An amazing book blending a variety of colours and animals from the eyes of a bear; very engaging. 8/10
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Another picture book where the student can recognise the different foods on each page; the holes in the pages make it slightly more realistic and therefore, engaging for the student. 7/10
Where the Wild Things Are
A slightly harder book for the students at my grade but the visually pleasing illustrations and interesting story, draw in the students and we always get to the end before they becoming uninterested. 9/10
A groundbreaking book on autism, by one of the world's leading experts, who portrays autism as a unique way of being human. This is a must-read by anyone that would like to work with autistic students.
Now I know what you are thinking, what are specialists? This is what we call our classes that are not apart of the formal curriculum, these include music, physical education, Japanese and art. While I have mentioned art in numerous posts, I haven’t touched on working with a student with autism in the aforementioned classes.
While I haven’t had the opportunity to work with any of my students in music, I will feature both Japanese and PE in this blog post. Let’s start with Japanese:
こんにちは (Kon'nichiwa)
This is a difficult one with my little James*, as it can be quite hard to even teach foreign languages to children without intellectual disabilities. There are a variety of benefits to include LOTE in your school curriculum such as “learning both their native and foreign tongues at the same time, students can draw clear links between cross-lingual phonetic and semantic patterns to develop a deep understanding of language conventions...and it also learns the historical and social contexts of the language, which enriches their cultural intelligence.” (The Good School’s Guide, 2020). While I believe this should be a significant part of each child’s education this is not always the case for autistic children.
From my experience, James is able to memorise certain phrases that are used frequently within the class. These include:
‘Good Morning’ - OHAYOUGOZAIMASU
‘Thank you’ - ARIGATOU
‘Excuse me’ - SUMIMASEN
But I believe that due to his lack of interaction in each class he is unable to recognise what they mean in English, instead, he is following along with the other students. While this might seem like a negative, it goes to show his cognitive function is quite high and he will do great in a job that requires memorising tasks and performing them.
GOOOOAAAALLLLL!
There has been significant research into the effects of physical exercise on people with autism and many have concluded: “that in terms of motor performance and social skills children and adults with ASD benefit most from individual exercise interventions.” (Sowa, 2012, pg. 56). In my experience, this is one of the best ways to release some of the built-up emotions and frustration caused by classroom learning. James* while small and nimble, loves to run and play on the playground at lunchtime and it is no different when it comes to PE.
There was a older occurrence where James was only wanting to go home after Japanese, I had very little understanding as to what brought this meltdown on but I knew that if I were to get him into PE he would forget the whole thing. After a couple of laps of walking around the oval, which included falling on the ground crying, stamping his feet and hitting his head, I was able to get him into enough of a state of calm to bring him to the gym.
And it was like a light switch had turned on. He was mesmerised by the hula hoops and small bean bag, we were required to do some throwing on the bags in the air and catching without moving out of the hoops on the floor. This simple tasked completely distracted him from the meltdown and he was more than happy to have me join in and throw the bags for him to catch.
After this occurred I included simple physical education activities as part of my strategies to avoiding meltdowns, and since then I can say that he becomes distracted easily and this also helps fine-tune his ever-growing motor skills.
Everything mentioned above points us to believe that some autistic children will be more attuned to hands-on learning that requires more than a pencil and paper. I believe James does embody this and I do know he will go on to do great things that involve using his hands and memory, and I can’t wait to see what he can do later in life.
The Good School’s Guide, (2020). ‘Learning a second language in primary school’. The Good School’s Guide. https://www.goodschools.com.au/insights/education-updates/learning-a-second-language-in-primary-school
Sowa, Michelle, (2012). ‘Effects of physical exercise on Autism Spectrum Disorder: A meta-analysis’. Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Spot It is an awesome game to engage students with Autism, this gives them the opportunity to recognise different objects (you could even get them to spell each after they have found it!) and play a game at the same time. I believe this is a great resource to start the lesson and can be used to as a beginner activity which would then lead into a writing or reading activity.
