Multimedia presentation/Two page resource for teachers

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Hi from New Zealand

Myself and a partner are to do a mulimedia pair presentation for an assignment for a paper called "Developing Inclusive Practices" [in primary education].

We want to explore the off-hand diagnosis/label "Somewhere on the spectrum". What does this mean? How would your teaching strategies alter depending on where your students are "on the spectrum"?

Any thoughts?

*multimedia

We were thinking that by exploring questions neurotypical teachers would have relating to autistic students in the classroom, we'd model the stance of curiosity required to be inclusive. What questions could we explore?

Hi Cullectcall,
Personally, my teaching strategies would not alter depending on a label or an off-hand diagnosis. They would alter based on assessment of each child's individual learning needs. Perhaps a better approach would be, if you could identify a few specific learning needs to focus on, how can we differentiate instruction to support children in our classrooms with these individual needs. Or perhaps more generally, how can we effectively assess and respond to the special needs of individual students in our classrooms. I'm just a bit wary of implying that all children with ASDs will respond to a particular intervention.

Hi Scubasteve,

True! I'm a particular fan of Sterberg & Grigorenko (1999), Our labelled Children. However, for the purposes of this assignment......What are the general needs of students on the spectrum?

Hi Cullectcall,

I'm not sure there is such a thing as "the general needs of students on the spectrum". Some may struggle with math, others may be exceptionally gifted in it. Some may have significant reading delays, others may read far ahead of grade level. And so on. The "Autistic Spectrum" is really a psychological grouping. It does not exist as an educational classification, largely because it is too diverse to be useful in this context.

That said, there are certainly some educational practices which many find helpful... Anything from multimodal instruction, to scaffolding, to simply setting clear, consistent goals and expectations, is likely to be helpful to many students with many different learning needs (and many "typical" students as well.) For the topic of "Developing Inclusive Practices in Primary Education", these might be good places to start.