Characteristics Of Students With Autism Spectrum Disorders

- Struggles.

• Social interaction- difficulty interacting socially with other people. Trouble managing the emotions themselves.
• Communication: difficulty conveying what they want. ⅓ of children with ASD are nonverbal. This makes communication hard, especially expressing themselves.
• Repetitive behaviors and routines: Students do motor behaviors over and over. Things like flapping, fidgeting, and finger flipping.

- Autism

• Children with Autism might experience certain delays in language. My brother had Autism, and he couldn’t speak at all.
• Those with Autism might have trouble doing certain activities. From my experience, my brother couldn't feed or dress himself.
• Those with autism have trouble with repetitive behaviors and interests. It’s difficult to do and focus on one activity.
• Social interaction is a major problem for children with autism as they might not be able to communicate, understand social cues, dialogue, or meaning.

- Aspergers

• No clinical delay in language might be limited to vocabulary; however, language ability is comparable to same-age peers.
• No delays in self ability or self skills. You are still able to eat and dress yourself.
• Both experience this; however, these children might be able to be more focused on specific things. Certain favorite act or subject that they like to do.
• Both struggle with social interaction; however, those here can have a stronger desire to participate while coming across not understanding social norms.

Instructional Strategies/Accommodations For Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder

-Use visual aids; this helps them substantially as it targets their visual strengths.

- Preference assessments: This assessment, once conducted, gets you a feel for the students' likes and dislikes. It is best done at the beginning of the school year, just having the students like and enjoy, also what they struggle with.

- Establish classroom routine: By doing this, you establish the direction of the class. You must consider the demands, wants, and needs of the students. The plan of action for the students and the class establishes a routine. Find something the student likes to implement in the class and the routine. For example, if my student likes to draw or color, have a beginning portion with coloring on the whiteboard.

- Be aware of your classroom environment (hypersensitivity) - Getting rid of distractions in your classroom consider hypersensitivity for the as students Minimize distractions in my room. Find anything that can help get the student off task and get rid of it.

- Teach Communication skills: The process of improving this is important as it’s very difficult for students with ASD. One strategy that I'd like to use is the missed trails strategy. See, this has the same instruction being repeated over and over again until the student improves. Asking a student to name something or another question, for example, asking the student what is going on in the lesson.

- Learn about Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) devices: These are for individuals with communication problems and are designed to help them. For example, I use sign language for children who have difficulty expressing their needs, common for ASD students. Could also use picture boards.

- Teach Social Skills: Having these social skills gives you competence to effectively use social behaviors and achieve desired goals for yourself. An example to help establish social skills in a classroom would be to have the children first initiate conversation with you or their peers. In doing this, they can establish themselves in the classroom.

- Social stories. 

- Establish Collaborative Relationships with families The process of building relationships with the families of the students affected. At the beginning, before class, get to know the student through the parents. They can give info to help the student inside the classroom and help prevent challenging behaviors.

Resources For Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

- Video - This clip shows you how navigate with children who have ASD - https://www.mcleanhospital.org/video/navigating-autism-through-childhood-years 

- Video - This clip is attitude for teachers who have students with ASD - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PwGQa-npZQ 

- Video - This clip gives you tips on teaching students with ASD - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-D_djfO1kg 

- ASD Resources - This webpage holds resources for ASD: https://www.cdc.gov/autism/communication-resources/index.html 

- Family Resources - This page gives parenting tips from families who have children with ASD - https://www.childrensnational.org/get-care/departments/center-for-autism-spectrum-disorders/family-resources