Autism is a social disorder that affects your child’s interaction with their environment; the severity of these effects are the root cause of the problems your child experiences when they are trying to learn something new. The severity of Autism can be broken down into three general areas of impact: Sensory Experience, Survival Skills, and Social Interaction.

Reach High developed the 3S model as a helpful way to express how Autism can impact an individual’s life. The relationship between Sensory, Survival, and Social is different for each child but there are some similarities across all children with Autism. 

In general, sensory is the most difficult area to observe because it is highly internal, while both survival and social are moderately difficult to observe because they are partially and fairly internal, respectively. In many cases the implications on treatment work in a sequence of sensory -> survival -> social.