Looking for advice from experience/literature/intervention ideas.
16 year old boy (i am his teacher)with diagnoses ASS. Above average IQ. Typical autism charateristics (difficulty planning, making choices, overseeing a task, lack of empathy, doesnt feel the need to act socially, etc..). Not interested in schoolsubjects. Shows up at every class on time but doesnt do anything. Refuses to do any schoolwork in class or at home. Doesnt talk more than necessary according to him. Ignores any form of interaction with teachers and students in a classic setting.
Untill now applied:
- clear structure
- clear instructions
- evaluation moments (raises shoulders, 'no comment - dont care')
- discussed effects of his behavior
Looking for advice from experience/literature/intervention ideas.
Hi Ed, thanx for your reply. its not just my subject, its all subjects and school in general. He only likes gaming in his room (the team around him, teachers, parents, behavioral scientists als looking for ways to trigger is intrinsic motivation) . In all my years in special education i have never met a student like him. He does come to school but just refuses to talk or do anything. I guess i am looking for a similar situation and successtories.
My profession is a teacher and I’ve come across some kids with various disabilities who find it difficult to engage with all subjects and school in general. I know how difficult it is to engage these particular students, even if you have full support from the SENCO, other teachers, parents and SLT: Some students just dont seem to realize or care about the barriers they put themselves in that prevents them from learning successfully.
I teach humanities subjects and I had one student who had a variety of disabilities who refused to do work for the first semester. It was in most of the other subjects too, with the exception of PE. Her only interest was in cooking which unfortunately was not something that we could give — however, she also liked Harry Potter so that made it a lot easier when making references or giving her a star chart of tasks to complete for the week. Even giving the 5 minute breaks in between lessons or near the end of the lesson was helpful for her to reset (along with it benefiting the other students). This student also found it difficult to get around the change between Grade 5 to Grade 6, and also found it challenging to form social groups with the rest of the girls. I think it helped also that I was pretty much like “yeah, I have this too” and encouraging her to do the social stuff in the arts and crafts group that I had to do for ASA was helpful for her to link with the other girls in her class.
I find that if you have something in common with them or show an interest in Something that they enjoy themselves that creates a good link with them. For example, one of the classes I taught had all boys between the ages of 14-17. I had one who was on the spectrum, and would often use it as background as to why he couldn’t do something. It got to the point that he often filed to complete assignments in the first term and would say that he was leaving school to do his apprenticeship at the end of the academic year, so why would he bother with classes. I think it got to the point that I decided to give him a 0 and a detention. I told him he had a ton of potential that he was wasting and that I know he can do better. Up at the stage I was also sharing that I play video games and had these cool resources for them to use that were fun to use. It was a really good change with this kid after Christmas. He started submitting work on time, enjoying his assignments and I didn’t get any more “I’m only here till …..”. But sometimes, a kid also needs a good wake up call. I know that he came from a difficult home life but his parents were supportive, and I know that he was often felt by his other teachers that he was a waste of space. I guess, seeing that someone else wasn’t going to give up on him even though I had to give that detention, helped him realize that I wasn’t just being nice or thinking badly about him.
The awareness that I have with different learning methods and what works best for me, I know that I struggle to work on something that doesn’t interest me so I have to be adaptive and use a pool of resources and different ways like experiments, allowing the kids to take charge of their own learning and do a ton of projects or presentations, live action role play scenarios, experiencing an earthquake, playing Assassins Creed History tour to learn about the ancient world. In my last job, I had a kid who obviously had a few things not right with him. I dont know if he had a disability but it was obvious that he found the content challenging And would often mess around in His classes. They needed to do an assessment but nothing was prepared, so I decided on the last two weeks before Christmas to do a map skills ”test”. There was a lot of practical work that they did in groups, and so they learned to work collaboratively together and on the last day before term ended for the holiday, I made them use their maps to do a treasure hunt. It was part of their assessment but I got told by one of the other teachers that this kid had been looking forward to this assessment for two weeks. He had even mentioned it in his meeting with this teacher and with his mom.
Also, it’s his parents job to ensure that he is not playing video games to all hours of the day. It is their job To ensure that he has a set time and that means that he has to have a vigorous reset of his routine. Which I know is harsh to say. I say this because also I had a student who had SEN needs, its possible that he was ASD but his mom was reluctant to get him diagnosed, and he was practically a latch-key kid who would come home and play video games until 3 am. Then sleep and then go to school for 8:35. He was also deemed a waste of space by my lovely colleagues (sarcasm). Whilst he was never fully high achieving, it became apparent that this kid just needed someone to talk to and to listen because he was very depressed, alone except for one very good friend, would often go hungry in the day. He used to use gaming as a means of escape. This kid changed his attitude towards his learning (bare minimum work, often forgot deadlines, performed badly in assessments with gaining under 4 often) at some point near the end of the first semester. I dont know what he was like in other Classes except things didnt really change for him, but in mine, I gave him more responsibility, I continuously gave him feedback, I gave him and the other students more interactive learning methods (even if it was as simple as “you are King Louis XVI and you will role play as this). It also helped that if he did something, I would acknowledge it even if it was small and I know that the other Teachers would have just ignored it. Whilst he played video games, there was more focus on his work and whilst the topics i taught for history Weren’t what he was interested in, I found things that I know he was interested in like warfare to use as a topic for the lesson. Although I would have done that anyway. We focused far too long on the Punic Wars than I previously taught on the topic.=D He made an interactive game board with his friend as part of the assignment, so that was pretty cool to see.
