Tips for Learning and Teaching

Impairments in Social Interaction

• Students with ASDs are literal thinkers.
• Students are confused by the rules that govern social behaviour.
• Students require direct teaching in social skills.
• It is necessary to structure opportunities for students to use social skills in different situations.
• Be aware of the difficulties for students inherent in less structured situations such as break, lunchtime, in the corridor and in transitions between lessons.
• Use stories to teach social communication/interaction.
• Develop a ‘Buddy system’ with mainstream peers.
• Directly teach jokes, puns and metaphors.

Impairments in Language and Communication

• Students require support in understanding the purpose and value of communication.
• Attention needs to be directed to teaching social aspects of language such as turn taking and timing (some turn taking activities may include board games, hitting a balloon back and forth, telephone conversations, bouncing a ball back and forth, etc).
• Directly teach gestures, facial expressions, emotions, vocal intonation and body language.
• Use visual material and/or signing to support and facilitate students’ communicative initiations and responses.
• Provide precise instructions for students to follow.
• Always refer to the student by name as he/she may not realise that ‘everyone’ includes them.
• Do not expect eye contact and never turn the student’s face towards you.
• Keep verbal instructions brief and simple.

Impairments in Imagination with a Restricted Range of Behaviours, Activities and Interests

• Students must be helped to cope with new and/or varying activities.
• Pre-empt the student’s anxiety that results from being presented with unstructured or unfamiliar situations without prior warning/explanation.
• Devise and implement a structured play/leisure programme.

Additional Tips for Learning and Teaching

• Adjustments may need to be made to the classroom to address the student’s undersensitivity/oversensitivity to noise, smell, taste, light, touch or movement.
• Consider implementing structured and systematic programmes to develop the student’s fineand/or gross-motor skills.
• Elicit relevant information regarding the student’s eating, drinking and sleeping irregularities.
• Structure the classroom environment to reduce distractions.
• Secure student’s attention prior to issuing instructions/engaging in conversation.
• Provide structures that assist students in understanding the duration of tasks.
• Make the links between different tasks clear to students.
• Use computers to support the student’s learning and teaching opportunities.
• Disapprove of inappropriate behaviour and not of the student.