When Should I Worry about My Autistic Secondary Student?
Students with autism generally need intensive help with managing emotional regulation and social situations. By high school, we want to see autistic students be able to cope with rigorous academic work and have appropriate social engagement. When I work with parents of autistic secondary students with average or better cognitive skills, I have noticed that certain themes have emerged as to why these parents are seeking my guidance. Some of the themes I have observed are:
Students are having difficulty working with groups when assigned group projects.
Students are missing the nuances of an assignment and may not complete work, because they do not understand it, or are focused on doing the assignment perfectly, a time-consuming approach that exceeds the expectation of the assignment and may result in other missed work.
Students have challenges accepting external feedback from adults.
Students have challenges with focus during instruction and completing work independently.
Students experience significant challenges completing their work.
Students are observed to have trouble taking the perspective of others, for which the commonly used term is perspective-taking.
Parents observe social isolation, especially with same-age peers.
Grades are well below expectation because of work completion issues.
The essence of what I hear from parents is that the feedback they receive from the school is that their student will not engage and follow directions, and the school team is struggling to get the student to comply. The issues present as behavioral and are challenging to address. Students can be highly resistant to changing their behaviors at school and refusal to change is often reported by school team members. However, we cannot simply give in or give up because students refuse.
When I meet with families, we identify the interfering behaviors for the child and the vulnerabilities that underlie the behaviors seen. Once we understand the skills that need to be improved, I then work with parents and the school team to secure needed assessments and interventions to address the concerns.
Supporting students with autism is generally more complicated when an autism diagnosis comes later in childhood (after age 12). The kinds of issues described here worry me very much because if these social and emotional weaknesses are left unattended, they are likely to have an impact on a student’s long-term options and outcomes in their personal lives and careers. If you are seeing any of these issues with your high functioning secondary age autistic child, it is important to get them the help they need to build improved social and coping skills.
About Nancy Taylor
For more than 30 years, I’ve worked with thousands of families. Together, we’ve created and implemented effective plans to ensure that their children succeed in school and beyond. My background as a school psychologist and administrator gives me unique insights into the clinical and educational best practices for each of my students.