Compassionate Insights: Two Tips for Effectively Engaging Your Autistic Students

I’m excited to share two essential tips that have a significant impact on helping our autistic students regulate so they can participate fully in the lesson, allowing us to help them reach their full potential.

First, understanding their threshold for sensory input is key to creating a supportive learning environment.

Second, teaching them to be self-compassionate by letting them see us treat ourselves with compassion.

Tip #1: Know your child's threshold for sensory input.

We all have a threshold for sensory input, and it can be high, low, or on a spectrum.

High threshold means that we need, or your child needs a lot of sensory input to be regulated and engaged. Until they reach that threshold, they won't be regulated and they won't be able to engage.?

Low needs a little sensory input to be regulated and engaged, and too much can overwhelm them.

When we can help our students be regulated, they can engage in the learning process. And their ability can absolutely soar.

We can learn what each student’s threshold is, by doing an assessment.?If we don't know how to do an assessment, then we can observe them.

If they seem to attempt to harm themselves, or melt down, or shut down, they likely have a low threshold.?

If they always seem to be seeking more input, or seem indifferent, they may have a high threshold.

Once we think we know their threshold, we can adjust our teaching accordingly.

For instance, for students with a high threshold, we might increase the sensory input by creating activities with bright colors, a variety of sounds, or lots of movement.?

For students with a low threshold, we might create a calm environment with calm colors, giving clear and concise instructions, and give them time to absorb and do what we’re asking.

Through this we can also learn some of their sensory preferences. For example, some students prefer visual stimuli over auditory, or tactile input over movement.

I have a low threshold and, even as an adult I always responded with either melting down or running out of the room.

When I hit my threshold I couldn’t absorb any more information. It appeared as if I was not very competent.

Now, I know when I’m getting too much input and I use self-compassion to help myself calm and regulate.

This brings me to my second tip.

Tip #2: Teach them to be self-compassionate by letting them see us treat ourselves with compassion. When they become self-compassionate, they become more resilient.

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I know self-compassion is hard. I struggled with this for years.?

I used to feel I didn’t deserve self-compassion.?

I felt if I gave it to myself I would become too soft, or complacent.?

I was also taught,? "it’s better to give than receive", and I was taught the virtues of self-sacrifice.?

But self-compassion isn’t something we give ourselves when we’re perfect. It’s something we give ourselves in the midst of our faults.?

Recently I shared a little about the book, Fierce Self-Compassion, by Kristin Neff. I learned so much from reading her book.?

She has an autistic son, who is now grown.? He used to have severe meltdowns.

She practiced self-compassion for years.

He watched her do that.

He's absorbed that.

Now, when he gets overwhelmed, he practices self compassion.?

Kristin Neff talks about tender self-compassion and fierce self-compassion.?

Tender self-compassion is being present as we would for a close friend who is struggling, and as we would for any of our loved ones who are struggling.?

Tender self-compassion is being with ourselves. It’s being present with our pain.

I used to run from my pain.?

Now, I find being present with my pain helps me connect with an inner strength. That strength is a powerful force that helps me stay engaged with my job, my students, and my family, in the midst of pain.

A tender self-compassion touch, and this is my go-to, is placing one or two hands over my heart and saying something to the effect of “I’m struggling right now. This would be hard for anyone. Anyone would be struggling with what I’m going through,” or “You’ve got this,” or “I’ve got this, or I’ve got you.”

This calms, validates, and grounds me.

Fierce self-compassion is providing, protecting and motivating.?

A fierce self-compassion touch can be putting a fist over your heart with a hand over that fist, and saying something like, “you are fierce, and brave. You protect and provide for your family and students. You're amazing. You’ve got this.”?

When our children and students observe us modeling self compassion, they absorb our calm and our way of treating ourselves.

We all ache for them when they are struggling and being so hard on themselves.?

We all find it difficult to believe we deserve self-compassion.

However, the best way to teach our kids how to treat themselves well, is for us to model self-compassion.

We do deserve it and it's so necessary and essential for us to treat ourselves with compassion so that our kids and our students can learn how to do that for themselves.?

What a great gift we can give them by being compassionate with ourselves.?

To recap, the two tips to effectively engage your autistic students in the learning process is, 1. know and understand your child’s threshold for sensory input, and, 2. teach them self compassion by modeling it yourself.

I would love to know what your key takeaway is.?

Let’s continue the conversation in the comments.

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