Mathematics at KS2 and autism spectrum disorder

The National Curriculum for maths is statutory in all maintained, mainstream schools up to and including key stage 4. An appropriate version of the curriculum is used in maintained special schools. Key Stage 2 (KS2) covers years 3-6 (children aged from 8-11 years).

• Additional challenges are in the areas of communicating and explaining reasoning, using correct mathematical language, exploring shapes and space, using charts and diagrams.
• Communicating and co-operating are key to reasoning and explaining how results were obtained. This creates difficulties for the Asperger’s syndrome child - talking through what may be obvious to them will be difficult and they may not understand why others do not see it too. They may be reluctant to use more than one method to work something out, which may impact on problem solving where a flexible approach is helpful.

You can:

• Support problem-solving with a logical process that the child can apply to other situations.
• Make charts and graphs relevant to their experience for example a bar chart of shoe sizes, or the birthdays of pupils in the class (rather than a graph showing which football teams pupils support if the pupil is not interested in football). Explain why graphic representation is helpful in certain ways.

Now you might like to look at:

• Mathematics and autism spectrum disorder at key stage 1
• Mathematics and autism spectrum at key stage 3