Understanding the Autism Supplement: 2025-2026 Webinar

Welcome to today's statewide webinar hosted by SpedTechs and Partners Resource Network. My name is Sarah Untersy, and I am part of the SpedTechs team. The topic for today's webinar is understanding the autism supplement. A few reminders. This webinar is being recorded and the recording will be posted to our SpedTech site. It usually takes about a week in order for that to be posted, but we will drop our website link in the chat so that you are able to access that once it becomes available. The chat feature today is only available if you require technical assistance. However, you may put questions in the q and a section. The presenters will review your submissions, which will help us with clarifications and FAQs in the future. There will not be a live q and a today. SPED TEX is the special education information center for Texas. We are a collaborative project between Region ten Education Service Center and Texas Education Agency. We help parents understand their rights and responsibilities under IDEA and facilitate collaboration when there are concerns between the parent and the school district. We also serve as a resource for educators. We offer support via phone, email, or live chat for families and professionals, webinars, resources. Our contact information is on the screen. I'm now going to turn it over to Stephanie McLaughlin to share some additional information about Partners Resource Network. Thank you, Sarah. As she said, my name is Stephanie, and I'm the training and evaluation specialist for Partners Resource Network. Partners Resource Network is the nonprofit agency that operates the Texas statewide network of parent training and information centers. We are funded through the Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. Throughout Texas, we have four projects known as PACT, APP, PEN, and TEAM. Our mission here at Partners Resource Network is to empower and support Texas families and individuals impacted by disabilities or special health care needs. We do this through a network of highly skilled, regionally located coordinators who are knowledgeable in local policies, services, and resources, as well as state and national guidelines. We provide training, information, and one on one assistance at no cost to Texas families and youth. We serve parents of children and youth with disabilities from birth to age twenty six, as well as youth self advocates between the ages of fourteen and twenty six, and our services are provided in both English and Spanish. Thanks, Stephanie. We are excited to welcome our presenter, Nathan Polin. Nathan is the state autism coordinator at the Texas Education Agency in the Office of Special Populations and Student Supports. He is joining us today to discuss the Texas autism supplement. And at this time, I will stop sharing and turn it over to Nathan. Thank you, Sarah. Let me see if I can get my screen shared in the way that I would like. Okay. One second. Alright. I'm confirming. Sarah, can you confirm for me that you see the slide without the speaker notes? I do. It looks good. Perfect. Thank you so much. Alright. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. I'm so glad to be presenting on the autism supplement. I hope that you can find this presentation helpful in supporting your child, and their school system. So as Sarah said, my name is Nathan Pullen. I serve as the state autism coordinator at the Texas Education Agency in the office of student populations special populations and student supports. One second. There it goes. So a quick agenda overview for today. I'll first be providing you with the requirements of the autism supplement, then we'll look at what each strategy of the autism supplement means. We'll discuss considerations for each of the strategies, and then we'll go through a final review of the requirements and best practices to consider as you work with your school district to develop and implement the individualized education program or the IEP for your student. And I'll also share some resources with you with you at the end. There we go. Alright. TEA has released an autism supplement guidance document recently for educators that includes questions and answers on the autism supplement, best practice tips, key points, and IEP examples for each of the eleven strategies of the supplement. Throughout this presentation, I'll reference information that's included in this autism supplement guidance document. However, that guide is intended for educators, and some of the language is more technical in nature. But families are welcome to reference that guide. It's available goodness. It is available on our TEA special education resource website, which is called Texas SPED support and can be found at sped support dot t e a dot texas dot gov. We'll share those links with you today. So I have the commissioner's rule listed on this particular slide, so that you're aware of where the autism supplement exists within, Texas Administrative Code or the commissioner's rules. However, this isn't really worded for families, and this is gonna be the only time that I'll talk about the autism supplement today using the language added as it is written in the rule. So, basically, the the rule means that the strategies of the autism supplement are part of the IEP. They're they are not a separate document. They're based on a variety of sources of data. They identify current unique needs of the individual student and that all eleven strategies of the autism supplement must be considered at least annually for the student. So if you have a student receiving special education services in the state of Texas with an eligibility area of autism, all eleven of these strategies must be considered at least annually, but could be more, and documented within their IEPs. So let's now take a deeper look at each of those eleven strategies of the autism supplement. The first strategy in the supplement, which is listed as g one in rule, is extended educational programming. What this essentially means is does my student need additional programming outside of the typical hours or days of the school year? So this could include conversations with the art committee about extended day