ABSTRACT
Learners with ASD share core characteristics (discussed in Chapter 1) that must be addressed if they are to access the curriculum, regardless of what that curriculum is, in a meaningful way. The continuum of characteristics frequently means that learners may not understand or interpret the curriculum in the same way as other learners. Challenges in the areas of communication and social interaction, repetitive and restricted behaviours, activities and interests and, for some, problems with sensory processing, must inevitably lead to consideration of how the curriculum is best taught. Traditional teaching styles and curriculum delivery rely on social and verbal communication between adults and children. Meaning in the classroom is derived from a shared understanding of the social context in which all participants need to understand the classroom ‘culture’. Learners with ASD often do not understand the shared meaning, explicit or implicit, within the social classroom context. Clare Sainsbury, for example, suggests that such learners are frequently ‘oblivious’ to the social context of the classroom and recalls her own experience when she felt as if ‘everybody is playing some complicated game and I am the only one who hasn’t been told the rules’ (Sainsbury 2000: 8). This clearly has implications for teaching and learning as the unique characteristics and learning styles of individuals with ASD mean that they think in different ways from those who do not have ASD. Traditional teaching approaches rely upon an understanding of social and verbal communication, but which may not be in the best interests of learners with ASD who are often unintentionally excluded from access to the curriculum.
