18869561 Claire Stafford

Student Profile:

Name: Joanna Smith

Joanna is in Year 7 and is 13-years-old. She has been diagnosed with autism and

displays symptoms of behavioural difficulties. Joanna has a very keen interest in maths and

loves giving facts about anything to do with netball. Although Joanna has excellent memory

recall she struggles to express herself appropriately in class and as a result she gets

frustrated and acts out behaviourally. She has issues with verbal communication, where she

does not understand social cues and body language and interaction and as a result is

constantly talking and calling out and interrupting the students’ learning and teaching

instructions. It is important in the classroom to acknowledge Joanna when she has

something to say and positively reward her when she uses the correct social cue or

interaction. It is important to be aware of what Joanna’s triggers are and ensure that she is

in an environment that benefits her learning needs and environment. When she is engaged

in class, Joanna can work effectively both independently and with limited assistance.

Generally, she is more engaged in tasks that allow for straight forward thinking. In these

types of activities, she does not display negative behaviour or inhibit other students from

doing their work. She does not work well in group scenarios as she has her own process of

completing activities and working in groups makes her very distracted and frustrated with

the students.

Part 1:

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Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex lifelong developmental disability and

affects how the individual processes information in the brain (Costley, Clark, Keane & Lane,

2012). Intellectual disability is not a part of the defining criteria for ASD; IQ can range from

severe intellectual disability to the gifted range of intellectual functioning such as with

Joanna. People with ASD tend to have communication deficits, such as responding

inappropriately in conversations, misreading nonverbal interactions or having difficultly

building friendships appropriate to their age (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). It is

important to note that no two cases of ASD are the same and as a result ASD must be

approached at an individual level.

The lesson plan that has been included in this paper has been differentiated to meet

the needs of a student - Joanna (a pseudonym) - who has ASD. The student involved has

various learning needs that will need to be considered. Areas that are heavily focused on for

the development of Joanna are creating engaging activities that utilise her creative

ambitions. Further activities that will be focused on were sensory responses such as visual

and auditory, physical environments and communication. People with ASD have underlying

impairments in social perceptual and socio-emotional sharing, which leads to atypical

development that impacts on the person’s social competence, communication and patterns

of behaviour (Costley, et al., 2012). It is therefore important in class to ensure that Joanna

does not feel like she is being treated any differently. The awareness of an individualised

lesson plan would have a negative impact on Joanna - all activities, worksheets and

pedagogies that are adapted to integrate Joanna’s needs are integrated into the entre

pedagogy for teaching the class such that Joanna is not made to feel different and singled

out. There needs to be an inclusive lesson plan that allows for all students’ abilities, not just

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Joanna and her ASD. Individual lesson plans can isolate a child in the classroom and

perpetuate the idea that the Joanna is different from other students (Loreman, Deppeler &

Harvey, 2011).

A number of major challenges relate to the complexity of the learning environment.

Once children reach high school they no longer have a regular class teacher and a regular

classroom. This can pose as a major hurdle for students with ASD coming from primary to

secondary school. In high school the students change classrooms for each subject and the

schools are generally much bigger and more complex environments (Costley et al, 2012).

Each individual class in high school involves trying to predict a different routine for the next

50 minutes or more, listening and interpreting a new voice, organising and using different

implements and resources, and responding when requested to unpredictable questions on

unknown topics. One of the other potential issues for students with ASD is the fact that

each teacher teaches differently. Students with ASD may have difficulty understanding that

lesson structures can change, that it doesn’t have to follow the same format (Costley et al,

2012). It is reported by Costley et al, (2012) that students with ASD tend to become totally

focused on one subject; managing their time on everything else they need to complete

becomes too hard.

In high school, students with ASD will generally have difficulties with sensory

processing and cognition, socio-emotional relating, language and communication, special

interests, routines and emotional regulation and information processing and varied learning

styles (Costley et. al, 2012). As mentioned above, each student with ASD is different and

knowing the students, how they learn and the tools they need to improve their learning and

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focus is imperative. Due to the increase in inclusive education and the decrease of the

segregated classroom approach to education, students with diverse needs are being

educated in mainstream classrooms. In response to this, teachers must create lesson plans

that allow for all abilities and needs in their classroom to achieve their potential. Students

with ASD typically do well in activities that require attention to detail, visual processing,

memorization and where instructions are explicitly spelt out, whether written or verbal

form.