services, like extra instruction or support before or after regular school hours. This could also include oh, my slides are jumping. It could also include extended school year services or ESY, which is instruction provided during the summer or other breaks to maintain skills. So some key considerations for the strategy of extended educational programming include using multiple data sources. So decisions about your students' support shouldn't be based on a full picture, not just one test or one moment in time. That means teachers and specialists need to look at many sources of information, like classroom performance, assessments, observations, and input from you, the parent and family, to understand your students' needs and to make the best plan for them. Another consideration for this strategy is functional communication systems. So some students use special ways to communicate, like sign language or devices that help them speak. These tools are often called functional communication systems. If your student uses one of these alternate modes of communication, they might need extra time and support to learn how to use it well and to express themselves clearly. This can be an important reason to consider extra help beyond the regular school day or the regular school year. Another consideration for this strategy of the autism supplement is looking beyond academics. So when deciding what kind of support a student needs, it's not just about the schoolwork. The team also looks at important information of areas of development such as behavior, so how your student handles emotions, responds to challenges, etcetera, social skills, how your student interacts with other students and works together with them. Communication, how your student expresses themselves. I wish I could figure out how to stop that from happening. How they express themselves and how they understand others, and self help skills. So everyday tasks like getting dressed, brushing their teeth, or eating independently could fall under self help skills skills. So it is not just academics. It's the full picture of your your student, your child, and their needs so that the school can provide the right type of support for them. That should all be considered under the strategy of extended educational programming as part of the autism supplement. So the second strategy in the autism supplement listed as g two in the commissioner rule is daily schedules. So what this essentially means is does my student need a daily schedule to keep actively engaged in learning activities and reduce unstructured time during the school day? Students with autism benefit when they there are predictable, consistent routines in place even for times of the day that are typically less structured, like recess, lunch, pep rallies, special events, things like that. So some key considerations for this strategy of daily schedules. It's important to remember that engagement means active involvement in an activity. Engagement reduces unwanted behaviors, reduces anxiety, which helps your student feel safe and ready to learn in their environment. Daily schedule should be excuse me. I skipped one here. And unstructured times are time periods that do not have instructional expectations or a defined routine for student behavior. So those are two just kind of more specific definitions of what the rule touches on, and then the format of the schedule should be individualized to the student and to their needs. That could include things like photographs, pictures, or words, and each schedule can and should be implemented at the same time as the whole class schedule. So the individualized schedule for your student, their daily schedule, can be implemented at the same time as they are included in a whole class schedule. They could be concurrent. They could be at the same time. K? Alright. So strategy number three, in home and community based training listed as g three in rule. What does this mean? It means does my student need support at home or in the community to help them use important skills like social behavior, communication, or self care. So key considerations for the strategy of in home community training or viable alternatives, which is listed in the rule. So viable alternatives to in home or community training might include, but they're not limited to, working with daycares, respite care, foster families, siblings or grandparents, parent observations taking place at the school, of course, with with school permission, making a video of the teacher working with the student, making a video of the child demonstrating the skills to be trained on in the home or community, and using visual supports for the home. This strategy may be used to address academic learning needs and or reinforce social behavioral skills in a variety of settings outside of the school. Strategy number four is positive behavior supports. So this is listed as g four in the commissioner's rule. And what it essentially means is does your student need positive strategies, like changing what happens before behavior, teaching better ways to respond, and using reinforcement rewards for your student. This could mean help with behavior in the school, the home, or the community. Some key considerations for the strategy of positive behavior support as part of the autism supplement is there are no one size fits all strategies for supporting the behavior needs of students with autism. This is true of all strategies in the autism supplement, but for positive behavior supports, the members of the ARD committee should consider information, from staff and families on what situations behaviors of concern occur in and what those behaviors look like. A functional behavioral assessment or an FBA can help determine the functions of a student's behavior, and function based interventions are most effective with targeted behaviors. So the function of a behavior is the why or the purpose that that behavior serves for the student. Function based interventions are aimed to meet the same purpose as the targeted behavior. For example, a student who engages in hitting behavior in order to access a preferred activity would instead be provided with access to that preferred activity when they ask nicely instead of hitting