ASA's 36th National Conference on Autism Spectrum Disorders (July 13-16, 2005)

• Recorded Presentation

Typical academic problems for individuals on the autism spectrum include: organization, work completion, and motivation (Will work only when interested). In addition many individuals have learning problems such as difficulties with comprehension, abstract concepts, understanding characters in literature, inference, application, and word problems. Difference in social understanding can affect success in academic areas as well as peer relationships.

Difficulties with executive function affect organizational skills. The best strategy is to teach organizational strategies and support their use until you can gradually fade out the support and leave the student following the strategies on their own. The type of organizational support will vary with the level and needs of the student but some suggested strategies for different levels will be given.

Students with Autism or Aspergers often have difficulty with central coherence or seeing the larger picture or meaning. They tend to focus on the details, the parts, and do not relate their information to the whole. Often they are good memorizers but do not do as well at understanding the more complex meaning of academic material. They may need additional explanation, visual examples, or frequent stops to check comprehension. It is important that teachers recognize that these students may appear to learn facts but not have an understanding of the concepts and try strategies that help them turn concrete into abstract understanding.

Most of us, when we are motivated, can overcome many obstacles. Students on the autism spectrum often don't understand or buy into typical motivation systems, so we often have to try motivation strategies to increase their effort to master difficult work. We have found that motivation strategies that are concrete and visual work best with this population and examples will be shown.

Autism spectrum individual often have difficulty shifting their attention. They can have excellent focus, perhaps over focus, and when a school bell rings they must move on, but their mind may not be ready for the transition. Some students have a need to finish what they have begun. Others are trouble by a perfectionism that does not let them complete and hand in work unless it has zero errors. This session will discuss strategies to reduce the tension that these situations create.

This session should increase your understanding of different ways of thinking and strategies to help many types of individuals become successful at school.