These videos are an amazing resource for students when they are having a meltdown; if you are able to get them into a small room and put this video in front of them (on a TV if possible, in case they are destructive) and close the door. These videos give autistic students a sense of calm and should slow down the meltdown.
I have spent a portion of my school holidays thinking of news ways to engage all of my current autistic students; while this isn’t a part of the job description, showing this level of interest in your students is one way of solidifying yourself as a good employee and willing to go the extra mile for the children that need your help. In this blog post, I thought I would outline the numerous activities and ‘games’ that I have spent time researching, printing, and laminating in preparation to be used with my students. Many of these have been used by other teachers and educational support aides with their students and I am confident not only will they engage with mine but these will help aide my reader’s students in the future.
1. 5 on, 5 off
This is a great way to engage students whom are unable to concentrate for long periods of time (this is what we started James* with). The concept of “5 on, 5 off” is that you start by doing an activity they like doing for 5 minutes, whether this is drawing, reading or playing with matchsticks, it gives them the opportunity to release some energy with something they like to do. Once the 5 minutes is up, you will aim to divert the student into doing an activity that is part of the lesson, and once that 5 minutes is up, you are able to let them go back to their activity. See below a script that I would use to entice James into doing schoolwork:
Mia: So James, I was thinking we could start the writing class with some reading, so what book would we read?
James: Uhhh, D is for Dinosaur
Mia: Okay great! Now you need to promise me that after 5 minutes of reading is complete we will do some writing practice in your alphabet book? And if you do we will be able to read another book!
James: Okay.
2. Sound Recognition with Touch
The idea of this is that the student is more likely to engage with the lesson if they are creating the things themselves. Therefore, we created 26 charts, one for each letter of the alphabet and put them up on the doors in the classroom, below each letter there was a smiley face and an angry face with a variety of pictures underneath that. The aim is for the students to correctly identify whether the picture starts with the corresponding letter/sound - in doing so correctly pronouncing each picture and therefore recognising the appropriate sound. The physical act of moving each picture, means they are more likely to remember the starting sound and recall this at a later date. See below an example script:
Mia: James from the below 5 pictures, could you please put them in the following columns based on whether they make the “Te” sound (Letter T)?
James: *puts tap, and toad under smiley face* *puts toe, bee and sand under angry face*
Mia: James I like your thinking, can you please sound out all the words that you have put under the smiley column?
James: T-A-P and T-O-A-D
Mia: Great can you please do the other side
James: B-E-E, S-A-N-D, and T-O-E. *moves toe to the smiley column*
Mia: Awesome work! Let’s now try “Rrrr”
3. Word building with magnetic letters
Very similar to the above regarding sensory, but this requires the student to be a little more focused so it is best completed between recess and lunch (as they are not too focused in the morning and can be very tired by the end of the day). You will bring out a bucket of magnetic letters (feel free to add lower case here as well to make it slightly harder); you will start sounding out words making sure to accentuate each letter. See below an example script:
Mia: James could you please spell out the word crrr - aaaahhh - ttttt (CAT)?
James: *pulls out letters K A T in that order*
Mia: James is there any other letters that make the ‘crrrr’ sound?
James: *replaces K with C*
Mia: Fantastic James, let’s try another one!
4. Walk it off
A simple walk never goes astray, I find this is one of the best methods to reengage the mind back to schoolwork once finished. 5 minutes walking around the yard holding your student’s hand can make them feel safe and at peace with their learning. I find to make this worthwhile I will take James to the hopscotch and have him read out every number as he does it; while this doesn’t seem like a lot we are still giving them the opportunity to learn. I will also point things out a get him to identify them, whether these are bugs, clouds or trees. These two activities are fine tuning their motor skills and memory, we are always teaching them.
