An autistic child will be joining my year 2 primary school class this term, and have been told that he finds it difficult to interpret instructions. How can I make myself clear when explaining instructions and make it easy for him to get on with his work?

Hi Eva,

This is a difficult question to answer because I don't know much about your pupil, but I will try and give you a few pointers.

I think it is important to have a transition meeting with parents, carers, former teachers, any professionals such as speech and language therapists and occupational therapists that may be working with him. This may give you some invaluable information about the child, what motivates him, and what systems have already been tried or put in place.

It would be good if he is prepared for entry into your class, possibly with a few visits prior to starting and/or writing him a social story telling him about his new class. A social story could also be shown to his new classmates so that they know that he may behave a little differently and that they have to look out for him.

Once in the classroom, the boy might need a teacher aid to help him get adjusted and guide him with lessons etc.

To answer your question relating to explaining instructions, there are several things you can do:

Ask a speech therapist to assess his language capabilities so that you know that when you talk to him, you pitch your language at the right level.

Use visuals, visual schedules and social stories. Many autistic children learn and understand more easily by getting visual input rather than auditory. Use visuals to enhance your verbal message, and let the pupil use visuals to request or initiate if he has difficulty communicating. Use visuals schedules and stories to explain what is happening and what will be happening.

This is a big topic and difficult to cover in one forum post, but take a look at the Download Centre on our website and find lots of free PDF downloads explaining more about visuals, communication and classroom strategies.


I hope that helped Eva. If anyone else out there has some good ideas or information about classroom strategies for autistic children, please post them on the forum. We want this to be a great resource for information sharing, but we need you to help us.

Regards Johan - icommunicate