Subway Sleuths Program Guide - Autism Speaks

SUBWAY SLEUTHS GUIDE

This guide serves to illustrate the power that special interest
areas (SIA) of children with autism can bring to educational
programs and how these interests can both motivate and
support students’ social engagement. This guide presents how
the New York Transit Museum has harnessed this power and
encourages other museums and after-school programs to
consider how they, too, could incorporate the principles of the
Subway Sleuths program.
New York Transit Museum
Subway Sleuths Guide, 2012
Developed by Susan Brennan, CCC-SLP and Lauren Hough, MSEd

Table of Contents “This was my son’s first
๏ GOAL OF THE GUIDE
๏ INTRODUCTION TO SLEUTHS
๏ HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY
๏ PROGRAM BASICS
๏ SESSIONS
after-school program, and I
am happy it was such a
positive experience for him!
He loves trains and the
Sleuths helped him feel more
comfortable with his peers.
He can now join other
programs with confidence. “
- Mom of Subway Sleuth
๏
๏
๏
๏
๏
Lesson plans
Structure, supports, & strategies
Note-taking sheets
Parent communication
Positive impact
๏
GALLERY

The goal of the Subway Sleuths is to honor
strengths of students on the autism spectrum
and tap into a shared interest to add feelings
of comfort, competence and excitement to
social interactions. This guide aims to inspire
the development of similar strength-based
programs for other students with autism.
At the New York Transit Museum, our Sleuths get to engage in an
environment in which they are passionate and where they are the experts.
People are drawn to others who share their passions. Individuals with autism
are no different. This shared interest can be a foundation for investigating
social interactions.
While children with autism often have challenges in pragmatic language,
social communication, reading others’ emotions, and processing sensory
input, studies have found that these deficits diminish when participants are
engaged in their special interest areas 1 .
Because trains are a popular SIA of individuals with autism, the New
York Transit Museum is perfect for this type of work. The museum itself serves
as both the motivator and the organizational structure for highlighting,
modeling, investigating and experiencing social interactions. For The Subway
Sleuths, it’s all about trains and transportation! And, once we embrace the
idea that children can be experts in the things that interest them and that the
feeling of competence this yields is the place to start social learning, the
possibilities are endless.
We invite you take a short tour on our Subway Sleuths train.
We will give you an overview of our environment and one special interest
area that we hope will inspire and lead to the use and celebration of
many many more.
1 Winter-Messiers, M. A. (2007). From Tarantulas to Toilet Brushes: Understanding the Special Interest Areas of Children and
Youth With Asperger Syndrome. Remedial and Special Education, 28 (3), 140-152

The New York Transit Museum’s Subway Sleuths is an after-school program
designed for train enthusiasts on the autism spectrum. Groups are facilitated by an
experienced special educator and speech-language pathologist trained in supporting with
students with autism spectrum disorders, who work in collaboration with museum
educators from the Transit Museum. A core goal of this program is to capitalize on
students’ authentic interests in the transit system to help them navigate shared social
experiences with their peers. Anchored in Self-Determination Theory and promising
practices in the field of ASD, the program facilitators utilize social-pragmatic language and
social cognitive strategies to target four specific goal areas. During the 10-week program,
the facilitators use strategies within an interest-based framework to encourage students’
enthusiasm for the transit system and also to address areas of difficulty common for
students on the autism spectrum.

History & Philosophy
The New York Transit Museum, one of the city's leading cultural
institutions, is the largest museum in the United States devoted to urban public
transportation history, and one of the premier institutions of its kind in the world.
The Museum explores the development of the greater New York Metropolitan
region through the presentations of exhibitions, tours, educational programs, and
workshops dealing with the cultural, social, and technological history of public
transportation. Since it's inception over a quarter century ago, the Museum,
housed in a historic 1936 IND subway station in Brooklyn Heights, has grown in
scope and popularity. As custodian and interpreter of the region's extensive public
transportation networks, the Museum strives to share, through its public programs,
this rich and vibrant history with local, regional, and international audiences.
For more information, please visit the New York Transit Museum at
www.mta.info/mta/museum/
The New York Subway Sleuths program is an after-school program with a
therapeutic lens that is designed for train enthusiasts on the autism spectrum.
Sleuths capitalizes on its students genuine and authentic interests and uses them
as a base for encouraging social development. Sessions focus on encouraging
natural engagement through participants’ motivation to share their interest in trains
with others. The Transit Museum and its content is used as a platform for
investigating the social. Support is provided so that students on the spectrum are
able to share their love an knowledge of the transit system with peers, and giving
them access to participating in an after-school experience tailored to their interests
and needs.

