Autism acceptance week: Ways to support children with autism in your school
Ways to support children with autism in your school
Autism acceptance week starts on the 27th March and ends on the 2nd April. This week is about spreading awareness of what autism is and how to include and help people with autism. Every year there is a theme and this year the theme is colour.
It is vital for SBMs to understand what autism is and ensure that their school caters for autistic children and staff. Everyone should feel comfortable and supported within school and SBMs must provide support and materials to meet students' and staff's needs.
We have sourced some ways to support children with autism in your school to help you provide the right care, support and materials. Through doing this, students can feel comfortable and happy within school, leading to better learning.
What is autism?
Autism is a different way of thinking and processing the world. The way the senses take in information about the world is different for autistic people too. There is a possibility that autistic children can process internal thoughts and sensations differently as well.
Due to this, the social world can be demanding and overwhelming, so being at school can be socially demanding all day. SBMs need to think about how to help with this by ensuring the right materials are available when needed, and support is offered to autistic children.
Ways to support children with autism
Encourage staff to get to know children with autism
Ensure to encourage your staff to get to know children with autism. Staff may think they know how to support autistic children if they have done previously, but every child is different. Autistic children may share similar characteristics, but they will have their own strengths and weaknesses.
Make staff aware of intensive interaction. This is where staff will get to know them on the student's terms. Encourage staff to do what their student does and learn from the student. It is important for staff to get to know the child as they can learn how to support them and find out more about them. Doing this is much better than reading any paperwork.
Develop a learning plan and involve your staff
Typically, autistic children don’t follow the ‘usual’ way of learning. This means they can sometimes struggle with their learning or find it hard to focus. To support your students, it is best to develop a learning plan for autistic children and involve your staff, who teaches them to offer input and guidance.
This learning plan needs to be well structured and involves clear communication at its centre. Ensure teachers have clear guidance on how they implement this learning plan. Teachers shouldn’t over-complicate, use jargon or ambiguous language. Include visual representations within this learning plan so that teachers know they need to back up their subjects with visual aids. These can be images, symbols, lists, videos and anything else they can source to use. Suggest colour coordinating with your staff to help autistic children remember topics and how they link together.
Include linking learning to their knowledge and interests within the learning plan. Linking learning to their interests is a useful way for children to remember subjects and understand them. Another way to support children with autism in their learning is to break topics up into manageable chunks. This is a must to include in your school’s learning plan as autistic children can take in information and reduce feeling overwhelmed because they won’t have information overloaded to them all at once.
Consider your schools learning environments
Children with autism can experience sensory sensitivity, which can cause positive or negative reactions to sensory stimulation. SBMs must consider ways to make their learning environments less overwhelming to aid them with their learning.
Every autistic child is different with their sensitivities, so you should work with your staff who know them and get their parents on board too. Find out different information on how autistic students react to different sensations such as sounds and touch. Note down what your staff has observed and information on parents' input.
Once this information is gathered, work with your staff to do what you can to minimise these stimulants in the learning environments around the school. Doing this can help reduce children’s anxieties and reactions.
Ensure to provide your staff with tools and resources to offer autistic children when needed. This could be ear defenders to help with sounds.
Cater for sensory needs
Autistic children can experience hypersensitivity to an extreme point where their daily lives are affected. Their senses can even sometimes be under-sensitive too, which makes children not respond and seek other sensations. Your school environment needs to cater for these sensory needs. Doing this helps them to access learning and feel regulated during the day.
Provide fidget toys for children with autism to access when needing other sensations to help them. Have a range of chewable necklaces in stock for your school too. Ensure to make your staff aware to allow sensory breaks and provide each classroom with a dark den to use for these breaks.
Your staff should also minimise anything that triggers hypersensitivity in the classroom. As for busyness around the school, such as in the corridors, set out a plan to make sure that autistic students feel comfortable walking around the school. This could be agreeing with staff to let them leave class early to get to where they need to be.
Be mindful of routine and structure
Routine and structure are essential to most autistic children. Unexpected changes or unexpected events in your school can make them uncomfortable and distressed. Students with autism often need to know what is happening and when, and what is expected of them. Let your staff know this and implement a clearly defined timetable for them with your staff.
When creating this timetable with your staff, make sure that modifications can be made so a student can tick off when they have finished their task. This will help them to be able to move on to their next task. Creating this timetable should be different from usual timetables as it should break down what the child will learn each day. Doing this increases their confidence and ability to independently manage their workload and time.
Build opportunities for friendships
Autistic children do have social skills and do want to make friends. However, they may need assistance to build friendships as well as their teachers helping them and their friends to understand each other better and friendships.
Work with your staff to give opportunities for students with autism to build friendships. This could be purchasing playground friend caps to assign to students in different classes who can socialise with others well. Making a few students available to approach students who struggle to make friends helps children with autism feel comfortable whilst bonding.
Implement these ways to support children with autism in schools to allow autistic students to thrive, feel comfortable and, most importantly, be supported. These tips shouldn’t only be implemented in your school for autism acceptance week. They should be in place all year round and reviewed and updated when needed. Work with your staff to provide a safe and motivating learning environment for every student and review what your school needs to aid them.
Read our ‘sensory rooms in schools’ blog for further information on how you can create sensory spaces in your school to aid children with their learning.
