Life Skills & Feature Function Cards
These cards are a useful activity for kids with autism. In particular, older children can benefit from learning associations between things as they are exposed to more experiences in their daily lives. For example, from an array of animal images on a card, you can ask a child which one barks . From an array of kitchen appliances, you can ask your child which object cooks food . Do this with any relevant associations that you are trying to teach your child and this can make learning fun.
Emotions: Paper Emoticon Cutouts
Using colored construction paper, markers or crayons, and glue you can craft several different emoticons just like the ones you use on your cell phone. Draw and cut out various eyes, noses, mouths, and eyebrows. Arrange the features to display the emotions: happy, sad, jealous, bored, frustrated, sleepy, and whatever other emotions that you are teaching your child. Write the word for the emotion on the back of each face that you and your child construct and use them to talk about different moods and feelings as they arise.
Worksheets For Emotional Health
Learning to recognize and manage feelings is an important part of social development in children. Nevertheless, children with autism often find mastering this skill very challenging. Worksheets for emotional health will help your child become more aware of their own and others emotions and allow them to communicate more effectively.
This emotional health worksheet is specifically designed to help children with autism understand body language. Your child needs to determine what emotion various facial expressions represent and what gestures and tone of voice should accompany them.
This worksheet allows autistic children to learn how to communicate their emotions through facial expressions and gestures, without using their voice.
This empathy skill building package consists of three different worksheets. Your child is asked to choose among several options, such as worried, angry, confused, and left out, to describe how the character in the picture is feeling. The worksheets are suitable for grades 1-4.
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What Are The Worksheets For Students With Autism About
Autism spectrum disorder is a serious neurological disorder and is extremely difficult and challenging to deal with kids having autism. A kid with autism usually has a lot of sensory, behavioral, and communication issues that are difficult to cater to and ignore. Hence the worksheet contains simple ways of teaching your kid communication
Anger Management For Autistic Children Worksheets
I personally love to use the worksheets and printables below within the classroom or even send with the parents to help them engage with their child further to regulate their emotions.
Grab this poster at the end of this post!
Early intervention and positive reinforcement are essential for anger management skills.
Sometimes, if children or young people have social anxiety which is common, cognitive behavioral therapy might be the next step.
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Structure Activities Around The Childs Strengths
If they enjoy building things, try to incorporate some building activities into structured playtime. By using Legos, stacking toys, K-nex, tinker toys, or even something as simple as dominoes, integrating a skill that they are good at can facilitate learning new skills without them even realizing that they were involved in a structured activity.
What Is An Autism Spectrum Disorder
Autism refers to a disorder which is a condition related to brain development that impacts how a person perceives and socializes with others, and this may cause problems in social interaction and communication.
This disorder may also show repetitive behaviors.
Teachers and ABA therapists sometimes use a behavioral analysis to determine the level.
Autistic individuals mat lack the proper social skills to handle stimulus that other children may be accustomed to. Temper tantrums are common in reaction to loud noises. Sometimes, anxiety disorders can begin.
Problem behaviors can begin simply with anger rumination.
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Free Resources For Families Of Children With Autism And Other Special Needs During The Coronavirus
With schools and learning centers staying closed indefinitely due to the coronavirus, families and students are finding themselves having to adapt to learning from home.
Here is a list of fun, free resources and subscriptions to engage your child and support their learning during this time!
Stages Learning Materials is now offering free autism resources for download, print and immediate use! Stages Learning Materials resources will enrich your childs social/emotional and behavioral development. You can also join our new Autism Learning Line online community to receive support, guidance and camaraderie during these challenging times
Explaining COVID-19 to Your Child
Using social narratives (sometimes referred to as Social StoriesTM can help children know what to expect and manage their anxiety during these changing times. These links will take you to narratives that explain COVID-19 and help kids understand why their routine is different.
Organization and Maintaining Routine
Educational
Language Arts
Math
Science
Social Studies
Arts, Exploration, Social Emotional and Movement
Free Printable Sen Teaching Resources
Please also visit our main sensory story page for our sensory stories. All resources on this site are free to use and share but if you are putting them on a school website please link back to this page.
If you are feeling really generous please consider buying something from our wish list. It will all be used for the pupils at my school for sensory sessions
Please feel free to download and use these printable special education teaching resources that I have made for my students to use. Often these are designed to be used as part of a toolkit of thematic downloadable resources, printed and laminated to use as folder tasks for TEACCH systems for Autistic learners. They can also be used as worksheets for literacy, numeracy, ASDAN evidence etc. Many use widget software symbols to support reluctant or pre-readers. I would always encourage you to share any free teaching resources we come across, feel free to share and lesson ideas or teaching tips that you have used in the comments section.