Program Basics
1
2
3
4
5
6
STAFFING: The Subway Sleuth groups are facilitated by a speechlanguage
pathologist and a special educator with training and
experience working in the field of ASD. Sessions are also supported by
Transit Museum staff who share their expertise in the museum content.
OUTREACH & SCREENING: Information about the groups are
distributed to schools, posted on blogs, and advertised on the museum
website. Interested students are screened by autism consultants and
group facilitators to determine program and group compatibility.
SESSIONS: The Sleuths program consists of 10, 1 hr. 15 min. goaldirected
sessions that utilize the Transit Museum as a classroom.
Groups are made up of 5 to 7 train enthusiasts on the autism spectrum
who work together, ultimately producing a culminating project.
CONSULTATION: Sleuths groups are supported by experienced
consultants who specialize in autism spectrum disorders. Consultants
conduct mid- and post-session observations to support facilitators and
help to guide note-taking and goal-tracking procedures.
PARENT COMMUNICATION: Newsletters highlighting pictures,
projects, and sleuth vocabulary are sent out at the mid-point of the
sessions as well as at the close of the 10 weeks. These newsletter
share groups’ main goals and key concepts with Sleuth families and
also invite parents to the Sleuths‘ end of session project presentation.
FUTURE PLANNING: As the Subway Sleuth program continues to
grow, the Transit Museum is exploring ways to expand the number of
groups offered, to standardize the program, to explore options to track
its success, and to provide training for new facilitators.

Sleuth Strategies
1. Structure sessions with visuals such as a schedule
Example: Sleuth schedule
Why: To capitalize on visual strengths, to
organize the session time for students, to
provide a visual to support shared
memory recall, and to promote shared
thinking
2. Structure dyad work relating to the larger group activity
Example: Break up into dyads to do
part of a project for the whole group
Why: To support gestalt processing
and flexibility, to consider various
social regulation strengths/challenges
3. Build and utilize shared memories
Example: Taking and reviewing pictures
and labeling shared moments
Why: To build self-awareness and
connectedness (use of shared memory to
relate/connect to others), to support
emotional memory recall (episodic
memory)

Sleuth Strategies
4. Model shared language rooted in social concepts 2
Example: "Solo-car” / “Six-car train” for “out of the
group” / “part of the group” and "runaway train thought"
for topic changes
Why: To build social concepts through motivating area of
interest, to build connections and social self-awareness,
to use language specific to the group and to capitalize
on shared dynamic thinking for concept building
Whoa!
That was a
‘six-car train
thought’! Nice
group
thinking.
5. Use of roles to collaborate & understand place in a group
Example: “We’ll be the Z-line logo
designers to help the map cartographers
and train engineers with the group project.”
Why: To support understanding one’s place
in a group, maintain interactions, consider
self as part of a whole (facilitated by
assigning roles, start in dyads), support
appraisal of group work
6. Reflect as a group and provide feedback to every student
Example: “When you added your ‘Z-train’ idea to the other group’s ‘Whiteline’
idea you connected your thoughts and kept our six-car train running!
Nice sharing your thinking. Great teamwork.”
Why: To provide labels and summaries of social concepts in action,
highlighting their active use to lock-in understanding and encourage
generalization
2
Such as concepts from Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking paradigm

