengagement, detecting sarcasm and deception, following rules and safety awareness.

Skills Advanced Cognition is based on the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA), an evidence-based method of teaching skills to individuals with autism. The system provides tools to help educators assess the student's skill level, design a treatment plan from an individualized pool of suggested activities, and track and report on progress.

Key features of Skills Advanced Cognition include:

• Lessons and activities for teaching social skills, social cognition, executive functioning and independent living skills;
• Age-appropriate assessments and plans that advance with the student each year;
• Customizable plans and activities;
• Direct links from assessments to lessons;
• Ability to share information with the student's treatment team;
• Automatically generated reports, charts and graphs for tracking progress; and
• Support for multiple students on a single platform.

Subscriptions to Skills Advanced Cognition are available for parents, individual professionals, schools and districts. Further information about Skills Advanced Cognition can be found on the Skills site.