I think the above strategies are a great starting point for anyone who has only started working with autistic children and these activities will give you a sense of their level without the ‘testing’ conditions
It goes without saying that dogs do make our lives richer and more interesting and I think the same would go for children with Autism. But for them it is a completely different ball park, we like our dogs for the companionship, to get us outside for some exercise and to keep us warm when on the couch. However, when I suggested to James’s teacher Annie* that I bring my dog in, not only for show and tell but to lie down next to James while he did his work, she was quite hesitant.
This is my little puppa Penny on the right as you can see she is a small little thing with very trusting eyes that only wants to patted. A number of research papers have suggested that “having a dog present in the classroom promotes a positive mood and provides significant anti-stress effects on the body” (Mulvahill, 2019). The act of patting a dog can reduce emotional overload and provide positive reinforcement to the student doing the work.
After showing this research to Annie, she decided that we could give it a go for one day; James* was very excited to see Penny in the classroom along with all the other students. After a couple of introductions and some pats; we retired to James’s table to go over what I was hoping we could achieve today.
There has also been extensive research into student’s improvement in reading when surrounded by a ‘reading dog’. “When children interact with dogs, there’s no peer pressure. They don’t feel intimidated. They’re not laughed at. They’re totally accepted. That in turn helps them forget about their limitations. The whole idea behind children reading to dogs is to get them to relax so that reading becomes fun.” (Ernest, 2018).
After reading the above line from “The Bark” I was hoping to see an increase in James’s confidence in sound recognition if he had Penny by his side. I took James to the back of the room in our reading nook and asked to pick a book that he thought Penny would like. He decided ‘We Like Dogs’ would be the perfect book; with a little bit of help he sounded out the simple words slowly and repeated after me when he wasn’t able to recognise the more complicated sentences. He would pat Penny between pages and would look to her and make sure she was concentrating.
Watching the slight increase in confidence every time we would get through a page was such a delight to see; reading is one of James’s favourite parts of school and I believe this experience not only helped him concentration on one task for a long period of time but also made him not feel outcasted from the rest of the class (if anything, he felt special)
Additionally, I believe Penny gave James a new found confidence to socialise with others within the classroom environment; according to the Alliance of Therapy Dogs “(they) can reduce the effect of this allowing a child with autism to feel more at ease and open to social behaviour. Researchers have found that children with autism are more social when playing with therapy dogs as opposed to toys.” (Alliance Therapy Dogs, 2017). I saw this research backed up with my own eyes as James began to talk to others about Penny outside of the classroom when we decided to walk her around the yard at lunchtime. This gave him the opportunity to engage with the other students on their level about a topic that didn’t resolve around maths or writing. On the other hand. the other students were less likely to look past his efforts to engage, they actually wanted to spend time with him!
As an educational support aide this is one of the best outcomes you can ask for as it is likely that the intellectual gap will get wider between James and his peers but the small amount of time we can see our students being apart of something bigger than their disability means that we are certain they will make something of themselves in the future.
Building these motor and social skills early on means they are less likely to fall in unemployment or mental health issues; and this is all we can hope for once they leave our primary school.
Alliance Therapy Dogs, (2017). ‘Benefits of Therapy Dogs in Classrooms and College Campuses’ Alliance Therapy Dogs. https://www.therapydogs.com/therapy-dogs-classrooms-campuses/
Ernest, L. (2018) ‘Therapy Dogs Helps Children’s Reading Skills’ The Bark https://thebark.com/content/therapy-dogs-help-childrens-reading-skills
Mulvahill, E, (2019). ‘Dogs in the Classroom Improve SEL, Cognitive, and Even Reading Skills’. We Are Teachers. https://www.weareteachers.com/dogs-in-the-classroom/
An awesome watch when you have some downtime; it is so interesting to see not only Autism but any intellectual or learning disability are represented in a variety of movies, tv shows and external media.
The above games are great ways to test students letter and sound recognition - this hand-on style learning will have them doing work without realising it!
This book is a godsend for teachers whom have never an autistic child in their classroom before; the below highlights some of the strategies the book puts forth.