Sessions
Each session is designed by the facilitators to meet the
needs of the students in that group.
Lesson plans includes the following components:
1. Overall goals
2. Learning and social
objectives
3. Materials (e.g., cameras,
projectors, materials to
create visuals)
4. Procedures for session activities
5. Notes for future sessions

Subway Sleuths SAMPLE Lesson Plan
Tuesdays Fall 2012
Session 3
Overall Goals: Overall group goals targeted across multiple sessions
• To build the concepts of:
o
o
o
being part of a group and working as a group
using flexible thinking to help the group
learning new information and sharing what you know about the transit
system
Learning & Social Objectives: Focused goals for this session
o
o
o
o
o
To follow a session structure (using visual train schedule)
To share space and experiences with adults and peers
To explore the idea of “the group” in different configurations
To accept and assign roles in a larger group and dyad
To collaborate and apply train knowledge to solve riddles
Materials: Materials to support the session’s activities in the museum
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Train schedule visual
Name-tag buttons
(5) full-size images and (3) reprints of those images from last session
Digital camera
Subway maps and books
(3) sets of (4) riddles
Museum materials: Keys and locks

Procedures: Activities and strategies used to target goals and build concepts
1) “All Aboard” / Warm-up (4:15 – 4:45)
• “Waiting time” spent in the location: On the Streets [-4:25]
o During waiting time, take restroom breaks
• “Exploration time” with subway maps / books [-4:35]
o Spread out maps and books- encourage independent exploration
-­‐ Use declarative language to encourage communication
• “Super Subway Sleuth Train” [-4:50]
o Spread out materials across more tables
o Show group images – draw out memories of names
-­‐ “What were we doing?,” humorous moments, “label the moment”
o Model assigning/accepting roles with the limited tools (i.e. one pair scissors,
one glue stick, etc.)
2) Next Stop (4:45– 5:15)
• “Mystery of the Missing Keys”
o Introduce activity: Introduce pretend scenario-“We have a problem! We had
a special train treat for you guys, but Virgil locked it in his locker. He went to
go look for his keys and now they are missing! Someone left a note that
says, ‘Ha-ha I played a trick on you! Good luck finding those keys!’ We
have a train mystery to solve, Sleuths!”
o Each dyad gets 1 set of 4 train museum riddles to solve together
o Teams work together to solve each riddle, which will take them to a different
place in the museum. The final location contains a note saying “These
letters are a clue! Bring them back to the station to work with group to solve
the mystery!”
o Each group brings back a set of letters spelling ___________? The whole
group puts the letters together to find the “key word”.
o “Key word” tells the group the location of the keys. The group gets the keys
and brings them to the locker to get the special Sleuths treat.
o Celebrate!
3) Last Stop (5:15 – 5:30)
• “Wrap-Up/Reflection”
o Discuss experiences from the session and highlight teamwork behaviors
o Provide constructive reflection
o Discuss what helped keep the group together during the session
o Celebrate and build anticipation for next session

Notetaking
Group facilitators take notes following each session to document how the session
went and to record individual student present functioning. Overall impressions are
recorded, and facilitators discuss students‘ social engagement, problem solving,
pragmatic language, social cognition, flexibility, and self-regulation.
Abridged Notetaking Sheet
Student name(s): ______________________________________________________________
Date: ____________!
Notes below for: ❒ Student/session observation ❒ Session/activity planning ❒ Other: __________________________
Social Engagement
For example...
❒ Makes connections with others around train experiences
❒ Checks to see if partner agrees with an idea
❒ Accept roles to further a group goal
Problem solving
For example...
❒ Recognize a problem, determine cause
❒ Recognize known versus unknown information
❒ Makes predictions and provides solutions
Pragmatic Language
For example...
❒ Read nonverbal cues of others
❒ Assert in interaction without dominating
❒ Ask/answer questions
Social Cognition
For example...
❒ Think about and recognize another’s interest
❒ Recognize shared interest- basis for social interaction
❒ Consider partner’s perspective/compromise
Flexibility
For example...
❒ Demonstrate flexibility during change in schedule
❒ Recognizing and following someone else’s plan
❒ Compromise for the sake of the group
Self-Regulation
For example...
❒ Coordinate actions with a partner
❒ Cope with challenging situations by asking for help
❒ Transition between different activities

