OrbRom Center offers professional Autism Services in Cambodia – Phnom Penh and aims to serve the diverse academic, physical, social, and emotional needs of our students. All aspects of our organization’s curriculum and activities offer tailored programs, designed to assist individual learning styles to achieve success.
Autism is a complex developmental disorder that impacts social skills, speech, and language development, and can present as repetitive behaviors.
Autism Educational Challenges
Education is a challenging task to undertake, and when special needs are included it can become even more difficult.
Autistic students have many different struggles in the classroom: from trouble following directions or understanding what’s being said all the way down to behavioral problems that disrupt other students’ learning experience.
These barriers make for an arduous journey through school life – but thanks to incredible teachers and staff members like yourself, they’re not unbeatable!
Students with autism often face academic difficulties such as:
- Disruptive behavioral problem
- Hampered ability to communicate
- Trouble following directions
- Disinterest
Autism, Tips for Teachers and Parents
With a few dynamic factors, children with autism can be effectively educated.
For example, if you are giving directions on how to fold paper one step at a time, starting by verbally saying the steps and then demonstrating them while repeating each instruction; don’t rush through this process; do it slowly so that students have enough time to follow along.
If they cannot get their footing after being given instructions multiple times or if certain methods aren’t working for your student try using different cues such as tactile ones (such as having the child touch an object first before touching another) or visual ones (explaining what is happening in pictures).
Assistive technology can reduce communication issues, but it often just becomes a way for students to avoid the hard work.
Teachers must balance being creative and interesting so that you grab their attention while still staying on task with your lesson plan.
For instance, if one of your student’s interests is airplanes then write word problems incorporating situations relating to them in order to keep him interested!
Teachers, getting to know a student and what calms him or her can help you avoid disruptive behavior.
Find out about your child’s interests so that when it becomes time for group work they have something in common with the other students who might otherwise be frustrated by doing tasks because of his or her inability to participate without being hassled.
Parents are an excellent resource here as well; after all no one knows their kids better than parents!