The Autism Project - Session 5

 8/8/25

The Autism Project 
RTLB services

Emotional Learning

Are there specific PB4L lessons or Skills Streaming we could use?

Be Good People

Pig and Elephant stories

Social learning needs to be authentic and repeated.

Using an arrow (with the timetable)

Emotions impact everything.

Big Emotions - 

Code word to go in or out, depending on where you are

In a heightened state, you cannot give them consequences or negotiate.

Behaviours of concern

Don't only affect teachers, students, 'the student', parents

<insert behaviour of concern photo>

Arc of Emotional Regulation

Behaviours of concern are in the red.

Alexithymia

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulty identifying, experiencing, and expressing emotions, both in oneself and in others. It's often described as "emotional blindness". People with alexithymia may struggle to understand and describe their own feelings, and they may also have trouble recognizing emotions in others, potentially leading to social awkwardness. 

body heat map for Alexithymia

Visuals for teaching

large eye, ear, and heart, thinking bubble.

What does it look like, sound like, feel like? What were you thinking? 

Tantrum v Meltdown

Dr Dan Siegel's model of the brain

Upstairs Brain Tantrum - if you give them what they want their behaviour stops quickly.

Downstairs Brain Tantrum (e.g. meltdown) - overwhelmed, flipped their lid, emotionally flipped. Bring them to a state of calm before we can talk.

Feelings 

Talk more/pay more attention to the "more positive" feelings than the "more negative"

Ratio: 3:1

Feeling cards or coreboards on lanyard

Strategies

• emotional coaching/commenting/descriptive narrative.
  making observations and commenting on it.
  Notice - Name
  "I can see a big smile on your face, you must be feeling happy"
  
  "I can see you're sitting at your desk with your weighted blanket and doing your learing. You're looking calm, well done"
  
  "I can see you've grabbed your putty and squeezed it.  You look calmer."
  
  You can coach by noticing and naming other students when the focus student is around them.  When your focus student does it you NEED to NOTICE AND NAME IT.
  
  
• Mirrors
  "sorry face", learning emotions, self-care
• Visual Prompts and Cue Cards - focus on a couple for the term.  Could have a lanyard of them.
• Breathing - co-regulate with your student.  Jelly Belly Breathing.  Blowing up a balloon.  Breathing whistle. Whole class teaching on this, practice regularly.
• Puppets - could use wooden dolls, paint your own wooden dolls, and high interest dolls e.g. moana.
• Themometer
• Zones - Needs to be taught explicity, is interactive.
• Calm Down Space
• Heavy Work - Sensational Brain
• Sensory Toys (hippy stick)

Equity poster

The Autism Project - Session 4

 18/7/25

The Autism Project 
RTLB services

Strategies for Success

- I need to get going on using puppets.

- Have arrow for timetable (student to move)

Social Learning

ASD children have difficulty picking up social cues.  It can vary a lot between children.  Repetitive, restrictive behaviours.

Sound, light, proximity can be a barrier.

Core Ideas

• Social difficulties are one of the core affected areas for autistic children.
• Social challenges may appear in the first few months of life.
• One of the earliest signs is a lack of physical response.
• Find joint attention difficult.
• May pay less attention and empathy to others.
• They don't lack empathy.
• Their are subgroupings of children.

1. passive
2. aloof
3. active but odd
4. over formal and stilted

Social interactions need to be explicitly taught.

Benefits

underpins 

• relationships 
• jobs 
• coping
• is universal 
• communication
• is a "toolbox for life" 
• enables potential 
• lets you be liked and included
• removes fears and concerns
• culturally responsive
• teach through social stories and role model - related to something that is relevant

{look up friendship terrace program}

Barriers

• time
• resources
• social/cultural bias/preference
• need for patience to reinforce
• expectations of teachers
• lower acceptance of societal
• crowded curriculum
• mixed messages home/school
• success is not guaranteed unless taught in context

Descriptive commenting need to continually be reinforced.  Commenting what you want to see.  Don't withdraw them - teach in context.

