Overview

Welcome everyone to this online course, Autism Awareness and Strategies for the Classroom. I really hope that you will learn a lot about this subject where it will make a difference to your future as a teacher to these wonderful children. Hopefully you’re doing this course because you either have an interest in autism; or have a child in your classroom who is on the spectrum and you would like to know what you can do to improve the quality of the education that you are providing. Individual students who have autism have his/her own unique strengths, abilities and needs. Therefore it is essential that teachers adapt lessons and activities within the curriculum to capitalise on and meet these diverse strengths and needs. This is in line with what is required of educators under the Disability Standards of Education (2005). Differentiating lessons for students with autism is vital so that students with this unique condition can reach their full potential. This ensures that we are providing access and equity to all students by ensuring that the curriculum is available to them in an inclusive way.

I believe that awareness is the key factor to understanding, and understanding is the key to providing a classroom environment and instruction that will help kids thrive. I don’t mean to sound dramatic but our students with autism REALLY need you to be aware and need you to step up for them. So thank you for being here and doing this course. Let’s take a journey together. You will have to step out of the box and you will begin to make adjustments to your teaching practices; but this journey will give you a new found appreciation to the differences these practices can have on our student's lives.  

By completing this course you will be able to:

• To develop an understanding of what autism is from a medical perspective and social perspective.
• To understand how autism affects those who are on the spectrum.
• To gain understanding about recent research on autism and what the most recent research is suggesting
• To know what it means by a ‘difference in learning style’ for students who are autistic.
• To gain awareness of secondary conditions that may affect students who are autistic.
• To gain awareness of sensory processing issues and how this may affect students who are autistic.
• To gain an understanding of strategies to improve students’ outcomes in the classroom.
• To gain knowledge about group work and how to improve outcomes.
• To learn why mobile technology is so valuable in the differentiated classroom.
• What makes mobile technology unique?
• What can the mobile technology classroom look like?

The Disability Standards for Education, (2005) highlights the importance of making instructional adjustments to ensure that all students can access the curriculum. Instructional adjustments provide alternative representations of teaching and learning material for the autistic student.