Photo from Ann Memmott www.annsautismblog.com showing what visual hyper-sensitivity can be like in a classroom. “The classroom is each teacher’s mini-kingdom and the ‘home’ of your pupils for most of the school day. Teachers lavish care and attention on how it is set out and how they decorate it, and spend time organising furniture and […]
Image from: Supporting Autistic Learners course by Lynn McCann Many autistic children have Sensory Processing Disorders. (And so do children with Down’s Syndrome, ADHD and other or no other conditions). Their sensory systems (as above) can be hyper (over) or hypo (under) sensitive and this affects the way that they understand, perceive and interact with […]
Over the years I have been working with autistic children, I have been listening to and learning from the children themselves and also from autistic adults who I’ve got to know along the way. So many autistic adults have become my friends in person, and others are those I follow and interact with on social […]
Imagine that every day the simplest demands make you panic. Not just the demands from other people but the demands that you place on yourself, the things you know you should be doing.Like getting out of bed. Getting ready for the day. Getting out of the house. It’s not just feeling lethargic. It’s the crippling […]
image from https://tentotwenty.com Autistic pupils can find everyday transitions difficult, as well as the major transitions that happen. The reasons can include: Not being told what the change will involve, What will be expected of them, How long it’s going to last, Perceived or real sensory challenges, Not being given time enough to process the changes […]
I was born worrying, so my mum said. I don’t really know what it is like not to have a million worries running through my head all at once. Every conceivable disaster is imagined once my brain focusses on a particular thought – There’s a downside to having a wild imagination. But over the years […]
Photo from Reachout ASC conference Do we think beyond our autistic pupils and wonder if teaching staff or other professionals may be grown up autistic people? Sensory overload, social confusion and other differences don’t go away, but many autistic adults spend a lot of time and energy trying to ‘mask’ their difficulties in busy, demanding […]
By now you might have heard the story about a dad putting out an appeal for a blue Tommee Tippee cup for his autistic son, Ben, who won’t drink from any other cup. The cup his son has used since he was 2 years old is wearing out and there is nothing at all […]
picture from https://www.thetricyclecollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Homework.jpg It is seriously one of the biggest issues we have to deal with when we support secondary autistic students, so I thought it would be worth sharing my suggestions about homework. So…if you have a student refusing, never seeming to do homework, parents are saying that it is causing meltdowns and great […]
My friend @AnnMemmott who blogs at http://www.annsautismblog.co.uk first introduced me to the Spoon Theory in relation to autism. It was originally created by Christine Miserandino when asked about her chronic illness, (you can read the original post here http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/ ) but is a great way of helping us understand why school and college is such hard […]