Positive Impact
The Transit Museum is committed to tracking the positive impact of the
Subway Sleuths program on its participants. Capitalizing on the students’
interest in trains and their motivation to explore this content, we create a place
for shared learning and imagination where students with autism can explore the
Social World.
It is our vision that the Subway Sleuths
program will give participants a unique
opportunity to access the social experience of
working with peers around an area of
competence, and that we will able to see the
positive impact of this experience.
Even across a limited number of sessions, we hope to give our Sleuths the
opportunities and supports to learn new information on a subject of interest
while exploring new ways of engaging with peers. We hope to tap into our
students’ motivation to reach out to their peers as they interact around a mutual
interest within the walls of the Transit Museum. In this environment, we hope to
see an increase in students’ social engagement that can be documented across
the 10-week sessions using a Progress Tracking Sheet.
Ultimately, we hope to see the Subway Sleuth’s social concepts extending
to experiences outside of the museum. Parent pre and post-session
questionnaires are used to collect feedback, helping us note students’ use of
concepts in other environments and also helping us determine parent
perspectives on the success of an after-school program tailored specifically for
their children with autism. These tools are used to not only document the
positive impact of Sleuths’ train enthusiasts, but also to help to continually guide
improvements to the program from group to group.

Positive Impact: Sample Tools
Sample from Progress Tracking Sheet:
How often does the child...
Might look/sound
like...
BASELINE
After Session 2
FINAL
After Session 9
Use verbal and nonverbal
language to make connections
with another in the moment?
- Pointing to establish Dyad:
Dyad:
joint attention in an
interaction. Group: Group:
Use verbal and/or nonverbal
language to demonstrate
memory of shared experiences?
- Referencing memories
with, “I remember when
we...”
Dyad:
Group:
Dyad:
Group:
Use roles to collaborate?
Demonstrate an interest in being
part of the group?
- “I’ll be conductor, you
can be the mapper.”
Dyad:
Group:
Dyad:
Group:
- Staying physically with Dyad:
Dyad:
the group to work on a
shared project. Group: Group:
Sample Questions from Parent Survey:
Does your child make comments on their own to you/to others when engaged in an
activity he/she enjoys (e.g. “I love coloring!” or “My train is going faster than your
train”, “This is awesome!”, give a high five)?
Does your child ever talk about an experience he/she remembers having with you (e.g.,
“Remember when we went to Coney Island that time last summer? That was fun!”)?
Does your child ever change what he/she is doing or invite another into their game
when playing with another person so that the play can continue (e.g., “Oh, you’re
putting the tracks together? Ok, then I’ll start working on the bridges.” or “I’m
building the space ship. You can put the people together!”)?
When your child is in an interaction with another person, does he/she ever tell them
his/her ‘plan’ before leaving for a short period of time (e.g., “I’m just going to go get
us some glue!” or “I’ll be back- I just have to go wash my hands.”)?

In the Subway Sleuths, train
enthusiasts share thinking, stay
connected, explore together, and
talk about trains to their
hearts’desires!

Our Ultimate
Social World
Classroom!
Contact us for more information!
Marcia Ely, Assistant Director
New York Transit Museum
marcia.ely@nyct.com
Susan Brennan CCC-SLP & Lauren Hough MSEd
The Social Underground
info@thesocialunderground.org

We hope that this guide has served both to introduce the mission of the
New York Transit Museum’s Subway Sleuths program and also to inspire
others to consider the possibilities for their own museums and after-school
programs. Strength-based programming has tapped into the natural
curiosity and enthusiasm of our train enthusiasts, and has given them a
place to explore the social world while also sharing with us their strengths,
talents, and passions.
The authors of this publication hereby acknowledge Autism Speaks Family
Community Grants as the funding agency for the project leading to this
publication. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily
express or reflect the views of Autism Speaks or any other funding agency.