Helpful ways to teach students with Aspergers?

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Hey everyone. I'm a private tutor and former professor looking for better ways to help fellow aspies learn. I'm also on the spectrum, and students on the spectrum seem to gravitate toward me (I feel very fortunate for this). As it goes, the tips and tricks that have worked for me don't always work for all students--and I've noticed a gender difference (I'm female, and my own tricks tend to work for other females but less so for males).

Specifically, we struggle during sessions when there's a task at hand and students want to diverge into a discussion/monologue about their special interests. Sometimes it takes a *long* time to get started with the actual classwork (up to 15 minutes). Since lessons are only an hour at a time, this cuts our productivity way down.

So I'm wondering if anyone can share suggestions of things that their favorite tutors/teachers/counselors have done to get them focus and stay on the task at hand? Here are some things I'm thinking of:

Allowing a few minutes to transition into the session and then telling them when it's time to begin the work.
Having them take 5 deep breaths before we begin.
Printing out a schedule for the lesson.
Gently reminding them to "please focus" if they veer off course.

Thanks a million.

Generally I learn by actually doing things - hands on experience. So the more tangible you can integrate this into study plan, I suspect the more successful you will be.

There are many types of Autistics. Most autistics are high functioning autistics (HFA's) or Aspies. A few are less advanced. From my perspective the book called Eikona Bridge by Jason Lu is the only one I came across so far that provides a roadmap for moving a low functioning or moderate functioning autistic towards the high functioning category.

The special interest of an Aspie is door that connects their world to ours. Aspies drill down into minute details about their special interest. But over time their special interest can change. So they have over time the ability to become experts in many different subject. So someday they may mature into a "Renaissance Man".

As a former teacher myself, I think this is always a good idea. Many people (including me) do fine if we know what the schedule is. If we have to guess what's supposed to happen, you never know what we might come up with.

Thank you. I start the intake process by asking parents what their child's special interests are, and I let them know that I'm going to plan personalized lessons around those interests. This really helps reinforce that I'm on the right track in terms of my student-to-student approach!

Thanks! I'm going to start printing out a timeline for each lesson then. And I second that--if we aspies have to guess what's going to happen, you never know where we're going to go with it!

I think this is a good idea for most Aspies.

As for me, I would just throw the schedule in the garbage. I don’t like going according to schedules. I hardly ever took notes in college— too much effort!

I would gauge the individual reactions to what you’re doing...and don’t make this an absolute requirement.

Try and come up with alternate ways to teach a lesson. Figure out what works best. Every person learns differently!

Oh yes, I definitely have one aspie student who would also throw that schedule in the garbage--and more than one who would love it and use it to keep *me* on task.

What do you think of offering alternatives to individual students at the beginning of the session (as long as the main goal is accomplished)? As in, "We have to do these 10 math problems today, etc. Would you like to do it by method A or Method B?" Since I've started tutoring, my book bag has become a treasure-trove of fun educational weirdness--I've literally got sand in a tupperware, invisible ink, math charts, scavenger hunts, comic books, stories and poetry in multiple languages and yoga towels, among other things. I've added to my rotation with each new student and am always up for more suggestions!

I like the idea of fun educational weirdness. For example this weekend I taught my granddaughter how to read a map and the construction of cities around a city center and how the house numbering system matches a grid system.

That is so cool. Your granddaughter sounds like one lucky girl!

They are [3 grandsons and 2 granddaughters]. I am a pattern thinker. I came across the following Youtube video this weekend. It is basically pattern matching. So I played it and then the grandkids came in. So I played it again and let them participate in it. They roared through it, so basically they inherited this pattern thinking trait. They were really excited playing it.

Fun! I did pretty well, especially on the speed of recognition and comparing one thing to another. That being the case, I'm still waiting for someone to tell me why I'm always losing my keys and can never seem to find my cell phone!!

Something that helped me a lot during school was when a teacher would answer my "Yes or No" questions with either "Yes" or "No", and would give a further explanation only if I asked for one.

What never helped was receiving a long explanation as to why I should not have to ask the question when simply answering the question would be more helpful.

Even "I don't know" is somewhat helpful, as it inspired me to find the answer on my own.

It probably means that you are a pattern thinker too. You might try taking a Mensa test. Here is a short video about someone taking this type of test.



Losing keys/cellphones. It is probably locked away in the difference between short term and long term memory and data retrieval. Anyways losing your keys only counts when you accidentally leave them in the trunk of your car and then close the lid. I did that once and also my cell phone was locked inside the car.

In that case, I approached a stranger and asked them if I could use their cell phone. Then I called AAA. Around an hour later they showed up. I explained that I dropped my keys in the trunk. They popped the door in only a few moments. But the keys were still in the trunk. I tried the manual trunk release in the car, but that only works if the engine is running. Without keys, that would not work. So I asked him to open the trunk. Well that means that he would have to rekey the locks costing several hundred dollars. Next we tried to lower the back seat. The back seat release in located in the trunk. So I asked about an alternative. AAA repairman said that he could use a hole cutting drill bit and drill through the center seat panel until a hole was made that was big enough to fit a hand into the truck area. At that stage we could trip the seat release and then get into the truck area. After drilling several holes, we finally made a hole big enough to fit my arm through. I reached inside and found my keys. So all in all 2 hours lost but I did retrieve my keys.

This is probably where the movie "The Absent Minded Professor" came from.

Thank you. This helps me a lot!