Many families have had to adjust to the changes that came from the COVID-19 pandemic when it comes to schooling for their kids. Most kids had to go from in-person school to virtual schooling at some point in the year 2020. However, many kids are currently or have already transitioned from virtual or online schooling face-to-face classes.
For children with autism spectrum disorder, these transitions to in-person classrooms can be challenging. One common characteristic of autism is that the individual may struggle with transitions which means they have difficulty with or find it stressful to adjust to changes. This might have to do with transitioning from one activity to another or being able to cope with bigger changes that have to do with their daily routines and schedules. This includes changes that have to do with their school.
Because effectively coping with changes related to school can be challenging for children with autism and since many kids are or have recently had to transition from virtual learning to return to face-to-face, in-person schooling, we will give you some effective strategies and helpful tips to support your child as they manage this experience.
It is very important for kids with autism to have a daily routine. Parents can help their children transition to in-person learning by creating and supporting a daily routine for their children to follow.
It’s helpful if the parent follows a daily routine, as well, especially when the parent’s activities impact the child’s experiences. For instance, a parent can be sure to plan to cook dinner or to do certain household chores at a time that is conducive to their child’s daily activities, as well. The parent could do laundry while the child is working independently on homework or while the child is at school, for example.
Some things to include in a child’s daily routine include:
It is important to support healthy sleep habits in children. One study found that “Children using media after 8 pm and sleeping alone are…in significant sleep debt.” They also found that “screen activities such as TV, internet and cellular phones in a child’s bedroom had a negative effect on children’s sleep/wake patterns and duration of sleep (Mishra, et. al., 2017).”
Although it is every parent’s personal decision on how to manage their child’s use of electronic devices and screen time, some research does show that when children are allowed to engage in screen activities late at night, they don’t sleep as well or don’t sleep as long as other children who do not use electronics before bedtime.
The amount of sleep that a person needs to function at their best and to promote positive health and well-being in their daily life varies from one individual to the next. As a parent, you can use your best judgment about how much sleep your child needs per night by considering the recommendations from sleep experts who provide a general guideline by age along with your observations of your child’s behaviors and well-being as it relates to how much sleep they get.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend the following:
Virtual schooling may have been structured for your child or it may have been more relaxed than typical in-person school. Some kids were expected to follow a daily schedule and log in to a virtual program for their daily classes at specific times throughout the day. Other students may have been given a bit more flexibility with their virtual learning program in that they were expected to complete online activities but they were allowed to complete the activities at a time that works for them since they didn’t have to attend classes with a live instructor.
No matter your child’s virtual learning situation, transitioning back to in-person learning can feel overwhelming for your child. It can feel fast-paced and busy and this can bring about feelings of stress and anxiety for many kids, especially for children with autism.
When your child is transitioning back to typical, in-person schooling, be sure not to completely fill their schedule with activities. Even though we mentioned the importance of creating a daily routine, it’s important not to plan too much for your child to do each day. They do need some downtime to simply relax and to choose what activities they want to spend their time on rather than having other people tell them what they should do all day every day.
It’s okay to have expectations for your child. However, make sure you make your expectations clear. Also, be consistent with your expectations. When parents and teachers make their expectations for a child’s behavior clear, they are helping the child to feel more secure. The child knows what they should be doing and what happens if they don’t meet those expectations.
Without clear expectations, children with autism might appear noncompliant or anxious or they might even display other challenging behavior like aggression or self-harm.
A few tips for making expectations clear as it relates to transitioning to in-person school for children with autism include:
To set your child up for success, it’s recommended to use what are known as antecedent strategies. Antecedent strategies are things you do to affect your child’s behavior before they engage in a specific behavior. By using antecedent strategies, you are being proactive in helping your child to have a positive experience in school.
Some examples of antecedent strategies that will help children with autism transition more successfully from virtual learning to in-person school include:
One of the core characteristics of autism spectrum disorder is for the individual to have challenges with social and communication skills. This could become more problematic for children with autism who are transitioning from virtual school to in-person school since they are probably less likely to have to worry about using “appropriate” social skills when they were in virtual school as compared to the constant pressure to engage in or at least cope with social situations in face-to-face schooling.
To help a child with ASD transition to in-person school, especially when they are coming from virtual learning, parents and teachers should communicate with each other about the child’s social skills.
Specifically, parents should talk to the child’s teacher about any concerns they have about things that might interfere with the child’s experiences at school. Parents can also talk to teachers about ways that the child’s teacher, other school staff, and even other students at school could help support the child’s social experiences.
One example of identifying a child’s social skills or social needs would be, for a child who struggles in group settings, the teacher could give the child tasks to complete that allow them more independence, but which still assists the group as a whole.
If a child is likely to have challenging behavior, parents and teachers should collaborate on making a behavior plan that will support more acceptable behaviors while decreasing the frequency of those challenging behaviors.
A behavior plan should include identifying the function of the child’s challenging behaviors as well as identifying replacement behaviors that serve the same function. A child’s challenging behavior may be maintained by one of the four functions of behavior which include: escaping tasks or situations, accessing items or activities, gaining attention from someone else, or automatic reinforcement which is sometimes referred to as sensory behaviors.
For instance, if a child is known to walk out of class (as demonstrated in previous in-person learning experiences) when they don’t want to be there anymore and the hypothesized function of this behavior is escaping a specific subject, a behavior plan can identify more acceptable ways the child can request to take a break from the schoolwork.
Additionally, the plan can include ways to increase the child’s compliance with completing tasks that the parent and teacher determine to be tasks that need to be completed.
Reinforcement should be a critical part of helping a child transition from virtual school to in-person school. Reinforcement is when something occurs after a behavior which then makes it more likely that the behavior will happen again in the future.
Reinforcement for children with autism that supports their functioning in school will be based on the individual child since what works for one child may not work for another. However, some ideas for using reinforcement to help kids with autism with in-person learning include:
It’s important to talk directly to kids about how they are doing. If your child can communicate verbally with you, ask them what they think will help them in the transition to in-person school.
Also, periodically check in with your child on how they are doing. You can ask how things are going and if there is anything they think would be helpful for making their experience in school even better. If your child can’t speak verbally, be observant to check in and see how they’re doing.
We mentioned this earlier, but it is worth mentioning again, parents and teachers should communicate with one another about how to support a child’s transition from virtual to in-person learning. They should also continue to be in contact with each other about what is going well and any potential concerns that arise.
As a recap, some strategies that are likely to support a child who has autism with their transition from virtual school to in-person school include:
References:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). How Much Sleep Do I Need? Retrieved June 19, 2021 from https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html
Marsh, A., Spagnol, V., Grove, R., & Eapen, V. (2017). Transition to school for children with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review. World journal of psychiatry, 7(3), 184–196. https://doi.org/10.5498/wjp.v7.i3.184
Mishra, A., Pandey, R. K., Minz, A., & Arora, V. (2017). Sleeping Habits among School Children and their Effects on Sleep Pattern. Journal of caring sciences, 6(4), 315–323. https://doi.org/10.15171/jcs.2017.030