Shopping online please visit www.buy.at/safe
Make
a difference
You can help us help others by sending a donation or
by joining us as a member.
Sponsors
Teachers and Education Professionals
The National Autistic Society has had great success and Government recognition with its “Make Schools Make Sense” campaign. They have put together a comprehensive teachers awareness pack containing lots of information and tools to help teachers in the classroom environment, which can be downloaded from their website.
What can be done by Teachers & Learning Support Assistants?
- First, take time to learn about Asperger Syndrome (AS) and to understand why AS children behave as they do. Learn to pick up the child’s stress signs early and act on them. A stressed AS child learns nothing in the classroom so he might as well be elsewhere.
- Arrange the classroom to minimise distractions, or to give the AS student a special place facing the wall or at the front of the class in full view of the teacher.
- Provide a ‘safe’ place within the school where the AS child can go to at playtime, away from the confusing and alarming playground where bullying can be most prevalent.
- Help
the AS child to feel safe by providing them with a clear written or
visual timetable and a daily routine. Be sure to warn them in advance
of any change in routine.
- Take
care to ensure that they have heard and understood instructions, perhaps
explaining in alternative ways and in a kind and reasoned manner
until you are sure they will be able to produce a result.
- You
must make sure you mean what you say and that you explain the nuances,
metaphors, slang expressions, proverbial sayings etc. In other words
– make the implicit explicit.
- Make sure they have written all their homework instructions down; consider allowing them to do their homework at school because for some AS students school is for work and home is for leisure.
- If you have important information to convey to the parent, make sure
it is written down and given to the AS child.
- Their
reading age is frequently ahead of their years but be careful to check
that they understand what they are reading.
- The
lack of social skills makes the AS child very vulnerable; it may also
make them paranoid, imaging people’s intentions are hostile. Check
this for a possible cause of aggressive outbursts.
- Many
schools have developed ways to show the meaning of facial expressions
and body language, and how they relate to the appropriate emotional
states, through Circle Time and SULP (Social Use of Language Programme).
- AS
children get very upset if they are bullied or teased. This is by far
the most common reason for aggressive outbursts. They do not understand
that the rest of the world sees such teasing as ‘normal’.
They see it as a ‘betrayal’ of trust. You must ensure their
classmates and schoolmates are aware of their sensitivities and be ready
to difuse situations early, before the AS child has a chance to explode.
- Help
the child to understand when he is approaching his danger point; use
the yellow card/red card warning system; allow them to leave the classroom
for a safe haven when he feels under stress, preferably accompanied
by a Learning Support Assistant.
- See
comfort routines as comfort behaviours to deal with stressful situations,
and deal with them accordingly.
- Most
AS children have a special interest; allow it to be aired in class as
a reward or to enhance self-esteem with his peers. These children have
much to give so allow them time to display their special knowledge.
- Dealing with their blunt speaking requires a sense of humour and a real understanding of the unique quality of the AS child.
Teachers
and Education Professionals
Health Professionals
Criminal Justice Professionals
News & Updates
Emma C Runs the 2010 London Marathon
Copyright SAFE Supporting Asperger Families in Essex | Aspergers.org.uk © 2006 - 2009 All rights reserved
Charity No. 1095075