In 2023, I am doing the Level 3 course which is certainly up a few notches for me. My goal this year is to be competent at Level 3, even if I have to repeat the classes in the second semester which is quite likely as I don't feel confident enough to be doing Level 4. We'll see how it goes though.
This semester I have actually started doing the mahi kāika that has been set and doing some study through the weekly kupu lists on Quizlet. I aim to use Quizlet every day to build my vocabulary and so far, I have reached a seven-day streak.
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| I was happy to be in the top three for our in-class Quizlet. |
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| Quizlet has a matching activity in it that times you and ranks you against other learners. This has been a great tool for my learning and challenging myself to get a quicker time. |
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| Our mahi kāika sentences to translate. |
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| My mahi kāika for one week. A couple of errors with a and o categories. |
This year we have many new tamariki to our hub who have limited knowledge and skills when using Google Apps for Education. This week we did some digital technology work integrated with our values focus.
We modelled how to create a Google Drawing inside a folder in our drive. We then went through how to insert text boxes, change sizes, background and filling a space with colour.
Instructions and steps were written in the comment section and students who had been in our hub last year were used as experts.
For our Term One Toolkits through the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme, I registered for the Level Up on Autism session hosted by Natasha Olsen. I thought this would be helpful for me as I currently have some students who are on the Autism Spectrum and present with a range of specific needs and characteristics.
Although the sound on the Meet wasn't working, I spent some time looking through the slide that was shared and the speaker notes which were really helpful.
I think I am at the 'acceptance' level on the Level Up Scale.
The estimated population of people with ASD in NZ is approx 50,000-100,000 (1-2%).
An autistic person may have difficulties with social communication and social interaction skills. This means that a person with autism might have difficulties reciprocating in conversations and social interactions, engaging in nonverbal behaviours (e.g., eye contact, gestures), and developing, maintaining and understanding relationships.
People with autism may also demonstrate restrictive, repetitive patterns of behaviours, interests, or activities. This might include an insistence on sameness (e.g., rigid, black-and-white thinking, difficulties with change) or engaging in behaviours that may be perceived as unusual. Sometimes, a person with autism might also show intense focus on objects or interests and possess sensory sensitivities (e.g., hyper- or hypo-sensitive to sights, smells, touch, tastes, and sounds).
Executive functioning
Executive functioning is a set of mental skills controlled by the frontal lobe of the brain. It affects our ability in two key areas – organisation and self-regulation. People with autism often have problems organising, prioritising, problem-solving, accessing working memory, thinking flexibly and self-monitoring, eg, difficulty following more than one instruction.
Strategies:
Use routines
Use visual support to aid organisation
Routine and predictability mean safety for someone with Autism
Give one instruction at a time
Plan for transitions
Understand children's signs of stress or anxiety
Teach children strategies they can use themselves
Make consequences clear. Explicitly lay them out
Anxiety
75% of children and 50% of adults with ASD experience intense anxiety.
Anxiety is an intense and often overwhelming feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome. It also has varying physical effects on our bodies, such as increased heart rate and sweaty palms. Often it results in people avoiding situations, preferring sameness, rigid thinking, social withdrawal, repetitive movements or noises, and sometimes anger or meltdowns.
Many autistic children meet the criteria for an anxiety disorder. For those who don’t, anxiety is still a common experience in their everyday lives and can make it difficult to make friends, focus at school or complete daily tasks as it can show as being ‘difficult’.
Strategies for anxiety:
Identity key stressors - environment etc
quiet/low stimulation spaces available
Keep your voice calm
Teach self-calming strategies
Build on strengths
Limit choices
Break cards
Sensory box
Communication
Communication is a shared experience in joint attention and this is a common challenge for the neurodiverse brain.
Strategies:
Make sure you have the child's attention
Avoid complicated instructions
Keep up your language polite, clear and factual without being patronising
Allow the child enough time to process
Supplement verbal instruction with visual information
Try to have important conversations in a quiet area
My next step is to attend the Term Two toolkit which will look specifically at interventions in the classroom that can increase engagement and help create an environment that best suits our learners.
