Characteristics of ASD As Seen in the Classroom

Symptoms of Autism can be mild or severe depending on the type of autism that the child has. Some general characteristics could include: overly sensitive to sensory stimuli, impairments in communication and social interaction, the child may have limited interests and activities that they wish to engage in and they can sometimes react to stimuli with extreme emotions (3, 15-16). Usually the student will have troubles generalizing new skills, have difficulties in abstract reasoning, planning, organizing and solving problems and with social cognition (2, 8). However, just because a student has autism doesn't mean that their intelligence is going to always be below all the students in the class. We have to realize that every child is different and has various strengths and weaknesses; therefore, their intelligence level fluctuates.
    Furthermore, students with autism have difficulty making friendships among peers, may have a restricted vocabulary, repetitive speech patterns, difficulty with language pragmatics, difficulties in interpreting, comprehending and understand speech (2). Also, the students tend to have repetitive body movements, need to follow routines precisely and have difficulties with attention span and motivation  (2, 7).

Features of ASD:
Unusual patterns of attention ~ they may only focus their attention to one aspect of the situation and their attention span does not last long (2, 26).
Unusual response to sensory stimuli ~ responses may be related to tactile (touch), vestibular (balance), proprioception (body awareness), auditory (hearing), visual (sight), gustatory (chemical receptors to tasting) or olfactory (chemical receptors to smelling) (2).
Motor Performance and Planning Difficulties ~ It is important to make observations of the child's gross- motor skills, fine motor skills, bilateral coordination and visual-motor coordination.
Anxiety ~ A student may have a fear with certain people or objects because they may cause confusion, frustration and produce stress when processing the information (2)

Strengths of ASD:
Strengths: A child with autism shows a highly developed ability to learn when using visual spatial skills and tasks (2, 8)