How will my child's behavior impact learning?
A u t i s m
means difficulties with words
School Term: (ASD - Autism Spectrum Disorder)
Challenges: 1 or more:
- not responding to their name.
- avoiding eye contact.
- not smiling when you smile at them.
- getting very upset if they do not like a certain taste, smell, or sound.
- repetitive movements, such as flapping their hands, flicking their fingers, or rocking their body.
- gets upset by minor changes
- must follow certain routines
- flaps hands, rock body, or spins self in circles
- lines up objects and gets upset when order is changed
- delayed cognitive or learning skills
- hyperactive, impulsive, and/or inattentive behavior
Autism is primarily characterized by differences and difficulties in social interaction and communication, alongside restricted or repetitive patterns of interests, activities, or behaviors (stimming), and, in many cases, distinctive reactions to sensory input. The specific presentation varies widely.
Autism affects classroom
Learning through social and communication challenges, sensory processing differences, executive functioning difficulties, and a need for routine. These can impact a student's ability to interact with peers and teachers, focus in a distracting environment, plan and organize tasks, and adapt to changes.
This can manifest as difficulty with social-emotional reciprocity, nonverbal communication like eye contact, and forming relationships. Repetitive behaviors can include repetitive movements, a strong insistence on routine, intense interests, and unusual responses to sensory input.
- People with ASD may also have different ways of learning, moving, or paying attention.
- Does not show facial expressions such as happy, sad, angry, and surprised by 9 months of age
- Social skills are most effective for students with autism when they are taught within the natural environment in which their demonstration is expected
- This type of compulsive behaviour is common in individuals with ASD, and there are teaching strategies that can be applied to help reduce such behaviour.
Social communication and interaction skills
Social communication and interaction skills can be challenging for people with ASD. Considering that schools are social environments, one can see a problematic issue for children who are socially impaired. Poor academic performance is often noted for autistic children because their social abilities affect their capacity to learn within a classroom setting. Transitions are particularly difficult for autistic students, because they experience anxiety and discomfort in new or changing situations.
Literacy skills are also affected by autism, because many autistic children are unable to progress past sight word recognition. Depending upon cognitive abilities, autistic children may be able to decode text but have problems understanding what they have read, because their reading comprehension capabilities do not match their decoding abilities. All of these challenges may prevent autistic students from engaging in learning
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1230708.pdf