{see list of 50 social skills from Paul}

Strategies to Support

• A.B.C. (antecedent. behaviour. consequence) antecedent could be motivator. consequence could be outcome.  motivator give 2 choices but student has control to pick - behaviour = participates - consequence = he can go immediately.  Consequence needs to be immediate.
• Intentional Communication.  Teacher as interpreter.  "Karen, you just need to stand back a bit so others can get to the tap."  "Freddy, Sandra would like to move over a bit to give them some space."  Being explicit to help the student get across the bridge of understanding.
• Descriptive Commenting (coaching).  "I'm noticing that you are......" 3-1 ratio.  Name it.  "Well done you are waiting for your turn."
• Visuals. 
• Multiple Opportunities to Learn
• Dramatic Play
• Social Skills Taught in an Authentic Context
• Using Books to Teach Social Skills
• Working with Like Minds
• Social Story
• Peer Mediated Social Learning.

The Autism Project - Session 2

6/6/25

The Autism Project 
RTLB services

Pasifika Fonofale Model

Strengthening relationships with parents/family is very important.

7 Core ideas of communication

1. Receptive communication - communication coming in.

1. Difficulties with auditory processing

2. Difficulties with comprehension e.g. attach meaning to words, difficulty interpreting faces etc.

2. 

3. Joint attention - ability to coordinate attention between people and objects.  Once you get joint attention you’re more likely to get compliance.

4. Symbol use - use conventional gestures and understanding and using the conventional meaning of words.  Use objects in play. Make these to communicate with Sam especially.

5. Social pragmatic skills - speaking in socially appropriate ways. (difficulties with prosody - rate, rhythm, inflection and volume -intonation-)

6. Echollalia - the repetition of words or phrases spoken by someone else.  Usually an imitation in order to communicate.

7. Unconventional behaviours - children who do not develop fluent communication skills may use inappropriate or unconventional behaviours such as aggression or self-injury as means of communication. What could I replace the wall for for Sam.

Communication Checklist

beyondautism.co.uk

PECS

Social Stories

Fringes - top of the core board.

Add more from website

Importance of Visuals - Andrea RTLB

They enhance predictability, facilitates transitions including time, and helps convey expectations.

Anxiety of not knowing is many times more than a neurotypical person.

No often means no i’m not ready yet.  Visuals help with this.

There is an Autism culture - Their normal and gravitating towards others who are like them.

Don’t have an emotional response to all the labels in your classroom.

Is your class schedule eye level?

What would be better down the board or across the bottom

Individual schedules.

Visuals need to be accessible.

• Stop interrupting, wait.

Level of symbolic functioning - 1 concrete, 2 photo, 3 pictorial

Photographs for routines.

Chunking - breaking a task down.

• Step by step (for maths do…)

Example with student 

• CAOS (communication, attention, order, system) Framework and expanded curriculum and formulate goals.

• Numicon

• Colourful semantics-oral language focus moving into writing.

• Individual schedule with a timer-importance of a timer.

The Autism Project - Session 2

16/5/25

The Autism Project 
RTLB services

Website

• Autism friendly music
• Autism friendly visuals

Parked Questions

CAP - collaborative action plan

IEP - individual action plan

Tātai plan

Every plan should be collaborative including whānau

Is it genetic?  is some relation with older parents especially older fathers.  Can be random.  Can identify a specific gene.

Can immunisation cause autism?  They say no.

Jury is still out but increasing evidence shows it's genetic going down the line.

Ideas

• Conversation cards
• Visuals

Some of the characteristics present in autism is similar to children with trauma.

[Video] What does it feel like to have Autism?

Sensorimotor

Te whare tapa wha

 

Takiwātanga within te whare tapa whā

A lens that you can use for all cultures.

Sensory Systems

• Auditory
• Tactile
• Visual
• Proprioceptive - body/vestibular (pressure of knowing where you are)
• Olfactory
• Gustatory
• Interoception
• Vestibular

<sensory info>

Hypo and Hyper responses

Gravitational insecurity

Tactile defensiveness

Arousal modulation difficulties

Arousal is the state of wakefulness, of being energised or alert.

