Vanessa's Blog - January: Back to Basics!
Back to the Basics!
Sometimes it is easy to get caught up worrying about the complexities of autism, such anxiety and sensory integration, then we can lose sight of the basic strategies which have the greatest impact. These are often the Wave 1, Quality First Teaching strategies which genuinely can make the difference between a child coping in a mainstream classroom and not. These strategies are very often known to staff, but forgotten or not used to their full potential. Here are my top ten tips for making sure you have the basics in place in your classroom…
1. Visual timetable – Whether it is a whole class timetable with symbols, an individual timetable, or a list written on your whiteboard, have you tried taking the symbols off, or ticking the lessons off as you move through the day? This can reduce anxiety, make the day seem more manageable, support understanding of time and give a sense of achievement when your pupils can see how much they have already done.
2. The right visuals – Some young people are not ready to understand the symbolic nature of some of the visual supports we use. For instance, a PE symbol might show a child playing with a ball, but you are doing a dance module in PE this term. That timetable may not then be meaning for the child, or it may even cause more anxiety than good. Sometimes the best timetables just tell a child where they will be working, with photos of locations around the school or perhaps just give information about what the task will be, such as a picture of a pencil for literacy. The same goes for visuals we use around behaviour; if a child doesn’t associate with a ‘good sitting’ symbol, take a photograph of them sitting on the carpet and use that! For older children who are beginning to reject symbols, you may wish to give them time on the computer to find their own visual prompts.
3. Teaching emotions - There are a lot of strategies around for teaching children about their feelings (see help sheet), but one of the most powerful thing you can do is to model. Label your own emotions and get the other adults in the class to do the same (although this may sometimes need to be staged and not real trauma; over-sharing is not useful either!). Show the child that it is ok to be sad or angry, and ‘think out loud’ through your self-help strategies to get back to calm. Show your young people that it is ok to make mistakes and ok to not get a turn.
4. Independence – Good literacy and numeracy skills are not useful for a pupil’s preparation for adulthood if they can only complete tasks with support. It is vital that our pupils develop some independence from a young age and if that cannot be around curriculum tasks, we may need to find other parts of the day when they can work on developing these skills. It could be TEACCH-style tasks (see help sheet) or something more subtle like taking a message to the office, or having a special job in the classroom. Give lots of praise for the pupils who manage to achieve things on their own.
5. What next? - Pupils with SEN often get through their work faster, as it is differentiated, or because they spend less time chatting to pupils around them. If they have support it will also speed things up. Extension tasks are not always a good idea, as many of these pupils need a break and we don’t want to crush their sense of achievement by giving them another, more difficult task. Have activities available for when work is finished; a box of sensory toys, some adult-led game time, a folder of independent tasks or perhaps a movement break
6. Think sensory! – If you are having issues like tricky behaviour, or an easily distracted pupil, think about possible sources of sensory distraction. There may be something in the environment that you can modify, to remove the distraction or find an alternative seat for a pupil which will lessen the impact.
7. Staff time – Staff in schools can find it difficult to get enough time to make the resources they really want. Remember that not everything has to be colourful and beautifully laminated. Often a little whiteboard or pack of post-it notes is the most effective support for a range of needs (see help sheet)
8. The need to fiddle - Many children with autism and/or ADHD can display sensory seeking behaviour. This is due to a lack of input from their vestibular or proprioceptive senses leading to children constantly moving and fiddling with things around them. This is explained well in the proprioception video on www.brainhighways.com. Many young people cannot focus at all unless they are moving, so we need to find appropriate ways for them to get this input safely, without disrupting their peers. Some ideas include;
- Collect a little box of fiddle toys, which be used during ‘listening time’ and can go away once the work starts.
- Pen toppers are a good fiddle which a young person can access throughout the lesson.
- Theraband wrapped around chair legs can give a young person something to kick against and get sensory input through their legs.
9. Reduce your language – Most pupils with ASD have weaker skills of receptive language (listening, retaining and understanding) in comparison to their expressive skills. It’s easy to get drawn into a complex conversation with someone who talks to you a lot, but your pupil may not be able to understand on the same level and they certainly may not be able to follow long, or multi-step instructions. Remember to keep your language to the point, positive and back instructions up with a visual where possible (see help sheet)
10. The pupil who says No! – For young people who present with high levels of anxiety, any directive language can be a trigger. I would recommend finding lots of indirect ways to give instructions, depersonalising as much as possible. Some examples include;
- Avoid ‘Do you want to…’ – they are likely to say no!
- Present choices of task, or choices within tasks; ‘Shall we do X, Y, or Z first?’, ‘We can colour it in, or cut it out’
- Feign helplessness; ‘I wish someone could help me…’, ‘I’ve forgotten how to…’
- Negotiate over sharing the task; ‘Which bit shall I do?’
- Make activities sound special, or novel; ‘I’ve found this new thing…’ or ‘Mrs Clark needs someone to test out...’
- Use challenges, or races; ‘I bet you can’t do this faster…’
- Blame the timetable; ‘Oh, it’s time for …’
- Let the pupil feel you are allowing them to do something which was not meant for them; ‘Look what I have found…’, ‘I don’t think this was meant for us today…’