Learning social emotional competencies is very important for autistic — and all — students to be successful in and beyond the classroom, explains Ebony Holliday, PhD, assistant director of Community Programs at Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Center for Autism Services, Science and Innovation (CASSI). More and more educators are being trained in social emotional learning (SEL) and infusing it in their curriculum and throughout the school day. However, for autistic students, sometimes those instructions need to be individualized and adapted through strategies like universal design for learning or the use of visuals so they can get the most benefit, too.
This video appears in:
Transcript
So social emotional learning is something that is really important. Now. I think in education, we have an increased focus on making sure that students of all ages have those skills that they need. We know that social emotional competencies have a big impact on school success, on the ability to function effectively in the classroom. And so there has been a nice, I think, increase in training for teachers and for educators to really make sure that that is infused throughout the school day and often when possible in curriculum to make sure that we are really targeting those skills. And that can happen. Social emotional learning can happen even at the youngest ages. We can begin teaching these types of skills to young toddlers. Just those beginning ways to interact and to share. And then really going all the way through the high school age. And of course, if we’re talking about all students, we’re also talking about what that looks like for autistic students.
And so this is also something that we want to make sure that we’re targeting. Sometimes it might need to look different social emotional learning. Sometimes we might need to adapt the ways that we’re teaching social emotional skills and competencies that might be modifications, that might be breaking down instructional strategies, that might be looking at visual supports to make sure that we are teaching concrete concepts. We might be using different techniques like Universal Design for Learning or UDL to make sure that we are taking these skills and these competencies, but really making sure that it is individualized for autistic students. So they’re also able to benefit at their level with these skills and with these competencies that we know are so important.