Teaching children with autism is a challenging experience. These children often can’t speak, which means they can’t communicate their feelings or tell you when they’re feeling a specific way. You may not know when they’re learning or even if they’re learning. The only thing you can do is to take breaks and limit the number of distractions the person has in the room. These steps will help those teaching one child in a classroom setting or in a home setting.
Instructions
1. Watch for the child to feel frustrated or upset. When you’re teaching, the child probably can’t tell you if they’re upset, but they’ll show you in other ways. They may hit themselves or someone else or try running from the room. When this happens the only thing you can do is take a short break and give the child a chance to rest. You may find it helpful to let them do something they like for a few minutes like play outside or watch television. After a few minutes they’ll feel more relaxed, less frustrated and be able to start working again.
2. Set up the learning environment in the same way every day. These children learn by routine and they need the same stimuli every day. Changing the room around or moving them from room to room every day can result in stress or confusion that they can’t express. Instead keep things simple and use the same desk and chair every day. If the fish tank is on the left and the chalkboard on the right, leave it that way. Avoid switching things around, which can make the child upset or unable to concentrate.
3. Schedule things in the same way so that the child knows what to expect to reduce frustration and stress. Learning by repetition is key for autistic children and this means following the same set routine. If you abruptly change things up, the child may start acting out and be unable to comprehend the changes. If you work on emotions, colors and then letters, keep everything the same. Try not to mix the set routine up too much, but keep things the same everyday.
4. Keep the focus on what you need the child to do instead of what the child wants to do. Autistic children are still children and they’d rather play or watch television than work. You might feel tempted to give in and let the child run loose, but you need to stay focused. Keep the attention on what the routine calls for, but make sure the child knows you aren't angry at them. If you let the child have control of the situation, they'll know what to do the next time they don't want to work.
5. Spend only a set amount of time on each task or activity and try to end early if at all possible. These children have trouble staying focused on one activity for an extended amount of time, which means you need to teach things fast. Try spending only 10-15 minutes on each task or even less to keep their attention. Most teachers do 15 minutes of work, then a short 2-3 minute break, 15 more minutes of work and so on until the session is complete. After the session the child will get a longer break of 15-30 minutes. This gives the child a chance to relax after working hard on one task and gives them something to look forward to at the end of the session.
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