Absenteeism - Module 4

2.5. ACCESS ADAPTATIONS

Organisational Factors:

Thinking about transition children who are concerned about the change tend to worry about the following situations:

Formal and informal supports:

It is necessary to take into account the formal and informal supports available to the student with ASD and the family in order to successfully cope with absenteeism situations. Some examples of these supports could be:

• Informal supports:

• Organization of the exits and entrances of the school centre in a structured way.

• Establish an agenda or ‘traveling notebook’ system in many institutes and have online platforms where the family and teachers can exchange student information on a daily or weekly basis.

• Establish a partner to act as mentor with whom the student with ASD can ask for help (organize homework, writhe down homework, ask questions…)

• Formal supports:

• Meeting with the tutor: at least one at the beginning of the course, and one more for each term.

• Meetings with other professionals who carry out programs with their children (support teachers inside or outside the classroom, support teachers): at least one at the beginning of the course and another at the end.

• Meetings with service outside the school centre that they receive, such as psychology or pedagogy associations or cabinets).

• Online sessions: in the case of some absentee students, the option of following classes online could be considered, as it has begun to do after COVID-19. In particular, in cases in which their anxiety does not allow them to follow face-to-face classes or the comorbid symptoms make them absentee of long duration.

It is necessary to consider if it can help or if it is a solution in the short or medium term. It is also necessary to analyse whether the benefits of online training (continuing with classes, learning guidelines to manage anxiety, not losing knowledge ...) are greater than the damages (isolation, generalization to other contexts ...), depending on of each case.

• Coordination with mental health and other specialists: research has also endeavoured to link psychopathological symptoms to various levels of school absenteeism severity. It has been found that students with a mental disorder showed less schooling assistance than students without a mental disorder.

In this way, students with ASD who present comorbidities, such as: anxiety, eating disorders, depression, obsessive disorders ... would be benefit with a close coordination with mental health in their referral hospital, being able to prevent symptoms, on some occasions, or alleviate the consequences that it could come, such as absenteeism.

• Therapeutic-educational classrooms: the creation of therapeutic-educational classrooms have opened the access to many students with ASD, favouring their educational inclusion and preventing early school absenteeism.

It requires a coordinated action among all the professionals involved in the evolutionary process of students, and constitutes a combined response for students with mental health problems that, due to their severity, make it difficult to adapt to the school environment and cannot be addressed, exclusively, from a single area. The involvement of public entity is also necessary, preparing a Comprehensive Plan whose objective is to make such coordination effective in a precise, clear and adequate way to improve school integration, as well as to promote the school success of students with these special educational needs.

The aim of these classrooms is to offer students with mental health disorders, such as students with ASD, associated with serious conduct disorders, therapeutic educational tools in an environment that facilitates their school and social adaptation, and improves their academic performance and personal development.