PSHE: autism spectrum disorder at P level 8

The pupil with Asperger’s syndrome may have difficulty choosing new activities, without support. They may struggle with rules of games if that do not seem ‘fair’ (by which the pupil will subconsciously mean not in their favour). Understanding the needs and feelings of others is an area of difficulty for pupils with Asperger’s syndrome; they lack the mind-reading skills and the understanding of others’ points of view.

Working effectively with others involves empathy and learning the social conventions; how to start and stop a conversation, what another person’s facial expressions and gestures may be telling them, and being flexible in response to different people.

You can:

• Teach the fundamentals of interacting with others as a series of rules, through consistency of boundaries, modelling responses and social stories.
• Give lots of support and encouragement for the pupil’s achievements, reinforcing the appropriateness of their response.
• Issue tokens when the pupil has achieved a target to reinforce positive behaviour. These can count towards time to choose what they want to do. This system of tokens for targets can be managed so it is achievable but not too easy.
• Read about the Circle of Friends concept.