Autism and learning- Supporting children with autism

How does autism affect learning?

Children who have an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis can find it more difficult to communicate, read facial expressions and understand different perspectives. Autistic children find it harder to pay attention to others and have reduced eye contact duration. These challenges can affect their overall learning and development. Whilst ASD is not a learning difficulty, it’s useful to know that the autism spectrum is wide and the learning effects vary from child to child.

Meet Sam…

Sam is 6 years old and has autism. Sam’s mum, Emma, has tried many different methods to support him and shares her journey with us here…

Autism diagnosis

Sam was 5 when he was diagnosed. After a traumatic and difficult start to year 1 in mainstream school it became obvious to ourselves and the school that Sam was struggling and needed help. A referral resulted in the autism diagnosis through the Ryegate Centre in Sheffield. The diagnosis was upsetting for us but also a relief to be able to understand Sam and learn how to help him.

Homeschooling autism support

Sam needed to be home educated whilst a specialist provision was found for him. Our mainstream school has been amazing, it has tried many different ways to support and help Sam. As part of his home education, he still accesses the nurture provision of his school to enable him to build social skills and have friends. Sam loves his school; it’s just not a suitable environment for him for learning but he has many friends and the teachers and staff are very close to him.

Autism learning needs and support

We decided that Explore Learning would give Sam a continued experience of learning within a group environment but in a way that was manageable to him – with small groups, computer-based learning and tutors. Sparkle Sheffield have trained the staff at Hillsborough in autism and we knew they would understand our son.

Explore Learning has had a massive impact on Sam. He used to be a child too anxious to be in a classroom, who never asked for help and would not put his hand up in class. The staff at Explore Learning have helped to build Sam’s confidence by encouraging him to ask for help, his ability to concentrate, and develop his motivation to put effort into his learning.

Through Explore Sam has rediscovered a love of learning again; he wants to go and wants to learn, trying to answer more and more questions each time he goes. Because of Explore, he wrote his first-ever story!

The staff at Explore are excellent and really understand Sam. When he has a difficult day they are quick to reassure him and offer him the learning support he needs. They go out of their way to help him when he is anxious and struggling to even walk through the door.

Amazing autism service dog

Sam suffers from severe anxiety and depression because of his autism. He has extreme sensory overload sensitivities and difficulties. Because of this, Sam finds the world frightening, scary, and difficult to navigate. We got to the point where Sam would not leave the house at all and if we managed to get him out he would have constant meltdowns, running off, and would be in danger.

Desperate to help our son we went to an open day at Support Dogs and saw how amazing support dogs are. We just knew that Sam would really benefit from an assistance dog.

During the following nine months we had interviews, assessments and lots of visits before Sam was matched with Willow. They had an instant bond! Willow was then trained specifically to help Sam with lap rests, nudges, and visiting places Sam would like such as bowling, trains, swimming etc. She came home to us in November, ten months after we started the whole process.