Atypical sensory processing is a core feature of autism (Sensory Processing, 2017). It

is because of this that the lesson plan provided heavily focuses on addressing the needs of

Joanna in terms of her sensory processing. By changing small things like the colour of paper

to monochrome white and grey rather than white and black so that there is less contrast

will greatly help Joanna. Worksheets should never be on high luminance colours such as

yellow as students with ASD have the highest aversion to this colour and could trigger hyper

sensitivity impairment (Grandgeorge & Masataka, 2016). As children with ASD have a

stronger sensitivity to sensory stimulation, the use of high luminous colours will be

enhanced leading to greater distraction and disruption in class (Grandgeorge & Mastaka,

2016). A student with ASD will not process auditory cues the same way as other students.

Students - Joanna especially - does not like background noise and gets very annoyed when

students talk in the classroom due to overstimulation.

ASD has traditionally been characterised by impaired communication, social

interaction and behavioural flexibility (Chang, Owen, Desai, Hill, Arnett, Harris, Marco &

Mukherjee, 2014). In terms of Joanna, the inability to change and be flexible with her

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behaviour demonstrates that at the start of the lesson, as shown on the lesson plan

provided, there needs to be a demonstrated structure to the lesson and as a result the

lesson needs to be broken down for the students to show each activity and what is expected

in the lesson. In addition, Chang et al, (2014) states that children with ASD have reduced

ability surrounding facial and emotional processing as well as behavioural deficits in face

recognition. This means that Joanna will not be able to understand non-verbal cues in terms

of facial awareness, and teaching has to be very explicit and direct in what is expected of

her in class to dissuade any negative behaviour. Explicit instruction will be given throughout

the lesson, not just at the beginning, with constant reminders for students about what is

expected in class with both their behaviour and tasks to complete.

While her wish to improve in class positively impacts her learning and education, her

behavioural and cognitive issues mean she has difficulty in class. Although she has high

engagement in the activities being set and class discussions, she struggles to follow both

simple and complex instruction and at times has low levels of comprehension. Her

behavioural issues and difficulty with self-management mean that she can become

argumentative in class, and continually asks questions that are mostly irrelevant and is

unresponsive to working.

Joanna has issues with processing information that is presented orally. As a result,

any information that is presented in history through a video, PowerPoint or discussion with

the class needs to be presented in some written form to Joanna to ensure that she can

understand what has been discussed. Comprehension is critical to effective teaching.

Researchers have found that receptive language ability is linked to academic performance

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(Costley et al, 2012). They may also experience difficulties with sustained attention to

teacher talk. As a result, the lesson plan does not have very many teacher-led classes.

Rather, the lesson allows students to work at their own pace, allowing students with

stronger literacy abilities to work ahead, and students like Joanna with ASD or lower abilities

to work at their own pace without getting pressured and anxious. The work also needs to

allow for a literal answer as well as a conceptual answer for the variety of student needs.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a concept to improve how students with high

incidence disabilities perform in general education (Kortering, McClannon, & Braziel (2008).

According to the Centre on Applied Special Education Technologies (2018)

Universal Design for learning (UDL) is a research-based set of principles to guide the

design of learning environments that are accessible and effective for all. It includes the

classroom environment, lesson activities and equipment used and can especially benefit

learners with cognitive or behavioural difficulties (Johnson-Harris & Mundschenk, 2014).

UDL does not imply that one size fits all; rather it recognises the unique needs of every

learner. This type of instructional environment provides an alternative to the teacher-

centred instruction, in-class seatwork and printed textbooks that are dominate features of

the typical high school general education classroom (Kortering et al, 2008). UDL allows

students with and without disability to have a varied approach to gaining information. This

form of pedagogical practice helps not only students with a disability but also students who

are struggling with course content, allowing students with varying strengths to excel on

their own manner (Kortering et al, 2008)

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There are three main principles that are critical to the implementation of UDL (UDL:

The UDL Guidelines, 2018). These principles involve providing students with multiple means

of representation, multiple means of expression and multiple means of engagement

(Loreman, Deppeler & Harvey, 2011). Adjustments have been made in the lesson plan to

meet the requirements of UDL. Included in this lesson is an adjustment to promote choice

and multiple means of engagement when looking at introducing the “Freedom Rides” to the

students. This adjustment allows students to choose how they delivered the information in

a way that would most benefit their learning. For Joanna, a multiple means of

representation approach to learning may decrease levels of anger and frustration and

consequently minimise disruptive behavioural issues. (Johnson-Harris & Mundschenk,

