All students have unique needs and behaviours. Identifying the strengths and requirements of each is an important step in an educator’s ability to select and prioritize learning expectations – especially with autistic students.
Deciding on the right expectations starts with the student themselves. Identify the student’s strengths and challenges. Evaluate their academic abilities, along with basic communication, social interaction, appropriate behaviour and choice-making skills. These are the capabilities that students with autism need to achieve independence and autonomy.
Next comes a family discussion. Share your observations and discuss what parents see at home. Validate your conclusions in detail. And then work with the parents to develop long-term expectations and work backwards from there.
Autistic students often have barriers that will make achieving learning expectations challenging. Identify them and implement accommodation strategies to address these barriers.
Four core accommodation strategies
- Choose tasks that students will use in their daily lives. Choices are powerful. Offer them throughout the day, especially when a student may experience more stressors. This also provides opportunities for students to actively engage and respond to your instructions—individually and as a group.
- Arrange the environment with clearly defined areas. Make them clutter-free and design a calming zone/quiet space.
- Label classroom items and locations. Develop a visual rewards system and a visual schedule to help autistic students prepare for upcoming activities. These systems are proven motivators that encourage students to engage in prosocial behaviours.
- Mix and vary task difficulty. Incorporate a variety of activities – some they’ve mastered, others that are new – to ensure learning isn’t too demanding. Break tasks down into a series of smaller steps and focus on each in isolation until all the steps are mastered. Teaching simple, discrete skills in a repetitive, structured manner has proven effective.
There are two additional teaching methods you can employ to reinforce the learning expectations you have for each student: modelling acceptable behaviour and prompting students with cues or assistance that encourage skill development. Both are particularly useful with autistic students.