ASPERGER’S SYNDROME

(AS) kind of spectrum autism

FAMOUS PEOPLE
WHAT IS IT???

 Neurological disorder: dificulties with social skills, behaviour and

communication.
 HOW???
 No empathy, don’t understand irony, don not perceive emotions, no
imagination, difficulties with body language and facial gestures,
difficulties to be in groups, do not understand global information
 CHARACTERISTICS
 Normal or high average intelligence, formal vocabulary or don’t even
talk, literal thinkers, no theory of mind neither hidden curriculum
 LET’S EXPLAIN IN DETAIL

 INTERACTION AND SOCIAL SKILLS:

 don’t feel comfy in groups and being close
 Possibly do not look to the other person
 They do not know how to interact
 They do not know what is expected in each situation
 They have the same emotions but their perception has been altered in their brain
 Antisocial behavior
 They act in the same way with everybody without distinction.
LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION:

- very good language and vocabulary (sometimes very formal) but

their comprehension has been altered.

- They don’t know how to ask for help or how to impose

- Monotonous tone of voice

- Talk about the same topic once and again

- Do not understand double meanings, jokes, irony: literal thinkers

- Lack of facial expressions and gestures

- Do not understand body language

IMAGINATION AND MENTAL INFLEXIBILITY:

- Difficulties with imagination. Tend to mechanical games

- Repetitive games

- Importance of routines and rituals

- Difficulties to adapt to new changes

- NO empathy

- Difficulties to understand different point of views

- Very focused on the topics they lack and no pay attention to the
rest
COGNITIVE FIELD:

- Ordinary or high average intelligence

- Difficulties in the global understanding and get lost in

insignificant details.

- Literal repetition and imitation

- Very Good memory: they retain almost everything but they do

not understand it

- Visual thinking

- Difficulties for planning, attention

- Difficulties to generalize learning to other situations.
- Good at recognition of words and numbers but problems with
abstract thinking

- Lack of motivation for topics except the ones they love

- Difficulties with noises and lights

- Repetitive actions

- they sometimes don’t look but they are paying attention

- Frustration and try to be perfect

WHAT CAN WE DO AS TEACHERS?
 Sit him/her in the first line and short tasks with constant orientation
 Protect the child from abuse and intimidation
 Involve the whole group
 Emphasize their strong skills
 Follow a routine and introduce changes to them
 Connect with their interests and focus the activities on them but stablish
times to talk about those interests
 Adapt your language and explain emotions, jokes every time. TEACH
DIRECTLY
 Program of social abilities and social stories
 Usually hypersensitive to certain sounds or stimuli. HELP THEM
 Help them understand our expectations
 Use the system of THE FRIEND
ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP IN CLASS

 Comics’ strips to work with emotions

 Games of mime
 Board games to classify attitudes: yes/no (selfcontrol)
 Guessing the object (to stimulate language)
 Short plays changing the role (empathy)
 Social stories
 Cards (body language)
 Create a book of emotions
 Create an anticipation book