Lockers, bells, roll calls and transitions are part of the daily routine for young people at school. For a student who has autism, the challenges of regular school life can be demanding, and being organised sometimes seems like a hill too big to climb. But with the support of a great life skills or transition teaching team, a little forward planning and a splash of collaboration from generalist teachers, that hill can become a slope and the journey to learning success can become far more achievable.
So how can we support students on the autism spectrum in life skills, transition or general education classes to be organised with their learning tasks?
Manage the unpredictable things
Schools sometimes struggle to keep the same teachers in front of the same class every day. This is frustrating and clearly impacts learning, but for most students this is a situation they can generally deal with. For students on the autism spectrum, these constant routine changes are really difficult. They create stress and get in the way of strategies that normally help them manage well during the day.
If your setting has lots of timetable and staffing challenges, add as much predictability as you can for students with autism. A morning meeting approach, have a safe space to come to if there isn’t a teacher, write a checklist for the steps to take if the teacher is new or classes are combined, and send a morning email that clearly sets out who is teaching, what to bring, where to go and what to do during the lesson.
Environmental management
Busy, noisy rooms with people from different classes with people who don’t understand your needs, can be a disaster for a student with autism. Unfortunately, combined classes are a fact of life when managing staff shortages. If you find yourself supervising classrooms like these, it’s a fair assumption that at some point you will be supporting a student with autism, even if you don’t know it. Make everyone’s life easier with a clear set of session requirements, a time-based plan with a start and end point and management of the noise and movement in the room. Create a welcoming, safe space and check in with students to make sure they feel safe and supported.
To do lists
‘Put it on my list,’ says every teacher, every day!
Cliché, yes, but lists do work. They don’t need to be fancy, with highlighting and special fonts and emojis or online access. A list just needs a couple of key bits of information, done in a way that works for the student.
Time, date, place, task, person – that’s it.
A box to tick when the task is done and big enough for easy reading, and you have a ready to go list. Take a screenshot of the list too, so there is handy back up copy if needed.
Support person
A ‘go to’ support person can make the difference to how well a student with autism manages their day in a life skills, transition education or generalist setting. This person can have back up copies of important materials, lists, schedules and excursion requirements. They are not there to replace student autonomy and organisational skills, but rather as a scaffold. Their role is to encourage, support and guide so that over time, the student becomes more independent and confident with managing their own learning.
Comments