SCERTS at Hinderton

What is SCERTS?

SCERTS® is an innovative educational model for working with children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) and their families. It provides specific guidelines for helping a child become a competent and confident social communicator, while preventing problem behaviours that interfere with learning and the development of relationships. It also is designed to help families, school staff and therapists work cooperatively as a team, in a carefully coordinated manner, to maximize progress in supporting a child.

The acronym “SCERTS” refers to the focus on:

“SC” - Social Communication – the development of spontaneous, functional communication, emotional expression, and secure and trusting relationships with children and adults;

“ER” - Emotional Regulation - the development of the ability to maintain a well-regulated emotional state to cope with everyday stress, and to be most available for learning and interacting;

“TS” – Transactional Support – the development and implementation of supports to help partners respond to the child’s needs and interests, modify and adapt the environment, and provide tools to enhance learning (e.g., picture communication, written schedules, and sensory supports). Specific plans are also developed to provide educational and emotional support to families, and to foster teamwork among professionals.

Why do we use SCERTS at Hinderton School?

Our aim at Hinderton is train staff in the very best Autism-specific approaches. SCERTS is among the systems we train staff to use. We use SCERTS because it is soundly evidence-based. This means it is built upon years of research across the world.

At Hinderton our approach is to avoid’ reinventing the wheel’ in terms of good autism practice. This means that constantly look around the world for what has been proved to work well with children with autism, and then adapt that practice for Hinderton School. SCERTS fits well with this principle and we have incorporated it into our practice.