When you’re in a classroom or any other social situation, you come across plenty of people with different ways of thinking from you.
Behavior
High-functioning autism
When you’re in a classroom or any other social situation, you come across plenty of people with different ways of thinking from you.
While many of these come from social and cultural differences from one, some of them come from psychological differences that people have from birth. This includes conditions such as high-functioning autism. Learn more about what high-functioning autism is, in addition to similar conditions, and the ideal steps to take when adjusting your teaching to someone with autism in the classroom.
Education resources
What is high-functioning autism?
High-functioning autism, although a condition that many people recognize, isn’t an official diagnosis that doctors provide. Instead, it refers to a form of autism that people suffer from, allowing them to read still, write, speak, and complete standard daily tasks without much support from other people. Autism is a developmental disorder with symptoms including difficulty interacting effectively in social settings and struggles with communicating with others, including a failure to understand social cues and tone.
Autism is a condition that affects different people in different ways. People now refer to the condition as Autism Spectrum Disorder (or ASD) thanks to the various ways the issues affect people. People that require less support fall into the category of “high-functioning autism”, whereas those that struggle with interactions daily and require a carer or other support fall into a “low-functioning category”.
Levels of autism
There are several levels of autism that people fall into. Thanks to years of research, psychologists have tools that they use when diagnosing the degree to which a patient has autism. By cross-referencing the condition across these tools, psychologists better understand the nature of the condition in each individual person with the condition. Diagnosis can occur as early as 18 months, with others receiving diagnoses in later childhood or as adults.
The three levels of autism that people suffer from are as follows:
Level 1
People with Level 1 ASD have symptoms with a very minimal impact on their day-to-day lives. This means a normal standard of performance in school, working effectively in their careers without intervention, and the ability to support standard relationships with people. Most people with high-functioning autism fall into this category, as they can go about their lives without intervention from psychologists, carers, or, in some cases, any medication that adjusts their condition.
Level 2
People with Level 2 ASD require some support from experts daily. For example, this includes receiving speech therapy to support better communication with people in their lives or social skills training to ensure that the sufferer appropriately responds to difficulties in social situations. This includes teaching the autistic person about what particular social cues mean, how best to respond to them, and the steps to take when improving how they react to people in the future. The focus in these cases is on improving relationships, thus the quality of life for a young person or someone that struggles with forming friendships.
Level 3
Level 3 ASD requires significant amounts of support daily. This varies from requiring support with completing standard tasks such as cooking to having a full-time aide with intensive therapy. The therapy can result from the emotional and physical toll that more comprehensive ADHD conditions lead to. Some people are entirely non-verbal and struggle to move of their own volition. This is the version of autism that some people refer to as low-functioning, as the sufferer can only complete some of the more basic tasks in their lives without a greater level of support from a carer or health professional.
Related conditions
There are several conditions that people associate with autism-related symptoms. Understanding the differences between these conditions means better responses to young people in need or struggling with social and developmental situations. Some of these conditions include:
Asperger’s Syndrome
Asperger’s Syndrome is a condition that has a lot in common with autism, with some fundamental factors differing between the two. The main differences between the two include the lack of a delay in:
- The way that the person uses their language
- The cognitive development of the person with the condition
- The rate of development of age-appropriate self-help skills
- The way that sufferers develop their adaptive behavior
- The rate of developing curiosity about the environment around them
People with Asperger’s Syndrome have milder symptoms than people with autism and can be mistaken as having high-functioning autism in some cases. Asperger’s Syndrome is not one that doctors tend to diagnose due to these similarities, with the majority of relevant cases instead receiving a simple ASD diagnosis rather than one that is more specific to their condition. This is regardless of the specific support that the sufferer requires.
ADHD
ADHD is another condition that appears similar to autism while having fundamental differences separating the two. Someone with ADHD has the characterizing factor that they struggle to focus on things that they need to concentrate on, rather than the difficulties with focusing on things they dislike, as with autism. There are also fundamental differences in how someone with ADHD communicates, as they talk rapidly and passionately about subjects that interest them. On the contrary, autism sufferers sometimes struggle with communication.
Repetition is another major differentiating factor. Someone with autism becomes attached to one consistent thing, such as having a favorite food or meal most of the time. People with ADHD, whether a child or an adult, don’t enjoy doing the same thing repeatedly. Rejection-sensitive dysphoria also separates the two, with RSD making ADHD sufferers feel emotional pain when presented with failure and rejection.