A clear schedule
An engineered environment
Data collection system
Written plan for classroom roles and responsibilities
Yes I know, weird title but I promise it will make sense when I explain the story. As most people are aware some children with Autism are unaware of the extent of their feelings and the best way to express them to others around them.
It was the last day of Term 1, and James* had done so well all week considering the structure of classroom activities was a little lacklustre in the last couple of days on the term. He had been rarely difficult the entire week, regularly sitting on the floor with the other kids and getting involved in the hands-on tasks that were put forth in maths and art.
As I am sure you have already guessed from previous posts that James* is able to learn and understand life skills by completing tasks using on-hands learning, rather than regular written worksheets. These include using games and activities such as GoNoodle and Mathletics which has him learning, without realising he is learning.
As the day was coming to a close after a variety of different lessons; including a dice game which was teaching him the concept of ‘chance’ and ‘important words’ in reading which asks the students to recognise what drives certain stories forward. James was quite involved with both of these, while he may have become disinterested after a period of time, he was starting to understand the reason of each task and was enjoying himself. So all these happy feelings had to stop somewhere..... and that is where art came in.
Now based on my first blog post you must be thinking, how could art be an issue, James loves art! Well unfortunately things don’t work out the way to always plan them to and James decided today would be the day he would have a meltdown.
To put it simply there is a difference between a tantrum and an autistic meltdown and Judy Endow describes it perfectly;
“[Since an] autistic meltdown is the body’s attempt to gain equilibrium by expending energy, safety concerns often loom large. In fact, safety becomes the focus of attention during the autistic meltdown. The goal for the support person at the height of a meltdown is to ensure safety, knowing the meltdown will continue until the energy is spent. There is no stopping a meltdown in progress.” (Endow, 2015)
The major difference between an autistic meltdown and a tantrum is that a tantrum requires an audience and will normally conclude if the child is given what they want (however, I don’t condone this). Autistic meltdown is the need for the child to release pent up energy which has been created due to sensory overload. There are many different strategies which can be used to slow the meltdown and I think the below can help if you are ever in the situation. (Barloso, 2020)
Remove the student from the classroom which therefore removes their audience
Use a low calm voice, children with autism are able to sense the frustration in your tone and this will not help
Keep yourself at arm’s length and avoid restraining the student from self-abuse (unfortunately it looks worse to the Education Department if they get hurt with you holding them than not)
Avoid giving in; while this might be easier, it will not help their logic in the long run
Lastly, use calming objects such as fidget spinners or weighted blankets as this gives them a sense of security and distraction. (James has a similar version to the below)
Coming back to the James, is our last 1 hour of the term we were required to draw out a pirate following along with the steps presented by the below video; James was extremely engaged and even started drawing the image from memory while the rest of the classroom were following along with the second viewing of the video.
I was thoroughly impressed and thought this was the best way to finish off the term but that all went downhill when he wanted to use my ‘special pen’ (a black marker),while trying to explain to him that this was my own pen that I brought from home and he had his own pencils he could use, this is when the tears and yelling began.
As I was not planning to give in, he decided to get up, grab and start drawing his pirate drawing with the teachers whiteboard markers on PAPER! When I told him this wasn’t appropriate the real tantrum began - and as I had read the referenced sources prior to starting my job, I was aware that this was a regular tantrum compared to a autistic meltdown.
So still using the aforementioned strategies, I removed him from the classroom, stood an arm’s length away and explained in a low voice that he would not be getting the special pen not matter how many times he said ‘please’ and it was not right to take someone’s things without consulting them first.
While this did work when outside of the classroom, each time he saw his pirate drawing he was reminded and we would have to go through the same motions once again.
The main point to take away from this story is that the above strategies may not always work to the full extent - but it will give you enough time to calm them down and think of your next move to avoid the ongoing tantrum.