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Interactive Reading Comprehension Practice & Games
For many children, understanding what they read is very challenging. That’s not because of weaknesses in the children, but because very few reading materials are structured to foster comprehension. These free reading comprehension activities worksheets will help boost a child’s reading comprehension skills. They are examples of what ASD Reading program teaches, and they also work well with Story Smarts, our collection of stories designed to improve reading comprehension by providing children with additional reading comprehension activities and practice.
Free Reading Comprehension Worksheets
Why ASD Reading is so effective at teaching comprehension
When a few key components are provided — as they are in ASD Reading — reading blossoms! Two of the key components are:
1. Predictability2. The main idea
Imagine asking someone the question, “What is a rose?” and receiving in reply, “Well, it can be red, or yellow, or pink and it has a long green stick underneath that can have sticky things on it.” All these answers are true, but they miss the mark. The central point is that a rose is a flower. For many children, something comparable happens when they are asked about a story, “What was the main idea?” They can provide a host of details — all correct — but all missing the mark. The ability to offer the main idea in a short, succinct manner is a key to reading success and school success. And through modeling , the main idea is mastered easily and skillfully.
Social Skills And Autism
One of the main signs of autism is a lack or delay in social skills. For example, an autistic child might take another childs toy without asking for permission, refuse to wait for a turn, or avoid making eye contact. Failure to display expected behavior around other children makes it hard to interact and make friends.
However, children with autism need to learn the same social skills as their neurotypical peers. These skills are essential for getting along with others, developing confidence, and becoming more independent. Teaching social skills should, therefore, be an essential part of your childs daily activities both at home and at school.
There is a wide range of social skills to work on with autistic children, such as:
- Using appropriate voice tone and volume
- Following directions
- Respecting the opinions of others
- Recognizing the difference between expected and unwanted behaviors
- Cooperating with others and working together
- Recognizing body language
- Recognizing feelings in oneself and others.
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Apples And Actions Game
This object lesson starts with showing your student an apple. Pass the apple around the class and, as you do, have each child insult it and drop it on their desk or the ground. After every child has dropped it and said a mean thing to it, cut the apple in half and show your students all the bruises inside.
Explain to them that our words have consequences and that everything we say can make an impact on someone else. Just like how insulting and dropping the apple can bruise it, being mean to a classmate can have big effects on them. That way, your students will always remember to be kind.
Free Homeschooling Resources For Children On The Autism Spectrum
This free e-book explains how to involve your child in everyday tasks and home and teach your child valuable skills in the process. Mihaela, the mom behind Best Toys for Toddlers, recommends simple materials that will help you make the most of your space.
First published May 7, 2018. Last updated April 29, 2021 with more information, additional tips, and better readability.
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Bring Special Interests Into Lesson Plans
Many children with autism have a fixation on certain topics or activities. Take advantage of what theyre passionate about and use it while teaching students with autism to help them focus in class. If a child with autism loves outer space, for example, you could plan a math assignment about counting the planets in our Solar System.
Using Social Stories To Curb Bad Behavior
If youve never heard of social stories, they are truly the BEST way to manage a childs aggressive behavior and outbursts. This is usually the first step that teachers and therapists take.
They are truly one of the most useful tools for an ASD child having outbursts of anger.
For instance, I used this social story in Boom Cards to help a child with angeremotional regulation:
I also use these worksheets and printables for anger management quite often. These are hosted at Canva.
Download these emotion regulation printables here.
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Activities Teaching Strategies And Resources For Teaching Children With Autism
Because approximately 1 in 59 students are diagnosed with autism, learning how to help students with this disorder in the classroom is so important. Teaching young students with autism communication skills and learning strategies makes it all the more likely that theyll reach their academic potential later on. And the more you learn about autism spectrum disorder, the better youll be able to prepare these students for lifelong success.
Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disability that causes hypersensitivity to sights, sounds, and other sensory information. Symptoms of autism generally fall into three categories:
- Communication issues
- Social impairment
- Repetitive behaviors
Here are 15 fun activities to help children with autism feel welcome in your class while addressing their symptoms and individual learning styles. Whether you play them one-on-one or as group activities, these are excellent ways to keep students with autism engaged and ready to learn.
