Art and design at KS2 and autism spectrum disorder

The additional challenges to those at KS1 are in:

• Developing control of equipment
• Using a greater range of methods to communicate ideas and feelings
• Making contact with their creativity – difficult, as it’s neither concrete nor logical
• Discussing and comparing methods and approaches
• Describing thoughts and feelings
• Adapting their work to make improvements

You can:

• Support the pupil with a list of vocabulary which could be useful for a specific topic. Explain and discuss the new words, using visual examples.
• Begin any analysis with factual comments (it’s neatly drawn, it has lots of different colours). Progress to the idea of liking or not liking something for a particular reason (I don’t like the colours used, the edges should be straight lines and they are not). Introduce the idea of how it makes someone feel to see this picture or how the pupil felt when they were drawing it Suggest possible basic feelings such as happy, sad and angry.