CEDAR RAPIDS - April is Autism Awareness Month, but for children who have the pervasive developmental disability and their families, awareness is necessary year-round. That's where the Grant Wood Area Education Agency comes in. This week, the agency held an autism learning lesson for parents and teachers. This conference was just a sample of the work Grant Wood's Autism Team does in school districts throughout most of Eastern Iowa, but it really shows how the agency's teaching strategy helps children with autism.

Call it a classroom for both adults and children. This week's lesson plan at the Grant Wood Area Education Agency in Cedar Rapids centers around autism. The three-day learning conference is called Structured Teaching in the TEACCH Model.

"The TEACCH program is all about providing visual support and adding visual structure to their lives to make them as independent as possible," says Lindsay Stangeland of the GWAEA Autism Team.

Visual is the key component. As the teachers and parents observing the children with autism notice, they often excel more when you visually walk them through day-to-day tasks, like setting the table, watering a plant, even buying a soda. It also helps having a picture schedule so they know what to do next.

"There's a lot of great research to support these kids do better with visual support than they do with auditory information," says Kelly Trier of the GWAEA Autism Team.

That's exactly what the Grant Wood Autism Team teaches people helping children with autism. Such a strategy will help students succeed when they leave the agency's wing in their early twenties.

"So as they graduate from high school they have individual living skills, are employable, are able to get along with their next-door neighbor, and are able to be a productive member of society," says Michelle Sunner of the GWAEA Autism Team.

Right now Grant Wood is helping more than 700 future productive members of society, each one learning at their own pace in their own style.

"We have a saying if you know one kid with autism, you know one kid with autism," says Stangeland.

And every kid with autism deserves the opportunity to be independent.

Grant Wood's Autism Team does about ten of these conferences a year, but they are constantly holding trainings at schools, daycares, after-school programs. They even work with children in the classroom who don't have autism, helping them understand more about the developmental disability.