PGCE Teaching File

DISTINCTIVE TEACHING APPROACHES

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ENTRY150-0/11/25


Lucid Recall.

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Pupils with hearing difficulties

Pupils with hearing difficulties.

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What is ADHD?

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What is autism?

Two key figures I will focus on in the history of autism are Leo Kanner and Hans Asberger. Leo Kanner was an Austrian American psychiatrist, often known as the "father of child psychiatry". He was born in Ukraine. In 1943, Kanner wrote "Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact". Kanner described 11 children who had an insistence on sameness and experiences severe problems in social interaction.

Donald's case involves a child who would happily go down the slide in the playground, but only when nobody was watching. Furthermore, "he does not observe the fact that anyone comes or goes, and never seems glad to see father or mother or any playmate." The child was described as being "perfectly oblivious" to everything around him. I think about the story Tim Berners-Lee writes (in This is for Everyone, 2025) of his father who once returned from London by train, forgetting he had driven their in the car.

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What is it like to have English as an additional language?

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Two disability examples

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What distinctive teaching approaches exist for pupils with autism?

A few web pages claim to offer advice for teaching individuals with autism:

  1. Career Teachers - https://careerteachers.co.uk/how-teachers-can-support-students-with-autism/
  2. Autism Speaks - https://www.autismspeaks.org/tool-kit-excerpt/autism-classroom-strategies
  3. National Autistic Society - https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/education/extra-help-at-school/england
  4. Queen Margaret University - https://online.qmu.ac.uk/blogs/supporting-students-with-autism-in-the-classroom/
First, I will describe the suggestions. The page from Career Teachers is informative, but the information is often about the nature of autism itself. The suggestions relating to "distinctive teaching approaches" are vague. The list is: (1) Develop an in-depth understanding of autism (2) anticipate the signs of meltdowns (3) Build rapport with the parents or guardians (4) Ask for additional support. (5) Tailor the curriculum to the student's interests (6) Provide autistic students with regular choices (7) adopt appropriate frameworks and strategies. These suggestions are all reasonable and if carried out successfully, would be very effective. The problem is that the article does not go into details of how to achieve these suggestions. The utility of the article is therefore questionable. Take (5) for example. One potential problem is that a secondary school teacher cannot tailor the curriculum to be suited to the autistic pupils only, because the curriculum is for all pupils, regardless of whether they have autism. Consider also (3). Building rapport with parents would be beneficial, but a teacher of a single subject cannot alone meet the threshold required to reach out to parents of autistic pupils. If all subject teachers operated this way, then the pupil's parents would have to have an unusually large number of correspondences with various teachers. This is unreasonable. A teacher has some ability to provide choices to autistic pupils and some ability to anticipate the signs of meltdowns. But overall, these suggestions are all unquestionable objectives. But there is little concrete guidance for a secondary subject teacher.

The "Strategies for Success when Dealing with Autism" is good. (1) Be calm and positive (2) Be aware of the characteristics of autism and general strategies (3) Get to know each particular student's likes, fears, etc. (4) Promote a welcoming environment and give opportunities for your student to develop social interaction skills (5) Teach understanding and acceptance (6) Students with autism may not be socially savvy (7) Ensure that organization, communication and sensory issues are addressed.vv

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What distinctive teaching approaches exist for pupils with ADHD?

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What distinctive teaching approaches exist for pupils of high ability?

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