#23 101 Ways a Teacher Could Help a Child with Autism

Category:  General guidelines when dealing with autistic children

Suggestion #23:  If the child is showing sign of being upset, allow them time to calm down.

Autistic children may become over stimulated and overwhelmed.  Essentially, their mind needs time to process and they may need more time than you would think to process whatever it is that is upsetting them.
It will be so much easier for them to handle, if you slow down the stimulus as soon as you notice them becoming agitated.  Asking them a lot of questions is not the way to lower their stimulus.  Instead, try to remove them away from any loud noises and sensory input before they are at a breaking point.

#22 101 Ways a Teacher Could Help a Child with Autism

Category:  General guidelines when dealing with autistic children

Suggestion #22:  Avoid surprises during less preferred activities or transitions.

As I have said before, communicating with autistic children may be difficult.  Even if they hear what you are saying, they may not understand.  This is one of the reasons why setting up a schedule for them is so important, that way they will know what is happening, which lowers the amount of communication necessary.  If they have a hard time transitioning from one class to another, and you (during their transition) change something on them with no warning before the transition starts, you could seriously throw them off.  They may need all of their concentration to be on simply getting to the next class.
So please be certain to warn them if even the smallest thing might be different during this time.  (Examples: we are not going to bring your back pack with us; a different TA is going to walk you to the class; we are not going to be having snack during this period, it will be in the next)  No matter how small the change, they will have a hard time understanding why it has to change and they will need time to process and adjust to the fact that it has been changed.  You would greatly increase the difficulty for them to process this information if they also have to transition at the same time.

#21 101 Ways a Teacher Could Help a Child with Autism

Category:  General guidelines when dealing with autistic children

Suggestion #21:  Use dulcet tones when speaking with the child.

Many autistic children are hyper sensitive to stimuli.  Speak in calm reassuring tones, even if you are starting to become frustrated with them.  If you sound stressed, they may pick up on that and become stressed themselves.  This stress will make it even harder for them to comply with your requests. 

In other words, yelling or speaking harshly to an atypical person may get their attention and cause them to react quickly (think of the military boot camp and the drill sergeants yelling at the men and women to move faster).  The opposite may happen if you raise your voice (even slightly) to try to have the autistic child react more quickly to your request.  They hear the stress in your voice, and will react to it, causing their brain to become over stimulated and lower their ability to respond.  Keeping this in mind is especially important in situations where the child’s safety is at risk.

#20 101 Ways a Teacher Could Help a Child with Autism

Category:  General guidelines when dealing with autistic children

Suggestion #20:  Tell them specifically what you want them to do, avoid the negative.

As I have mentioned before, communicating with an autistic child is extremely important, and they often process information differently than we do.  If a child is standing on a chair and you don’t want them to do that, saying “don’t do that!” may not help.  When you say not to do something, they have to try and think of what exactly it is that you want them to do, and what is it that you are asking them not to?  Instead, say “please sit on the chair with your butt touching the chair and your feet on the floor.”  Now you have told them exactly what you want them to do, there is no ambiguity.  Use clean, concise requests.   Also, try to avoid using figures off speech, hyperbole, or exaggerating.  Once I told my son, after he ran onto my bed without asking, that he was to get “every speck of dirt out of my bed;” so he brushed the bed once with his hand, and then broke down crying.  He quickly realized that getting every speck of dirt out was impossible.  He sat and cried for 20 minutes before I could explain that I wanted him to get “as much dirt out as possible.”  He then finished brushing the bed.