Expert: Celtica - 11/12/2010

Question
Hello,

I have a 32 month old son with autism.  He was diagnosed by University of Michigan autism center and by a Neurologist.  I'm trying to have my son certified through the school so that his IEP will have a label of SPL and ADS.  Of course the school is fighting me on this.  I was told by the consultant to create a list of reasons why autism would be effecting his education.  I know specific things like his sensory issues will effect his ability to pay attention and complete tasks.  I really want to make sure I word thing appropriately on this letter.  Do you have any suggestions for me or maybe a website that might be helpful?  

Thanks,
Danielle


Answer
Hi Danielle,

I have answered a very similar question in past (in fact, it was the first question I was asked here on AllExperts), so I'll just copy my answer in here. I hope that's okay. (It was an answer to the question of a teacher, so it's rather teaching tips, but also explains the learning difficulties an autistic child can have (this doesn't necessarily apply to everyone), of course I'm mostly talking about my personal experiences !) in general)

HTH
C.

<snip>
First of all I have to say I was in mainstream school (I am having an IQ in the gifted range and wasn't diagnosed until I was a young adult - when I was a child the milder forms of autism were still widely unknown), so my situation was a bit different from your students'.

I did well enough academically (although my academic profile was quite uneven) but was severely bullied by my classmates.
So my memories of school certainly aren't fond ones.
What helped me through school were my parents who helped me with homework and all and some very understanding teachers.
However, other teachers were not helpful at all (I had a teacher who told me in my face "no, don't try to read the next paragraph, you can't do it anyway" when it was my turn to read in my French class for example).

What I think could be helpful for your students:

You say you create a structured environnemnet for your students. That's a very good thing to begin with.

I need lots of structure to function but often am not able to provide it for myself.
I have - but that may be something that's only applying to me as I also have ADD - great difficulties with structuring anything (even emails like this one, or my thoughts, let alone subjects I have to study).
Having to structure topics on my own is quite overwhelming, stressfull and more often than not almost impossible. Even if I succeed at structuring a topic it usually is extremely exhausting for me to do so. To give you an idea, it took me more than two hours to write this email, with lots of rewriting, until it was no longer a piece on incoherent rambling.

If you want to help your students provide them with pre-structured material as often as possible.
Don't expect them to be able to pick the main topics from a passage of text without problems. However, practice this with them very thoroughly (but not during, say, biology class, more like a seperate subject). I never had teachers who did this and I wish I had. I know someone whose teachers practiced this with him and he doesn't have these problems.
Autistics are often so overwhelmed with details that seeing "the whole thing" is pretty impossible - I cannot decide what's important and what's not until I have considered every single aspect of a problem or read *everything* I can find about a topic - but this is usually quite impossible.
Practice with them how to make decisions.  

However, it is - at the same time, and this may seem a contradiction - often quite impossible for me to understand a subject if I don't know about all possible aspects.
Which means I don't deal well with the "linear" approach to a subject. This may mean I don't understand higher maths because noone tells me *why* I have to calculate something in a certain way ("you don't have to know why, this is too difficult/this is just not interesting for this particular problem").  

Also, teach them how to study, how to put together material for studying for an exam.

Teach them how to write short essays about just any subject (even as short as one single sentence, like their oppinion on something) - this is to teach them how to structure their thought process and put their thoughts to words if they are nonverbal thinkers as I am. They will need these skills later in life. I never learned it back then and still have much difficulty with this now.   

Try different approaches for different students. I don't learn well over the auditory channel. I'm a visual and kinesthetic learner. I either need to *SEE* (read) what I'm supposed to learn or, even better *DO* it. I have a hard time following spoken instructions. Some of your students may be the opposite though.

Allow your students to ask as many questions as they want and explain things as often as is needed. Sometimes it can be that something that is very clear to you is not at all understandable for your students, may it be because of  slightly unclear wording or other reasons. Try to think as simply as possible and to express yourself as exact as possible.   

Do not try group work. It makes me very uncomfortable (not even because of the group situation but because of my structuring problem - if I am not allowed to deal with a topic all by myself it's even more difficult for me to get a grip on the part I am supposed to work on.)

Make sure the classroom is in a quiet part of the building and doesn't have flourescent lights. Ask your students if they like their classroom or if something in there is bothering them.

</snip>