Teach Students About Historical Figures With Autism
Although the disorder wasnt discovered until the twentieth-century, people with autism have made important contributions to history, and its important to educate students about themnot just in April but throughout the year. Here are a few well-known figures who are diagnosed with or believed to have had autism to get you started:
- Greta Thunberg
- Emily Dickinson
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How Will Worksheets For Students With Autism Help
This worksheet will help you to keep your child busy if he is expressing distributive behaviors and also it will help him learn productive behaviors in a fun way. This worksheet is for caregivers who want to make their child learn some simple behaviors. Children with autism learn through fun ways otherwise, it becomes difficult for the caregivers and the child himself.
What Are Social Skills Worksheets
Social skills worksheets are resources designed to teach children with autism and other disabilities how to relate to other people. Since many children on the autism spectrum are visual learners, social skills worksheets are an effective way to learn skills like:
- Adjusting to any given situation
- Learning emotional literacy
- Understanding their own and others feelings
- Using manners
- Using polite words
- Understanding how their actions may impact other people.
Social skills worksheets can be used by everyone from preschoolers to primary school children and teenagers.
Below, we take a look at the wide range of social skills worksheets available for individuals with autism spectrum disorder.
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What Would You Do
For a take-home activity you can share with families, try this What Would You Do? game. Families can go through different scenarios together and decide how they would react with questions like How would you help? or What would you say?
This activity keeps social skills sharp and reinforces relationship-building skills.
What Is Free Printable Autism Worksheets Printables About
This worksheet is for children who have autism. Autistic children have a very hard time recognizing emotions, and facial expressions. Even if they recognize the emotions they are unable to express it. Understanding the nonverbal cue like pictures and flashcards helps such children to recognize the emotion and express it.
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Yoga Ball Activities For Toddlers & Preschoolers With Autism
Toddlers and preschoolers are notorious for their boundless energy. They need to spend that energy in appropriate ways or they will find other ways to let it all out. Using a yoga ball in a designated area with plenty of floor space, you and your child can roll the ball to one another, you can place the child on the ball and teach them to bounce on it while trying not to fall off , or you can lie the child on top of the ball on their tummies and roll them back and forth while holding their feet. All of these exercises require a bit of coordination which is a great therapeutic strategy for improving balance.
Visual Organizers For Task Sequences
Any activity that requires several steps to completion can be broken down into steps and placed in a visual organizer for an autistic kid to follow. For example, a morning routine could be organized as follows:
- First: Turn off the alarm
- Second: Get dressed
- Then: Brush teeth
- Finally: Get on the school buss
All of these steps would have a visual representation that can be placed on a task board using velcro to fix it in place. Any task can be put into a visual sequence. This activity is helpful in teaching multi-step skills to kids with autism. The pictographs are especially helpful to toddlers and preschoolers.
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Cater To Their Senses
If your child finds it calming to squish and squeeze textures like playdough or kinetic sand then it would make perfect sense to structure an activity around that particular substance. Think about which textures, sounds, smells, and sights they enjoy and use those things. Think about how focused some kids can become when music is played. Use that to your advantage when you structure activities for your child with autism.
Why Play Is Important For Kids With Autism
As it turns out, not one thing that children do is separate from observation, imitation, and learning. Their playtime is not random. They are always processing new words, actions, and skills that they have been taught or that they have seen someone else do. When you think about it, play is almost like a rehearsal for life in the present and in the future. Children find their identity through play and sort out feelings through play.
Play= learning.
- Jean Piaget, a developmental psychologist, said Play is the work of childhood.
- Television personality, Mr. Rogers once said, Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning.
These truths apply to all children and children with autism are no exception to these sentiments. Whether you are creating activities for autistic toddlers, preschoolers or older kids the benefits of play are the same. Playful activities teach social skills, inspire creativity, increase learning and understanding, improve communication and develop fine and gross motor skills.
Through play, many children find hobbies and interests that evolve into lifelong interests and potential career paths. For kids with autism, play can be the catalyst for making friends more easily, transitioning from special education settings to general education settings, and being able to acclimate to various social settings.
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Effective Teaching Strategies For Children With Autism
In some cases, the learning characteristics of students with autism may differ from the rest of your class. But luckily, the right teaching strategies and methods can keep children with autism on track to finish the school year strong. Try these tips, educational accommodations, and resources for students with autism to help them learn concepts that might otherwise be difficult for them to grasp.