Autism
Autism – what do you know?
Valuing the learner’s voice “I have Asperger's Syndrome, a 'milder' form of Autism, (yeah right!). That means that I have difficulties with social interaction, communication and imagination. Of course you could say that that is a matter of opinion because after all, interaction and communication are a two way thing - maybe I have it right and others have the difficulties!!” (Luke Jackson, aged 14)
The learner’s voice http://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm/book_number/1252/page_number/3/index.cfm?fuse ahttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9142946/Police-officers-assaulted-autistic- boy.htmlction=printable&book_number=1252 http://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time/218621 http://www.theaudiobookmart.com/audiobook.php?abid=BK_RECO_000322 https://youtu.be/W3yk_T4WXhM
Background Autistic Spectrum Disorders: communication, imagination and socialisation. We are all on it -AQ First described by Leo Kanner in 1943. ASD affects 1 in 100 people, approximately and is more prevalent in males (National Autistic Society).
Some brain-based explanations B) The limbic system http://legacy.autism.com/medical/limbic.htm The cortex http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2011/Pages/11-08-autism-neurons.aspx C) The cerebellum http://www.autcom.org/articles/Cerebellum.html Diagram Source: http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/21692469/
What might it mean in your lesson?
Literacy and language difficulties Some learners on the autistic spectrum may have particular difficulties with: Speaking and listening – following ‘conversational maxims’, using/recognising paralinguistic features, prosodic features, functions of speech, adopting different registers. Reading - understanding any ‘non-literal text’, inference, de-coding unfamiliar words, idioms or figurative language, unfamiliar typeface, using semantic reading cue. Writing - about other people, re-presenting information, understanding text genre, phonically irregular spelling, handwriting.