2014). By providing information using a variety of strategies, technology and by using varied

activities, teachers can cater the activities to the classroom students, ensuring that learners

with cognitive difficulties can comprehend the content alongside mainstream students. By

having multiple means of representation, such as having worksheets as both hard-copy and

on-line, gives students the ability to access the work at all times. Students with slower

learning abilities such as Joanna can access all tasks and can work on them when they feel

they are up to that content. This guidance and support helps students with both cognitive

and behavioural issues who have not developed necessary skills for language

comprehension (Kortering et al., 2008).

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Part 2: Lesson Plan

5 Enter the classroom

min

The teacher will hand out a lesson outline that includes the activities and time limits for

the current lesson

Students will write down as much information that they know about the freedom rides

in Australia and how they came about.

The students are allowed to structure their knowledge how they prefer

 Can create a table with dates and the corresponding information

 Can draw images to represent different points in history that included freedom

rides

 Can put information down in mind maps

 Can use dot points

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10 Students create a table of the causes of the freedom rides. They are to use their device

mins and resources to create the table.

Issue Why it occurred

Students can create this table either in their books or on a computer

Teacher provides a hard copy print out of the table to give to students if needed

15 Lesson focus Freedom Rides of Australia.

mins

Students will label a map of where the freedom rides occurred in Australia and the

path/dates they took

 This can be done either in their books or on the computer

Teacher is to hand out resource on the Freedom Rides to give students additional

information

Teacher also give student 2 youtube clips so that they have a variety of resources to

gain the information from

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The print out is to be printed on light grey paper to lessen the contrast between text

and paper.

Students are offered the choice to work in pairs or individually

A step-by-step instruction list can be made available that walk through the students on

what they need to include and what they need to research to be able to complete the

task

10 Students are to watch two youtube clips that details what happened on the freedom

mins rides.

Students are to write down notes on what is being described. They are to highlight the

information that they find most interesting in blue and highlight information they didn’t

know before watching the film in green

Students can do these notes in their workbooks or on a device

The video is to be captioned and students are provided with a transcript.

Link to the resources will also be provided with the transcript attached online if

needed.

Instruct students they can work individually or in pairs

5 Classroom discussion between students about the freedom rides:

mins Students are to share information on what they highlight?

Teacher to write students input on the board as a mind map for easy visualisation.

Instruct students they may copy the mind map either in their workbook or on a device.

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Reference List

Chang, Y., Owen, J., Desai, S., Hill, S., Arnett, A., & Harris, J. et al. (2014). Autism and Sensory

Processing Disorders: Shared White Matter Disruption in Sensory Pathways but

Divergent Connectivity in Social-Emotional Pathways. PLOS Biology, 9(7). doi:

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103038

Costley, D., Clark, T., Keane, E., & Lane, K. (2012). A practical guide for teachers of students

with an autism spectrum disorder in secondary education. Retrieved from

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Grandgeorge, M., & Masataka, N. (2016). Atypical Color Preference in Children with Autism

Spectrum Disorder. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1976.

http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01976

Johnson-Harris, K. (2014). The effects of universal design for learning on the academic

engagement of middle school students (Order No. 3643626). Available from

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (1609716857). Retrieved from

https://search-proquest-

com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/docview/1609716857?accountid=36155

Kortering, L. J., McClannon, T. W. & Braziel, P. M. (2008). Universal Design for Learning: A

look at what algebra and biology students with and without high incidence

conditions are saying. Remedial and Special Education, 29(6), 352- 363. doi:

10.1177/0741932507314020

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Loreman, T., Deppeler, J. & Harvey, D. (2011). Inclusive education: Supporting diversity in the

classroom (2nd ed.). Crows Nest, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

Sensory Processing. (2017). Retrieved from

https://www.autismspectrum.org.au/sites/default/files/Factsheet_Sensory%20proc

essing_20170306.

UDL: The UDL Guidelines. (2018). Retrieved from

http://udlguidelines.cast.org/?utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=none&utm_sour

ce=udlcenter&utm_content=site-banner

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