Structured teaching is a method that aids people with autism understand their in environment and how to function in their environment. Structured teaching uses what many autistic people excel at to help them decode and manage their everyday lives. It is not a therapy or a treatment. It is a strategy designed to help people with autism learn.
The "structure" in structured teaching consists of modifications in the environment, concrete and visual ways of presenting information and routines. Structured teaching is designed around each individual's strengths, skills, interests, and needs.
The goal of structured teaching is to promote independence and meaning through structure over the lifetime of a person with autism. The structure, however is not removed after a person has learned it. As an a person grows and changes, the structure should be adjusted but it will always be necessary. Structured learning should be used for all age groups. It can be used in toilet training, academic subjects, and physical fitness. Structured teaching is simply a more concrete, conscious version of the organization people without autism use in daily life.
The structures teaching strategy was a developed through the TEACCH (Treatment and Education of Autistic and related Communication) program for people with autism at Chapel Hill in North Carolina. TEACCH was started in 1972 as a state program for people with autism by Dr. Eric Schopler and Dr. Robert Riechler. Since then structured teaching has been developed through TEACCH. As a tool, structured teaching is reflected throughout the educational and vocational services offered in the TEACCH program, however, they are not the same thing.
The components of structured teaching directly correspond to the major characteristics of autism.
Autistic people who have cognitive differences focus on details and are unable to see the whole picture or how things fit together. These people have difficulty integrating information, extracting meaning, and distinguishing among relevant details.