Barloso, K, (2020). ‘Managing Autism Meltdowns, Tantrums and Aggression’. Autism Parenting Magazine. 16 April 2020 https://www.autismparentingmagazine.com/autism-meltdowns/#How_to_deal_with_a_temper_tantrum
Endow, J. (2015). ‘Autistic Meltdown or Temper Tantrum?’ Olliebean. 26 February 2015. https://ollibean.com/autistic-meltdown-or-temper-tantrum/
Now I have told you a lot about James* but very little about Nate*; while they are brothers Nate is quite different - he is a lot more high functioning and is able to read and write to the level of a prep (however he is in grade 2). While this might not seem like a big achievement, as a student whom hadn’t been attending regular school for more than 12 months, it is completely understandable that he wasn’t getting the stimulation at home required to be able to learn the basics.
High functioning autism has many different traits to it’s counterpart with the most significant being they “may start talking much earlier than normal... however, they may find conversations with others boring or difficult to follow and may avoid speaking with their peers.” (ABA, 2020). Nate while doesn’t talk much, when he does he can be fluent piecing words together to make a sentence, however juxtaposing that, he has very delayed responses to questions and can find it difficult to maintain a conversation with someone if it isn’t something he is interested in.
While there are many research papers studying the correlation between memory and autism; while most have come back inconclusive my experienced is that their memory is quite enhanced compared to ours, the ability to memorise books and conversations had with peers.
“Memory processing found intact in autism includes associative memory, cued memory, rote memory processes, echoic memory, and recognition” (Millward, et al, 2000, pg.16)
To see whether this was the case with Nate, I decided we would play a little game... all aboard the word train. Choo Choo!
Between grade 1 and 2 we have our student’s learning the most important words in the English language which will make up to 20% of all sentences spoken. To test his knowledge I had Nate read Pig the Pug by Aaron Blabey which we had previously read; this book contained both golden words and red words and I could use this as a base to understand his word recognition. He read this fluently and with very little errors, this was surprising and great to see.
However, this is where the impression stopped. To begin our train test, we started building our train on the window of the classroom with the golden words we recognised and pronounced all 12 golden correctly adding these to the train as he went.
Once the train had all the golden carriages, I gave him the chance to move it along the window until we started the red words. Doing this means that he can develop a sense of achievement before jumping back into work; this strategy has proved to be effective with James and I believe it would work well for Nate too.
Moving along to the 20 red words proved difficult; words such as ‘said’ and ‘have’ were in abundance within the book but interestingly enough he was unable to recognise them when put in front of him without context. This proved my theory which was that he memorised the book or was able to understand the sentences based on the context the pictures provided him.
Knowing this now means I will be trying new strategies which involve the use of post-it notes to cover the images and further sound tests, so sounding out the words within the book with become second nature over guessing based on the images provided.
Coming back to the differences in high and low functioning autism; I have found Nate is be very socially distant from those he hasn’t had a lot of contact with or trust in. This has limited his ability to be involved in the classroom, he approaches other children in an unusual way and will only accept contact with others if it is initiated and lead by them, engaging very little. (NAS, 2017). If he can avoid talking to others, he will. Taking things without asking because he feels uncomfortable talking, avoiding ‘turn and talks’ on the floor and pushing to do it with his ES aid instead.
This is something that I am hoping to work on using a variety of guides with games that can drive social interaction between children with autism and others; great examples of this are Social Skills Activities for Kids and 6 Social Skills Board Game. Being able to help Nate, while making it feel like it isn’t work, will help develop his social skills naturally and hopefully he will warm up to those in his class, as he starting to learn off his peers and I know this with further his intellectual learning.
ABA, (2020). 10 Symptoms of High-Functioning Autism. Applied Behavioural Analysis Program Guide. https://www.appliedbehavioranalysisprograms.com/lists/5-symptoms-of-high-functioning-autism/
Millward, C., Powell, S., Messer, D. and Jordan, R., (2000). Recall for self and other in autism: Children's memory for events experienced by themselves and their peers. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 30(1), pp.15-28.
