Clinician’s Guide to Sexuality and Autism

While there is an abundance of research that outlines the importance of sexuality education for people with autism, there lacks a reference guide for clinicians on what or how best to teach sexuality education. Teaching about Sexuality: A Guide to Sex Education for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders is the first book to provide clinicians with comprehensive curriculum of sexuality education skills for people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Starting with the importance of teaching sexuality skills to people with autism, this book provides an outline and overview of the recommended teaching strategies (e.g. Behavioral Skills Training, Cool vs. Not Cool, video modelling). This book reviews the fourteen skill domains directly related to sexuality including the key skills one should acquire in each domain. A timeline focusing on what skills should be targeted at what age and what skills to teach across the lifespan are also discussed. The curriculum covers domains that are often neglected in sex education for people with different disabilities in general (e.g. values, types of relationships, gender identity, or preferences). Additionally, this curriculum addresses component skills of sexuality in a way that allows early teaching to build upon areas of learning systematically over time, thus likely to have an improvement in teaching over time. Identifies importance of sex ed for autistic treatment Provides curriculum for teaching sex education to this clientele Includes skills relating to hygiene, online safety, and abuse prevention Covers different teaching methods