Supporting Pupils on the Autism Spectrum in Secondary Schools

A Practical Guide for Teaching Assistants

Carolyn Canavan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317667292
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Written to meet the needs of teaching assistants and learning support assistants, this book provides a practical toolkit for supporting students on the autistic spectrum in mainstream secondary schools.

The book offers a clear, jargon free explanation of autism spectrum conditions and examines the difficulties arising from these conditions and how they can impact on students' learning. Addressing issues which arise on a daily basis, it is full of practical advice and strategies for supporting students socially and academically across all areas of the curriculum.

Features include:

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• templates to scaffold students' comprehension and learning in different subject areas

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• forms to help with information collection and evaluation

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• advice on supporting students through examinations

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• examples and case studies to illustrate how the strategies described work in practice

Packed with photocopiable resources that can be adapted to suit individual students' needs, this book is essential reading for teaching assistants that want to help their students' on the autistic spectrum to reach their full potential.

Part One

1 Strengths of individuals with Asperger Syndrome

Before I talk about their difficulties, I would like to write about some of their strengths:

• The individual with AS is loyal and will persevere with a friendship, even if let down. They are socially optimistic.

• They are free from prejudice and accept people at face value.

• Contrary to popular belief, they are very empathic and may surprise you with their insight. (They just don’t know what to do about another person’s feelings.)

• They will tell you what they really feel and think about something rather than what they think you want to hear.

• When they ask a question – they want the honest answer to it. There is no hidden motive behind it.

• They will tell the truth even if it means getting themselves into trouble.

• They rarely do something they know to be wrong, even when pressured.

• They have a strong sense of justice and neither fear nor favour.

• Their humour can be unique and unconventional.

• They love words, especially puns, and will use them to make up their own jokes.

• They want to co-operate but often don’t know how.

• If they enjoy a sport, they will train hard to be the best and are particularly good at individual sports rather than team games.

• They have the ability to learn quickly and want to progress, especially if interested in the topic.

• When they start a task they want to do it perfectly.

• They have a good eye for detail and will pick up mistakes.

• If it interests them, they can concentrate on a single task for a very long period of time.

• When they are interested or motivated in a task they will persevere with an extraordinary determination to finish.

• Their long-term memory is good, especially for childhood experiences, facts, figures, dates and film dialogue or audio recordings.

• They are creative, often insightful, and can provide an original solution to a problem.

• Their spatial awareness can be quite remarkable – they are visual thinkers.

• They often have an encyclopaedic knowledge of their special interest.

• Of average or above average intelligence, they have the potential to go on to university.

• They often have an interest or a talent for something: design, Japanese, quantum physics, art, music or computing – find out what it is and nurture it.

2 Important things to know about Autism Spectrum Conditions

The Autism Spectrum covers a very broad range of Pervasive Developmental Disorders, which are lifelong neuro-physiological conditions:

• Classic Autism, also known as Kanner Syndrome or Low Functioning Autism;

• High Functioning Autism (HFA);

• Asperger Syndrome (AS);

• Semantic Pragmatic Disorder (SPD);

• Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome (PDA);

• Retts Syndrome;

• Tourette Syndrome;

• Pervasive Development Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) – this often develops into autism or AS later in life, or a child with autism may improve and be re-diagnosed with PDD-NOS.
(See glossary for descriptions of each of these conditions.)

Most ASCs are hidden disabilities caused by differences in the formation of the brain and the way it responds to stimuli. This is backed up by research using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans, which detect blood flow through the brain in response to a variety of stimuli. Consequently, our expectations of individuals with an ASC can sometimes be compared to asking a blind person to ‘look at this’ or a deaf person to ‘listen’. This is why it is so important we understand the condition and appreciate the difficulties that those with it are confronted with on a daily basis.

The brains of people with Asperger Syndrome are larger than average neuro-typical brains and they have more white and grey matter. Grey matter is responsible for extracting and processing information from sensory organs (for example sight, sound, speech) and is involved in muscle control, memory and emotions. Various parts of the brain compare that information to what is in the memory and use the information to plan and execute behaviour. White matter carries information around the brain through electric and chemical activity but this is also disordered.

More recent research suggests that the autistic brain has more neural pathways to carry information round the brain but that they are not co-ordinated. Or that too much information comes into the brain than it is able to process, leading to overload. In order to function, people with autism use strategies to distract themselves from the stimuli which threaten to overwhelm them, leading to a display of idiosyncratic behaviours. Researchers concluded that this might explain the problems with attention: for example, too much information comes in through the visual system so that the person becomes distracted and shows less interest in social interaction. However, they also suggest that hyper-connectivity might also explain the islets of ability in mathematics and visual search or detailed focus processing.

Difficulties processing information

As a result of all these differences, people with an ASC have processing difficulties with social interaction; emotional recognition and regulation; impulse suppression; language processing – input and output; fine and gross motor skills; planning and organization; attention, short term memory, the ability to be flexible and sensory regulation. There may also be areas of profound ability in any subject area: not just science or maths but also music or art.

To use a metaphor to illustrate the problem:

1 The typical brain is like a fast road network. Information coming in at A goes to B by travelling along the neural pathways. Like a car travelling along the motorways, the information gets to its destination without any fuss.

2 The autistic brain is different. Information coming in at A goes to B, but it takes longer because of the differences in the brain, like a car going from A to B along b roads. It may even get lost and end up at the seaside (C) for a holiday and turn up at its original destination weeks or even months later.

With the uneven distribution of grey and white matter, and the low levels of chemical neurotransmitters to push inhibitory messages across the synapses (joints), it may even be a more arduous journey with traffic jams and detours. The synapses may even be broken in some places so that processing is severely impaired and takes much longer.

