Teach Secondary 13.5

‘Let’s hear it FROMTHEM...’ Debby Elley explains why the ability to self-advocate is so vital for the future lives of pupils with autism – and what schools can do to help foster it... W orkplace skills – Learn what a CV is, practise interviews, gain some work experience.’ Sometimes, we can have a fairly literal interpretation of what it means to prepare for the world of work. In the case of autistic pupils, however, educators need to work on a much deeper level. If a youngster has different needs from their average future co-worker, then the biggest favour our schools can do for them is to teach them self-advocacy. This is an essential component of independence, and could well make all the difference between quitting at the first hurdle and retaining employment. Here, I’ll outline seven distinct stages through which self-advocacy can be taught. 1. Recognising dysregulation Before you can advocate for your own needs, you need to have a good understanding of how you’re being affected by your environment and a keen awareness of when your body and mind are feeling overloaded. Some schools will use ‘traffic light’ images to help young children identify how they’re feeling at each stage of emotional arousal, encouraging them to point at ‘green’ to signify calm and ‘amber’ to warn teachers of growing distress. These can still play a role when they’re older, but be sure to first talk to them about how their body and mind feels at each stage – from ‘calm’ to ‘overloaded’ – and how this might come across to others. Don’t assume that pupils will know how their mental state affects them physically. I’ll never forget the time I suggested to my autistic son that his stomach ache was probably linked to anxiety – it was as if a lightbulb had suddenly been switched on. Personalise your traffic light diagram. How do they knowwhen they feel calm? Ask them to think about the nature and pace of their thoughts. Help them to tune into their breathing and muscular tension levels. What starts to change when they feel anxious? One person I know twiddles her hair. Another starts swaying from side to side, in an effort to find some sort of equilibrium. My own son used to fold his arms tightly, literally wrapping himself up. These are subconscious actions; raising a person’s awareness of themwill enable them to spot and report dysregulation. The traffic light system can be introduced to very young children in a simple way, but it can be worth revisiting in secondary school, as young people start to articulate their emotions and behaviours in greater depth. 2. Identifying stressors Maturing to the stage where you can self-advocate involves being able to identify what exactly it is that switches you from green, through to amber and then red, mood-wise. Most of us actually aren’t this self-aware. Unfortunately, in this respect at least, we tend to expect far more from our autistic population than we do from anyone else. That’s because we can generally guess the causes of distress for people whose responses are similar to our own – but often not for those whose triggers may be different, and whose internal alarms may be more sensitive to external stimuli. It therefore falls to them to be able to accurately pinpoint where they’re at. According to Gareth D. Morewood (with whom I co-authored the book Championing Your Autistic Teen at Secondary School ), great schools will compile ‘Stress Support Plans’ with input from teachers, pupils and their carers. These identify potential stressors and strategies for heading them off before they become problematic, and present an ideal opportunity for working with the pupil alongside their parents and encouraging self-insight. Youmay need to dial down the parent voice so that the student’s can be heard more clearly. As parents, we won’t be setting out to steal our children’s platform– it’s just that advocating for them can become so hard-wired that we might need a gentle nudge to remind us that our maturing adolescent might now be able to represent themselves. The words ‘ Let’s hear it from them... ’ can a subtle way of redressing that balance. 3. Finding strategies At primary school, children’s calming experiences will typically result from decisions made by adults. As a maturing self-advocate, they should be encouraged to actively note the effects of various calming strategies for different situations. The day after they’ve headed off overload, have them analyse the strategy that proved successful. I’ve found that assigning scores out of 10 to ‘ How I felt before ’ and ‘ How I felt afterwards ’ is especially useful, since this helps to keep things objective and enable recent experiences to be compared with past ones. To support this process, help pupils identify not just what’s important to them in a looming crisis, but also any activities, items or environmental factors that help them retain a sense of stability and control. It could be anything from knowing they have ear defenders within easy reach, to understanding what they must do in order to move a quiet spot, without having to go through a long-winded permission system. 4. Explaining it to others In Just the Job! – a new book I’ve co-written withMaura “We tend to expect farmore fromourautistic population thanwedo fromanyone else” 62 teachwire.net/secondary