Autistic spectrum and Asperger's

[Guest Andrew Moore]

Today BBC Radio 4's You and Yours had a feature on autism. It was very informative about the nature and limitations of state support for learners with autism and Asperger's syndrome, which they also covered.

You can see more at:

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/

There's a link to listen to the programme again.

[David Wilson]

I'm a special educational needs teacher working in a secondary school. Secondary schools revolve around subject teaching. There's plenty of information around to inform and assist colleagues who want to differentiate the delivery of their portion of the curriculum to those with learning difficulties, both general and specific. For a number of years now, I have complained loud and long on public education forums about the lack of corresponding advice concerning autistic spectrum disorders. The ASD courses I have attended all focused on superficial generalities and medical matters, little of substance education-wise for the teacher seeking to improve his classroom practice. I mentioned this to one course organiser whose response was that this is the way ASD sufferers want to be viewed. I couldn't believe my ears. Then I discovered, purely by accident, on the Web at http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/6698/Full%20document.pdf a book entitled "Children with autism: strategies for accessing the curriculum". It must be the best kept secret in the SEN world. It's unique. It has chapters on each of the core and foundation subjects of the National Curriculum with the implications of ASD for teaching them. I don't know how this nugget of gold has remained hidden since the early 1990s amid the dross of shallow platitudes and psychobabble about ASD.