3 However, the uneven distribution of white and grey matter may account for the exceptional abilities one can find in pupils with AS, such as calculating complex mathematical equations without the apparent need to process them, or a photographic memory by which large amounts of text can be quoted but with little comprehension. This is similar to someone knowing a shortcut and getting from A to B without really knowing how – it’s just the way they have always done it.

Faulty connections may also account for sensory issues. Super-efficient neural pathways may cause hypersensitivity and a flood of information so that the nervous system is constantly under pressure to process more than it can; and the lack of connectedness together with thin white matter and patchy grey matter can be the cause of hyposensitivity.

Trying to process tasks such as planning and writing an essay has been described to me as comparable to building a tower of cards – ‘it’s very hard!’ An interruption by a well meaning TA or teacher sends the tower tumbling down. The person with an ASC cannot take up where they left off because of a poor working memory. How frustrating is that! You may see an angry child, because all the work they have constructed in their mind has gone and they have to start the whole process again from the very beginning.

The amygdala

The amygdala, a small part of the brain that, research has shown, has a major influence on much of the behaviour of a child on the spectrum, is responsible for recognizing and coordinating information from different parts of the brain and processing an emotional response. It is one of the areas in the brain responsible for recognizing social cues such as facial expressions and body language, in other words, the emotional responses of other people. In the early years the amygdala is enlarged in people with an ASC but shrinks to become smaller than normal in adolescence.

The amygdala triggers the flight or fight reflex. It is linked to the frontal cerebral cortex, which, depending on the information relayed, will suppress the reflex. For example, you see someone baring their teeth at you; your heart races, muscles tense, you feel hot and your hands sweat. These physical reactions are relayed to the hypothalamus, which regulates the emotion on a subconscious level in nanoseconds.

At the same time, the cerebral cortex and hippocampus evaluate the information, based upon knowledge or memories of similar past experiences, to make a judgement as whether or not there is a threat present. This information is relayed back to the amygdala through two inhibitory neurotransmitters called serotonin and glycine. In other words, the rational frontal lobe system overrides the basic instinct of the amygdala. If your brain reasons that someone is actually threatening you, you acknowledge that you are frightened and in danger and run in the opposite direction. If you recognize that he is smiling, your brain suppresses the desire to run away and you reach out to shake his hand in greeting.

The ‘faulty wiring’ in the brain connecting the amygdala to the frontal lobe, where impulses are controlled, may lead to a breakdown in communication. The individual with an ASC may be unaware of what is really happening. For example, when we get a fright after hearing a loud, unexpected noise and feel the adrenalin surge causing our heart to race and making us alert to everything around us, we are experiencing the same feeling as an individual on the spectrum. The difference is that in a nanosecond we assess the danger and quickly realize that it’s actually not going to hurt us. There is nothing to be alarmed about, our heart rate returns to normal and we breathe a sigh of relief and calm down quickly. For the individual on the spectrum, the difficulties in processing what has happened mean that, instead of calming down, the panic rises as they try to work out what has happened. They want to understand, they can’t, they become frustrated and angry and this feeling can last minutes, or hours, or the whole day.

Another aspect of the high levels of fear that the child feels is that their memories of that event will trigger the same reaction in the future when they are placed in a similar situation or with the same group of people. All those intense emotions will come pouring back and send them into a blind panic. Try to imagine what it must be like trying to function while experiencing such an onslaught on the senses and emotions.

It is important to understand that the neurobiological differences make a great impact on the behaviour of the individual with AS. It is not a choice, and it should inform the way we manage the pupil in school.

Can you imagine what it is like to be frightened every day of your life because your brain cannot predict what is going to happen next? Can you imagine trying to concentrate while your body is being tortured? Can you imagine living in a world surrounded by beings you cannot understand, where it feels like you have come from a different planet?

Further reading

Attwood, T. (2006). The Complete Guide to Asperger Syndrome. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Frith, U. (2003). Autism, Explaining the Enigma. 2nd edition, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

*Jackson, L. (2003). Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Website: http://www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/autism-and-asperger-syndrome-an-introduction.aspx National Autistic Society (national charity), information, strategies and links to other useful sites.

3 Autism Spectrum Conditions in history

No-one really knows what causes autism. It is not a modern phenomenon. There are the old tales of changeling children who are stolen by the fairies and replaced with an identical child who screams and behaves ‘badly’.

In her book, Autism, Explaining the Enigma, Uta Frith recounts a number of stories of people who display autistic behaviour.

Brother Juniper, who lived in Italy in the twelfth century, went to visit a sick brother in the hospital. When asked if there was anything he could do for him, the sick brother told Brother Juniper he’d love to have a pig’s foot to eat. Brother Juniper went into the forest with a knife from the kitchens and cut off the foot of a live pig and carefully prepared a meal, which the sick brother enjoyed enormously. The owner of the maimed pig complained to the Franciscans but Brother Juniper could not comprehend what he had done wrong.

He was also in the habit of giving people anything they asked for, including his clothes. After this happened a few times, he was told not to do it any more, so the next time he was asked for clothing Brother Juniper told the beggar that he could not give him his habit but if the beggar took it off him he would not stop him.

Frith also describes the Holy or Blessed Fools of Russia, who she believes may have been autistic. They had no social awareness. Some roamed around naked, having a lack of sensitivity to pain, cold or hunger. They are reported as exhibiting bizarre, ritualistic behaviour: Pelagija Serebrenikova, for example, collected stones and bricks and placed them beside a flooded pit. She threw them all into the water. Then, when all the stones and bricks had gone; she waded into the pit and threw them out onto dry land; she then waded out of the pit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword by Allison Hope-West
• How to use this book
• Note on terminology
• Introduction
• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Afterword
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index