SEND
Support Attainment in English for Autistic Pupils
Understand why autistic pupils so often stall on story writing and comprehension, and teach the skills that get them moving.
- 25 minutes
- 6 modules
- 0.5 CPD hours
- Certificate
Members
14 days free, then £70 a year or £7 a month.
Have a join code from your school?
Already have an account? Sign in
What you'll learn
- Explain how theory of mind affects fiction writing and comprehension
- Use social stories to explore how characters feel and why
- Teach inference through reciprocal reading and guided talk
- Scaffold story writing with story mountains and visual prompts
- Focus support on understanding rather than getting the task finished
About this course
Plenty of autistic pupils read fluently, love facts and can write a solid non-fiction piece. Then you ask for a story, or how a character is feeling, and everything stops. Moving them to a lower group or adding another worksheet rarely helps, because ability isn't the barrier.
This course shows you where the barrier is. Theory of mind and the triad of impairment explain why inference, "show, don't tell" and building tension in a story ask for skills an autistic pupil may not have yet. Once you can see that, you can teach those skills alongside English: social stories to explore feelings and motives, reciprocal reading for comprehension, and visual scaffolds like story mountains for writing.
It also asks teaching assistants to worry less about finishing the task and more about the conversation that builds understanding.
- For early career teachers, teachers and teaching assistants. All phases.
6 modules
Open in order
- 3 min
Introduction
- 3 min
Wrap up
- 5 min
The triad of impairment
- 5 min
Theory of mind
- 6 min
Effect on attainment – writing
- 7 min
Effect on attainment – reading comprehension