Early Start Denver Model

1480 Words6 Pages

The purpose of the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) is to systematically aid children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the initiation of social communication (Dawson & Rogers, 2010). Due to social initiation being a deficit for some children with ASD, the ESDM seeks to aid children in more independent social interactions (Dawson & Rogers, 2010). The creators of the ESDM have combined the constructionist and transactional model of development (Dawson & Rogers, 2010). Therefore, it is believed that children learn through their own experience and also through experiences presented by caregivers. Based on this theory, the ESDM uses young children and caregiver's learning history as the framework for learning social communication skills. The …show more content…

In addition, they target a skill from multiple domains at a time to achieve a more holistic learning experience (Dawson & Rogers, 2010). The ESDM implements teaching procedures from applied behavioral analysis, pivotal response training, and the Denver Model (Dawson & Rogers, 2010). In order to provoke social and communicative behaviors, the ESDM uses strategies to elicit positive experiences between the teacher and child (Dawson & Rogers, 2010). In addition, the ESDM attempts to foster the child's motivation by providing rewarding stimuli (Dawson & Rogers, 2010). The ESDM follows an intensive teaching approach in order to fill the learning gaps caused by the decreased number of learning opportunities in children with developmental delays (Dawson & Rogers, 2010). The ESDM attempts to provide a learning opportunity within every social exchange, as frequent as every 10 seconds (Dawson & Rogers, 2010). Intensive teaching provides children with ASD to learn at a rapid rate of achievement (Dawson & Rogers, …show more content…

This book was written for parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In the nutshell, it is a "how to" book based on methods from the Early Start Denver Model. It provides parents with tips and tricks to help engage their children and help them learn. It has quality information on many struggles parents of children with ASD, like selecting appropriate interventions and how to help siblings cope, for example. While there is no manual on how to successfully parent a child, this book is a nice guide to help parents of children with Autism who are struggling. Another thing I liked about the ESDM was the curriculum checklist. It was easy to follow while still providing quality