Ways to make learning easy for ASD children

An autistic child is someone who suffers from a development disorder and this can cause them some major challenges like communication, social skills and their behaviour. In fact, the thinking and learning  abilities in them can also range from very gifted to severely challenged. Hence, they always need more help from the teachers, the parents and their surroundings to cope up with it.

ASD diagnosis includes more than one collection:

• Autism
• Asperger syndrome
• Pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS)

Characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorders

Children who have autism can come with a lot of characteristics and disabilities. No two children behave the same way and the symptoms also vary from mild to severe. They mostly fall in a few categories:

• Social Interaction and Communication Problems
• Challenges with normal back-and-forth conversation
• Decreased desire to share personal interests or emotions
• Challenges in developing or understanding relationships
• Difficulty understanding or responding to eye contact and facial expressions
• Hand-flapping and toe-walking
• Exhibiting intense interest in activities that are uncommon for a similarly aged child
• Speaking in a unique pattern
• Excessive smelling and touching of objects
• Fascination with lights and movement and being overwhelmed with loud noises

Role of a teacher for ASD students

Educators do play a huge role in teaching the students who suffer from ASD.  The primary thing is to understand each child’s psychology when they are learning new things. It is quite important to have a deep understanding of strategies and skills so that one can handle autistic children well.

Here are a few things that the teacher can follow:

• Structuring a routine for them is very important. The teacher has to maintain the same daily routine so that the children can get used to it. There has to be a planner where a day’s events should be planned beforehand.
• When under a learning process, the teacher needs to choose a quiet place otherwise any sort of sound can disturb a child’s concentration. It is a teacher’s duty to eliminate stress from the ambiance because an autistic child is very quick in picking up any negative emotion.
• When dealing with a class full of autistic students, the teacher needs to maintain a clear and low voice otherwise the children can get agitated with loud voice.
• When a class demonstration is going on, the teacher can let the students stand instead of sitting around. They can learn and concentrate more on the thing while listening to the teacher.
• Keep all the verbal instructions to the point because an autistic student can find it difficult to recall the entire sequence. It is better to write them down one by one and hand it to them.

The teacher can always stress on using signs, demonstrations and pictures for the autistic children because it makes the learning process easy for them. The teachers must keep in touch with the parents and the caregivers so that the children can continue the same learning process at home and one can also share with them the rate of the progression.