to access it. That would be a a function based intervention for that type of behavior, which is where an FBA could be very beneficial to identify and determine those functions. The next strategy of the autism supplement, strategy five, is futures planning. What it means is essentially, is it time to start planning for your student's future, whether that be learning, working, living, and being part of the community by helping them build important skills right now? Those slides move fast. Some key considerations for the strategy of futures planning include focusing on a student's life and what their vision is for the future. Futures planning involves participation from families, caregivers, friends, and the student themselves. Futures planning could include information on learning, living, working in the community, and educational environments. It considers skills necessary to function in their current environment and environments that the student will likely encounter after leaving the school system. Futures planning determine I'm sorry. Futures planning includes self determine and self determination and self advocacy skills as well. Futures planning is not quite the same as transition planning, which is a requirement at age fourteen. Transition planning is a requirement of law for all students receiving special education services at the age of fourteen or above. Futures planning, as a requirement of the Texas rule as part of the autism supplement, is for students with autism receiving special education services at any age. Futures planning builds on the student's personal goals for the future and can inform the transition requirements that must be addressed by their fourteenth birthday. Let me go back to that one real quick. Futures planning, to reiterate, can begin as soon as the student enters the school system at any age, and I would encourage our committees to to have this as part of their IEPs for their students because no matter the age of the student, there's a a way to look forward and to look ahead and to plan for that. Strategy number six of the autism supplement is listed as parent family training and support. What it essentially means is does your family need training or support to help your student at home and in the community? This could include learning strategies for behavior in the home, finding helpful resources like workshops or support groups to address areas such as communication, social skills, behavior, creating structured sensory friendly environments in the home, and more using school based techniques at home for consistency. For example, if the school has demonstrated success with the use of a visual schedule, then that system can be used in the home as well. Some key considerations for the strategy of parent and family training as part of the autism supplement is training should focus on the generalization of IEP related skills for the student. Generalization is when a skill that is mastered in one setting is generalized to another. For example, when a student works on and masters the skill of brushing their teeth in the school setting, a next step could be to work on mastering that skill in the home setting. Training can include areas such as behavior management, interpersonal skills, communication, and or how to create structured environments across all settings, although they're not limited to just these topics. A school should provide information regarding local resources available to families and parents of students with autism, and parent training and support may be provided in a variety of formats, including but not limited to group training, individual training, and providing resources to families like I've talked about. Okay. Strategy number seven. It's listed as g seven in the rule. It's staff to student ratio. So what this essentially means is, does your student need an increased staff to student ratio to support their learning and behavior across different school settings and activities? Staff to student ratio means the ratio of adult staff members to students in a given setting. This could look like support in a whole group setting, support in a smaller group, or even one to one support depending on the student's need in a particular situation. And it could also mean different ratios for different situations such as learning a new skill, becoming more fluent in a skill, maintaining a skill over time, or generalizing a skill to a new setting, a new person, a new situation. So some key considerations for staff to student ratio for art committees is to review the student's current daily schedule and levels of learning for each skill or objectives. Consider settings, demands, and other influencing factors on that student. Address the staff to student ratios that are appropriate for each part of the student's day. Look at their day as a whole and see what kinda back to slide one, see where they might be learning a new skill. They might be generalizing. They might be maintaining different situations that are occurring throughout their school day where there might be a need for more or less staff support. And then maintain and prioritize the goal of increased independence for the student. Consider the setting, their communication abilities, their social skills, behavioral skills, and their adaptive behavior. But please remember to prioritize their increased independence over time as you make this consideration for what type of ratio per staffing that they need. Strategy eight of the autism supplement is g eight in the rule. This is communication interventions. So, essentially, it means does your student need communication support, like different ways to express themselves and understand others, that work across all settings such as home, school, and community? Key considerations for the strategy of communication interventions are considering a student's style of learning and the portability of the communication strategy that they are using. Portability means the ability to take the strategy that they're using for communication with them to other settings or other places. So, for example, having access to a device or a picture exchange binder across all settings that they go to, you know, home, school, community. Another