NAS, (2017). Social Interaction for Children. National Autistic Society. https://www.autism.org.uk/about/communication/social-children.aspx
The Age of the Dinosaur.... The Demise of the Fishes
James* 9 loves dinosaurs! He seriously is obsessed, when I first went in to meet the little guy all of his reading materials were about dinosaurs, his alphabet and maths equation materials involved dinosaurs, he had even created little dinosaur puppets to act out his writing materials!
Children with Autism can possibly develop obsessions, routines and rituals that they feel need to stay the same and this can help them cope with their surroundings. (Raising Children, 2020) This is not uncommon and it can make them little geniuses about random topics they are interested in. These can last for a couple of weeks to a month; or stronger obsessions and routines can continue all the way into adolescence and adulthood.
So yesterday was not a good day for James, he wasn’t feeling his best and came into the classroom quite tired, yawning quite frequently and unable to keep his head up. It was Friday which meant that we were going to be doing reading in the morning; this was one of James’ favourite activities, however he wasn’t very skilled in this area.
When Annie* his teacher began the micro lesson, she asked us to read a book out of our readers and write down the most important words which guide the story. James didn’t seem to excited by this until I mentioned the dinosaur book; well did this catch his attention!
All these dinosaurs names coming at me left, right and centre - I asked him how he knew all of them and he said he ‘just knew’. As mentioned before Autistic kids have a knack for wanting to learn everything about one specific topic and this was when I knew - this guy is a dino guy!
The symptoms of the obsessive can often be disabling (Russel et al, 2005) and it can remove the student from the learning within the classroom, while we have seen a side where it can be beneficial to engage unfortunately this is not always the case.
Well today was;
The Demise of the Fishes
Everything was good, we were doing well we might not have gotten as much work done as yesterday but we were still on a roll to getting close to it. We were continuing on with Maths; today was all about learning chance. We would roll a dice, write the number that came up and repeat until the worksheet was full. Once completed, there was a ‘chance chimp’ which was required to be coloured in based upon the frequency of numbers that occurred.
1 = pink
2 = brown
3 = green
4 = yellow
5 = blue
6 = brown
Some autistic kids love to create things with their hands; seeing a finished product gives them a sense of accomplishment that regular learning cannot fullfill. While James had an absolute field day with this.... that is where the fishes came in the everything went downhill..... Annie decided to put on a video of an underwater scene with calming music to get everyone to concentrate on their work, well did this do the opposite.
It is very interesting to watch as James was engrossed by the fishes following them with his head as they swam around, calling out the other underwater creatures when they came on screen - there was no coming back from this. James was all about the fishes now, drawing and watching them swim around. This continued on for the rest of the day - I now own 4 different fish drawings, I didn’t even have that many real fish as I was growing up!
This goes to show that while many Autistic kids have obsessions these can change in an instant, we will never be able to catch up with everything they know because they think about that topic more than we breath! But it also shows us that we can use it to our advantage; sparking their interest with the topic and moulding it back into school work. I have many resources now that involve dinosaurs; alphabet dinosaur eggs, dinosaur puppets, dinosaur poems and all of these bring them back to earth.
We need to start thinking of these obsessions as a useful tool and how can we twist it to our advantage; I can’t wait to explore this more with James and update you all on his next obsession.
*Names removed for privacy
Raising Children, 2020. Obsessive behaviour, routines and rituals: autism spectrum disorder. Raising Children Net. https://raisingchildren.net.au/autism/behaviour/understanding-behaviour/obsessive-behaviour-asd
Russell, A.J., Mataix-Cols, D., Anson, M. and Murphy, D.G., 2005. Obsessions and compulsions in Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 186(6), pp.525-528.
~ This practical guide provides clinicians with a way in which to do so, with numerous games and imaginative activities to help children aged 4-12 to express and understand their feelings. ~
This amazing book, which I read in preparation for starting my role, gave me a deeper understanding into the exponential feelings that children with autism and other intellectual disabilities experience and strategies with how to best manage them. A great read!
