

If your child or young person is struggling with a particular social situation or event in school, ask support staff if they could write a social story™ or comic strip conversation to help. Seeing the more abstract aspects of social communication visually can help to make the feelings of other more concrete and easier to understand. Many autistic children and young people lack social understanding. Social stories™ are short descriptions of a particular situation, event or activity, which include specific information about what to expect in that situation and why.Ĭomic strip conversations use symbols, colour and stick figure drawings to represent the different elements of a conversation. Social stories™ and comic strip conversations Classes should be tailored for the pupils who are attending.Īsk school if they use any social education programmes and whether your child or young person could be included. These can help autistic children and young people to increase their understanding of social situations, interpret non-verbal signals and practise skills such as turn-taking, listening and negotiating. Social skills or self-esteem lessons can help to boost confidence. It’s important that autistic pupils also have the opportunity to interact socially, but use this resource carefully by monitoring the need for and benefit of it with your child regularly.

Talk to school to see if they can designate an area for your child or young person and whether this could also be used at the beginning and end of the school day. To avoid stigma being attached to this place, it’s helpful to choose an area that has many established uses. This could be within the school inclusion unit, library or calmer area of the school and may not be the same for all autistic pupils. It’s useful for autistic children and young people to have an agreed safe and quiet place they can go to when they feel anxiety building or are overloaded by sensory stimuli. It’s also useful for all support staff to have some autism awareness training, particularly those offering playground support. Staff can monitor and observe autistic children and young people and then identify and share the support needs of those who can’t express their own feelings.Īsk school what supervision your child or young person has during unstructured times. Good supervision during unstructured times is essential. Lunchtime clubs such as an art or Lego group can be useful, especially if the activity is of a particular interest to your child or young person and you know that they can be actively involved.īe cautious of lunchtime activities that can be viewed as punishment, it’s important to understand the difference between a structured activity and a directive one. There are templates you can buy or use online. With your child, make a communication passport so that teaching and support staff can find out more about them. Include information about things they like and don’t like and how they communicate. Here are some ideas that you can try or suggest to school to help your child feel more comfortable in the school environment during break and lunch time. Wherever possible, it’s important to have an open and mutually supportive relationship with your child or young person’s school. have difficulty understanding other people’s behaviour.A school dining room or playground can be distressing as they may: They may have difficulty developing social skills.Īutistic children and young people like structure and routine because it helps them to cope in an unpredictable world.

Because of this, the playground can be intimidating as they can’t read the body language of others and find it difficult to understand ‘social rules’. We also talk about bullying and how increased awareness and understanding can help.Īutistic children and young people can have difficulty with communication, social interaction, friendships and imaginative play. Here, we look at reasons for this and ways in which parents and school can help. School can be challenging for your child or young person, with unstructured times being particularly difficult. Gift Aid and making your donation go further Our patron, president and vice presidents
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