consideration for sign language, you know, they they will have their hands with them to sign, but you might wanna consider communicative partners if those people they're communicating with at home and community understand the sign language that they're using. Parents and guardians, siblings, and peers are encouraged to use the student's method of communication in all settings to reinforce that method, and teachers and other staff should always consult a speech language language pathologist or an SLP and use the suggested interventions with the student throughout the school day. You wanna make sure that you're using those same communication interventions throughout all settings in the school and then reinforcing and using those same methods and interventions in home and in the community as well. Strategy number nine in the autism supplement listed as g nine in the rule is social skills, supports, and strategies. What this means essentially is does your student need additional support to learn and use social skills across different settings? Strategies for social skills supports and strategies include peer interaction, video modeling, social narratives, and role playing. So video modeling is a teaching method that uses short videos to show students how to do something, maybe like brushing their teeth, greeting a friend, staying calm when they're frustrated. It's especially helpful for kids with autism, students with autism, because it shows exactly what to do step by step in a way that's easy to understand, visually presented to them, and repeatable for them. You can press play again, show it to them again. Social narratives are short, simple stories that help students with autism understand everyday situations, behaviors, or social cues for different social situations. Social narratives help explain to what what to expect and how to respond in a way that's clear, calm, and reassuring reassuring to students. The social stories can be individualized to what a student needs, like visiting the dentist, riding the bus, going out to eat with family, any situation really in a social context that a student might need support in. And role playing included here as a strategy suggestion is literally just acting out, role playing a situation with the student in preparation for that situation so that they feel more comfortable responding in that context when it happens. Key considerations for the strategy of social skills supports and strategies include the decision about what strategies and supports to implement should be individualized for each student and their unique needs. You'll find that this one applies across all of the eleven strategies of the autism supplement. However, like I noted on the previous slide, there are really individualized context for social behavior for each student that need to be considered for that student. Social behavior occurs in all environments and may be unique to certain environments. What happens in one environment for the student and how they act and respond may not happen in another. Key recommendation is that the ARD committee, all members, talk and communicate about these those situations in those environments. Teachers, speech language pathologists, related service providers, and any other person that routinely interacts with the student in the school setting can help provide them with support on social skills. And once again, it's across all settings, and it's a daily ongoing situation where students run across these these social skills interactions where they might need support. So it tight really does take the whole team, including the family. The tenth strategy listed in the supplement, g ten in rule, is professional educator and staff support. What this means is does your student need school staff to receive additional training so that they can effectively use the strategies and techniques described in your student's IEP? Considerations for this strategy include any school personnel who work with a student with autism may need training to ensure the implementation of techniques and strategies described in the IEP. I'll say it one more time. Any school personnel who work with a student with autism may need training to ensure the implementation of techniques and strategies as described in their IEP. All required training completed by any school personnel involved with the student with autism should be documented. Schools should be documenting the type of training and who received it and when. Schools are responsible for training teachers and paraprofessionals to effectively implement programs for students with autism. The school is responsible for that training, And training may include a foundation of evidence based practices. So for context, evidence based practices, sometimes referred to as EVPs for short, are interventions that have been shown to be effective through scientific research. They are based on the best available evidence and are used to improve the outcomes for individuals with autism. Some examples of evidence based practices identified for students with autism include visual supports, video modeling, prompting, task analysis, and reinforcement. TEA has more information on evidence based practices for autism on Texas SPED support's website, which we'll share once again at the end of the presentation today. Alright. Our last strategy of the autism supplement is teaching strategies. So g eleven in the rule, and essentially it means does your student need specific teaching strategies that are based on peer reviewed research proven to work for students with autism? This might include, among other strategies, visual supports, structured learning, social skills training, discrete trial training, or augmentative communication. Visual supports are tools that use pictures, symbols, or written words to help students understand and manage daily life. They're especially helpful for students with autism because they make communication clearer and routines more predictable for them. Structured learning is a way of teaching that's organized and predictable and tailored to help students, especially those with autism, feel safe and successful. It breaks tasks down into clear steps, uses routines, visuals, and hands on activities to make