Can't shut down - autonomic nervous system.

heart rate, blood pressure, sensory alertness, desire mobility and reactivity.

Distorted perception

Visual perception difficulties including difficulties with depth perception, distorted of size, shape, motion, recognising faces (prosopagnosia - face blindness) or seeing only small details rather than a whole.

Auditory perception and procession difficulties.

Paradoxical responses

'polar opposite' responses.

hyper e.g. task-switching and struggling to main attention then suddenly become hyper-focused or hyper-fixated.

hypo - over react to fire alarm but doesn't react to touch.

Hypo and Hyper

CUP ANALOGY VIDEO

Sensory seekers are separate.

Over - modify, adapt

Under - 

Seekers - find what fills up their cup, providing options, provide sensory aspect

Supportive Strategies

• shorter mat times
• first, then board
• calm kit (clearly teach equitability)
• Acoustic modifications
• Lighting adjustments
• Classroom organisation
• Colour coding
• Heavy work <sheet>

Resource list on website

The Autism Project - Session 1

2/5/25

The Autism Project
RTLB 
South Hornby Primary School

The Autism Project Website

- thinking

- sensorimotor

- communicaiton

- social learning

- emotional learning

interwoven with relationships and visuals

what cultures are ok with eye contact and which ones are not?

Takiwatanga - In his, her, their self in one space and time - Māori term for Autism.

Evidence-base

www.autismnz.org.nz

www.altogetherautsim.org.nz

TKI autism and learning. www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/autism-and-learning/

Aotearoa NZ Autism Guidelines 2nd or 3rd Eds.

NZ Curriculum

Incredible Years Autism - Carolyn Webster Stratton 2021

Tips for Autism.

<insert scan of terminology>

Go with what the family wants their child called e.g. Mavis who has Autism.  If not follow terminology guidelines.

What is Autism?

<add in>

Restricted means they'll restrict themselves because of a sensory reason, haven't finished their previous tasks etc.

Repetitive means continuous repeating 

DSM 5 - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.  Reference book on mental health and brain-related conditions and disorders.

Included examples, signs, and symptoms of these conditions.

Individual must meet 6 or more out of the 12 criteria.

According to the DSM-5, the features of ‘autism spectrum disorder’ include: 

• criterion A: persistent deficits in reciprocal social communication and social interaction
• criterion B: restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests or activities
• criterion C: symptoms must be present in the early developmental period
• criterion D: symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning
• criterion E: these disturbances are not better explained by intellectual disability or global developmental delay.

The DSM-5 is not published publicly online as this is a purchase-only manual principally designed for clinicians.

Diagnostic pathway in NZ is initiated by parents.

Teachers role do not suggest to parents their children have Autism.  If it does it comes from a senior leadership position.

Have professional conversations with SENCO or RTLB liason.

Common Characteristics

-obsessions

-black and white thinking

• blank stare
• social cues misinterpretation
• quick to anger/disregulation
• co-occurence with trauma
• need for routine
• water sensory need
• needing weight/pressure
• repetitive verbalisations
• personal space boundaries
• flapping/stimming
• need for reassurance
• vestibular/swining
• proprioception
• follow your own logic/stubbornness
• differences in language abilities
• attachments-objects/people
• difficulty with transitions

Out of our thinking the others occur.  The children are trying to fit into a system and want to create order.

Circling can be a calming for them.

There are distince differences between girls and boys and their traits.

<add scan of As-teachers...we observe!>

NZ Curriculum

Plan for ALL students to experience all the statements in the sequence for their year level. (NZC p24)

Thinking

<add notes from whiteboard>

Strategies

• Get into your child's spotlight (get into their world).

        - find out what they like

        - come down to their level

        - gentle intrusion/child led

        - face to face activity

        - visual prompts and pictures e.g. visual timetable

        - modelling and repetition.  If they are not talking in conversation you might repeat what              they say.  "I like my dog Ruffles."  "Your dog Ruffles?"  "Yeah Ruffles likes to go in the              bath."  "Ruffles likes to go in the bath?"

          Sitting on the mat with them etc to model.