Autism is a kind of developmental disorder caused by congenital defect that affects the function of the brain. Generally, symptoms can be identified before the age of three. In their daily life, autistic children experience difficulties in three aspects: impairment of social relationships, impairment of social communication and impairment of social adaptive behaviours.
(1) Learning Characteristics of Students with Autism a. Cognitive Ability
Students with autism have difficulty in understanding the interrelations of matters: In general, they do not readily understand the meaning of their life experience. Their world is made up of many independent sessions. They may not be able to link up these sessions to form a meaningful concept and therefore fail to understand the interrelations among the sessions. Once trained, some students can process the information in sequence. However, as it is not easy for them to understand relatively complicated relations, they always have difficulties in cognition.
b. Thinking Ability
• Students with autism find it easier to understand concrete concepts:
Owing to the disorder in some functions of the brain, they may be less competent in processing linguistic symbols and integrating meanings. They can understand concrete concepts and have difficulties in the comprehension of abstract concepts or metaphors. Usually, visual images rather than language can catch their attention.
• Processing piecemeal information: When processing information, these students usually pay attention to part of the information.
They may not be able to understand the picture as a whole.
• Difficulty in processing multiple information at the same time:
Students with autism find it difficult to process multiple information at the same time and they are relatively weak in completing tasks in sequence. Usually, they will react to the situation in a specific way. It is relatively difficult for them to apply the concepts they know to different situations.
c. Attention
Over-focusing on unimportant parts of a matter: Students with autism tend to over-focus on the unimportant parts of a matter while overlooking the important part. Some of them demonstrate a relatively high degree of visual awareness. They will misplace their attention on some trivial matters around them and ignore the normal classroom learning. For example, such students may be totally attracted by the movement of an insect at the corner of the wall and ignore what the teacher is teaching. Moreover, most students with autism are sensitive to sounds. Even light sounds may distract them from paying attention to what the teacher is saying.
d. Concentration
Students with autism are usually weaker in concentration. They react unusually to sensory stimuli. For instance, they selectively attend to what others are saying and would ignore what is happening around them. But they are exceptionally sensitive to certain sounds. These adverse reactions will be a handicap to their normal learning.
(2) Behavioural Characteristics of Students with Autism
Some autistic students may have the following behavioural characteristics:
a. In general, they are rather passive and easily distracted by external stimuli. Usually, they are over-dependent and often need others to teach them how to react.
b. Some students may react unusually to external stimuli. They may laugh, cry, yell or lose temper in response to surrounding changes.
Their reaction to sound, light and tactile stimulations may vary from hyposensitive to hypersensitive. These adverse reactions hinder them from paying attention to their surroundings and thus affect their learning.
c. When they cannot comprehend the changes in their surrounding, they will become emotionally unstable.
d. For some students, certain harmless things may arouse their fear. For example, they may yell on hearing a specific kind of sound or they may be afraid of seeing a specific object. However, they will show no reaction to real danger.
e. These students often lack skills in playing games and fail to follow rules. They always play in their own way and find it difficult to understand or follow the rules of the game. They seldom participate in group games.
f. They sometimes behave in a self-centred manner. For example, once they see their favourite food, they will snatch it.
(3) General Principles of Teaching Students with Autism
a. In order to teach students with autism effectively, teachers normally need to arrange learning activities in a structured environment and develop individualized teaching strategies to cater for students' needs. They have to make a lot of efforts and regular evaluations, which could be quite tiresome. Therefore, teachers concerned are advised to form a support group to solve problems and design teaching programmes collaboratively, as well as to ensure consistency in their way of dealing with students' difficulties.
b. Strategies to cater for students with diverse abilities, in general, also apply to students with autism. e.g. grouping strategy, diverse teaching arrangements, curriculum adaptation and assessment
and limitations, we have to weigh up the advantages and the disadvantages of each strategy and apply the strategies in a complementary and comprehensive manner. Besides, it is necessary for teachers to share their experiences with each other to enhance teaching effectiveness.
c. On the basis of students' needs, behavioural modes and factors underlying their behaviours, teachers can develop an initial teaching plan to help students achieve their learning targets. However, in actual implementation, even the most comprehensive plan may still encounter variables. For example, the noise caused by road repair works may have adverse effects on students' attention and emotion.
Teachers, therefore, should often act as an interpreter to understand students' difficulties and needs by putting themselves in their place, so as to help them comprehend the rules and appropriate behavioural modes under various circumstances.
(4) Classroom Strategies to Teach Students with Autism
As students with autism have difficulties in various aspects, including comprehension, communication and cognition, etc., teachers are advised to make the following arrangements in ordinary lessons:
a. To provide a stable and structured learning environment since students with autism have difficulty in adapting to changes. Prior to making any changes, teachers are advised to inform these students with autism of the changes and reasons for the changes.
b. As the world in the eyes of these students is made up of various independent parts, they are not capable of understanding the causal relationship between various matters. Neither can they explain why something has happened. Therefore, in helping students understand the topics being taught, teachers should try their best to guide students to study the subject from different angles, say, using the "6 Ws"
method:
• What
• Why
• Who
• When
• Where
• How
c. Topics which students with autism are interested in may be different from that of ordinary students. Integration of information into learning activities that interest students can heighten their interest and enhance their effectiveness in learning. For example, teachers may bring out the theme by means of diagrams, music or melodies that interest the students.
d. Make good use of multi-sensory learning activities to enhance experiential learning and comprehension.
e. Teaching plans should be designed in the form of separate activities which students can manage so that they may move from one stage to another and achieve various targets step by step.
f. These students have difficulties in understanding abstract concepts.
They may repeat certain information verbally if they are puzzled.
Teachers, therefore, should not assume that the students have understood the concepts if they are merely repeating the information verbally. Specific examples should be provided to help them understand abstract concepts.
g. As students may not be able to grasp the key points of the tasks, teachers are advised to let them know the steps for completing the tasks.
h. As students may not be able to process multiple information, teachers are advised to give one message at a time and give another instruction only after they have finished the previous task.
i. Teachers can make good use of students' obsessive behaviour and design activities in relation to such behaviour to enhance students' motivation in learning.
j. In order to facilitate students to master the rules and procedures of school and classroom, teachers are advised to provide students with visual aids, such as daily schedules, charts, signs, task organizers, and waiting instructions, etc.
k. Whenever students encounter problems or failure in learning, immediate assistance should be offered. As they may over-react to failure, prompt assistance can prevent such problems from getting worse.
l. Make active use of rewards and encouragement to reinforce students' good performance.
Match Teaching Approaches with learning characteristics