learning easier to understand for students. Discrete trial training is a structured way of teaching that involves breaking a skill into smaller steps and practicing each step repeatedly and associating those steps with positive reinforcement. Augmentative communication means adding something to someone's existing communication. For example, a student who uses some speech may also use sign language or a symbol board to support understanding. Sometimes you'll hear the term augmentative and alternative communication or AAC for short. Alternative means replacing speech altogether. So AAC can be pointing to a picture, using a tablet to speak, signing a favorite word. An AAC is about giving every child a reliable voice across all of their settings. Okay. Considerations for teaching strategies for the art committee. So the strategies that we just covered and listed in the rule are among the many available instructional options to an Aard committee and that they might consider when developing an IEP. So the strategies that I went over for visual support, structured learning, social skills, etcetera, those are literally listed in the rule for teaching strategies, but they are not the exhaustive list of teaching strategies that the art committee may consider, and they are not required to be adopted by the art committee. It is the responsibility of an art committee to make decisions regarding the appropriateness of the strategies that they need based on the unique needs of that individualized student. There is no one size fits all approach to providing services to students with autism. The ARD committee needs to communicate and review data and sources of information for that student to make these determinations in the best interest of that student. Okay. So those are the eleven strategies of the autism supplement. However, they're they're not all required to be to be adopted in an IEP or needed for a student with autism. They are just considerations. So when a strategy is not needed for a student, what do we do? We have requirements around what we have to do as an art committee if any of the eleven strategies are determined to not be needed. So if any or all of the strategies are determined not needed for the student, the IEP must include a statement that identifies the strategy that is not needed or strategies that are not needed, explains why that strategy or strategies are not needed, and describes what information was used to make that decision. So I'll say this one more time because this this pops up frequently for me. If an art committee determines that any of these eleven strategies are not needed for a student, the IEP has to state what strategy is not needed, why it is not needed, and what sources of information were used to make that determination. Okay. So now we've covered all eleven strategies. We've talked about what do we do if a strategy is not needed. So I wanna leave you with some key takeaways to remember. The autism supplement is a part of the IEP for the student. It is not a separate document. It is part of the IEP. ARD committees must consider all eleven strategies of the autism supplement at least annually, but could be more often based on the needs of the student. But at least annually, you should be considering all eleven of these and documenting that in the IEP for your student. We have to document how the strategies will be implemented if they are determined to be needed for the student. We have to base decisions on current data and the unique needs of the student, and we need to document the basis for the determination if a strategy is determined to be not needed. Okay. So I would like to leave you all with some resources that, although they're intended for educators and only available in English at this time, I feel like they're appropriate to share today, given the information presented. So first, as noted earlier, there is an autism supplement guidance document. This resource intended for educators and more technical in nature does include detailed information about each of the eleven strategies of the autism supplement, including sample IEP statements for each of those strategies. TEA's Texas Fed support website also includes a page on evidence based practices for students with autism. This resource includes descriptions and steps for implementation for those strategies identified as evidence based practices for students with autism. It also includes information on a few strategies that are considered as emerging, which means that they have some evidence of to support their use with students with autism, but not enough to be considered as evidence based practices just yet. Next, there is the autism toolkit, which includes downloadable and printable tools such as visual supports for students with autism. There are also two video collections on Texas Med Support, the strategies and action video collection and the show me video collection. These strategies oops. Excuse me. These show strategies being demonstrated with additional voice over and text to describe in detail what's being shown to you on the screen. For example, there are videos on the use of reinforcement, on the use of task analysis, visual supports, and more for students with autism. And that is all I have today for you all. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'll go ahead and stop my share. Thank you so much, Nathan. We really appreciate your time today to share all of this great information with us. I'm going to go back to sharing, and at this time, I'm going to turn it back over to Stephanie McLaughlin to share some additional information about Partners Resource Network. Thank you, Sarah. Our regional coordinators are available to help you understand and navigate the special education process. If you're not already connected with your regional coordinator, just give us a call and we can get you connected. For more information, be sure and check out our website at p r m texas dot org, and you can like and follow us on social media on Facebook and x at p r m texas. Thank you. Thanks, Stephanie. Have questions about special education? Contact us at SpedTechs, your source for special education information. We are happy to help. Our contact information is on the screen.