How to support learners with autism
One of the main goals of working in education is to ensure that every student has the opportunity to thrive. When dealing with neurodiversity in the classroom, this means providing support in a few unique ways. Some of the ways to support learners with autism in performing effectively in the classroom include:
Speech therapy
Speech therapy is one of the main ways of resolving issues with Level 2 ASD. This form of therapy addresses issues with language and how people communicate, going beyond how people speak and including aspects such as non-verbal cues and some social tips that are a foundation of communicating. In addition to covering the nature of speech, this includes strengthening the jaw and neck muscles and creating clearer sounds with the right facial expressions. Communication is much simpler when a sufferer has this baseline of skills in a conversation.
Physical therapy
Physical therapy refers to physical strengthening and dexterity to improve an ASD sufferer’s condition. This includes using games to develop simple motor skills before developing basic movement and gradually evolving into former finer skills that support the sufferer in their day-to-day lives. One of the main areas that people with autism struggle with is copying someone else’s movements. Physical therapy sets this as a habit, improving the skill as time progresses.
Fitness and stamina are other areas that people with autism struggle in. The tendency to stick with things that they like means that autism sufferers relatively rarely stray into new and difficult challenges, such as playing a team sport. By implementing games into a physical therapy routine, people with autism build their physical skills, such as fitness and strength, and develop their communication skills, increasing their chances of thriving in a team-based sport such as soccer or basketball.
Sensory training
One of the larger issues that people with ASD suffer from is sensory issues. These issues refer to how people interact with their environment, with some people having a greater sensitivity to certain stimuli and others interacting with many things in a highly active manner. The texture and feel of certain things are also significant in understanding ASD, as some feelings are borderline repulsive to people with the condition. Sensory integration therapy makes a young person more accustomed to that feeling, normalizing it and reducing the chance of an incident.
Behavior analysis
Behavior analysis refers to watching how a person interacts with the people and the environment around them, building an understanding of why people interact in this way, and some of the steps psychologists can take in adjusting this behavior. This specifically includes tracking the behavior in real-world situations, which makes a teacher’s attentiveness especially important. By paying a lot of attention to the ways that people interact in a classroom and some of the triggers that set an ASD sufferer off, schools more effectively respond to the challenges that autistic children face and adjust the environment wherever possible to make school life as simple as possible for struggling students.
Medication
There are several forms of medication that people with autism take to reduce their chances of having issues with their condition. Some of these medication options include:
- SSRIs: Antidepressant medication designed to resolve obsessive-compulsive behavior and prevent repetitive and aggressive actions.
- Tricyclics: Antidepressant medication with a higher tendency towards side effects than SSRIs, with a trade-off of greater effectiveness in some people.
- Psychoactive medication: Medications focusing on reducing irritability, hyperactivity, and aggression by stimulating the brain to a greater degree than before.
- Stimulants: Medication that increases the level of focus in a patient is also useful in resolving ADHD-related issues.
- Anti-anxiety medications: Medications that reduce the presence of panic disorders, which tend to relate to ASD.
- Anticonvulsants: Medication people use to limit the chance of a seizure, with one-third of autism sufferers having seizures and related disorders.
As an educator, knowing the autism medication that a student uses is a necessity. In addition, when on a school trip, ensure that students with autism are taking their medication. This reduces the chance of the student suffering from a major incident and solidifies their habit of taking their medication at a specific time every single day.
Discuss issues
When teaching someone with autism at a slightly higher age group, consider having discussions with them. High-functioning autism means that the sufferer can communicate comprehensively with people, including understanding their mental state and potentially some factors leading to that specific psychological position. Taking these issues and discussing them in detail not only gets the sufferer more in touch with their condition but effectively guides how you work with them in the future. You provide a better environment for the student thanks to their feedback, leading to greater interaction and better educational outcomes.
Adapt your teaching
When you notice an issue in the classroom with someone with high-functioning autism, respond to it. Look for the source of the issue and remove it where possible. For example, if a specific display triggers a response, remove the display or change it. If it’s another student’s behavior, talk to them about it and encourage a change. Students ultimately don’t want to cause harm to others, so focusing on providing a better environment can include talking about inclusivity with other students and prompting a response. You adapt the way that you teach to people that learn in different ways, so doing so for people who have no choice over how they respond to certain stimuli is a must.
