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Intervention Strategies in ASD: Skills needed to be addressed in preventing school failure and absenteeism - Module 3

2. SOCIAL AREA. HOW TO PREVENT BULLYING?

2.4. PREVENTION AND ACTING IN THE SCHOOLS

We can affirm that when there is no good classroom climate, students have difficulties to achieve the learning, since they have little willingness to learn and manifest attitudes such as: boredom, tiredness, low participation and indiscipline.

It is convenient that as teachers and technicians in education be aware of being “leaders and models” for the students, and it requires the deployment of communication and social rapport skills that promote trust, dialogue, respect and inclusion in the classroom, being aware of the fact that we do not understand and express them with the same actions and skills with which they are capable of being able and expressing them with the same actions and skills.

It is necessary: respect, which is achieved with the following strategies: always respectful the behaviour: in the classroom, at school, and in the community; the authority is accompanied by respect and forms of social relations that do not mean humiliation to anyone; get respect is not the same as fear; practice tolerance and acceptance of everyone in the classroom, considering that diversity is present in it. It is also necessary to develop confidence, being useful the following strategies: assess mistakes as part of learning and take advantage of them to improve, recognize that everyone has the potential to learn, have high expectations of the achievements of others. Trust is the basis of any affective bond.

In addition, some recommendations to achieve a good climate in the classroom are:

  • Consider discipline, applied with firmness, fairness and responsibility.
  • To ensure that respect, solidarity and mutual support are lived at all times.
  • Propose stimulating activities, where all students feel important.
  • Actively assess all students. Achieve during learning activities that they experience positive emotions.

One way to help people with ASD to detect bullying is to make a list along with a trusted adult of those behaviours that we could include within school bullying, so that the child can resort to it in case of doubt and can be expanded over time.

It also helps to give them clear guidelines and advice that can be useful in situations where they are being bullied, such as:

  • If they need tranquillity, it is better not to go to quiet corners, quiet and isolated during breaks; it is better to look for places safe as can be the library.
  • If they stay in the yard, look for places where there are a lot of people or where they have close to the people who guard the playground (Jakson, 2002).
  • If bullies are approaching, they could get out of that situation. If not possible, is useful to attract an adult (Jakson, 2002).
  • Talk to a good friend or teacher about what is happening and ask for advice (Gray, 2004).
  • If they doubt the intention of any behaviour, ask someone they trust. It is important that they count from the beginning all that has happened (Gray, 2004).
  • It may be useful if at home they make a map of the school where they indicate the classes which ones are the most conflictive moments in each place, in which and in what moments they will find a reference to help them, where and in which moments we can find the stalkers ... (Gray, 2004).
  • Make it clear that they are not to blame for being bullied (Gray, 2004; Jakson, 2002).
  • Find some way not to lose control when they are being harassed; something that can work is to think of an image of tranquillity and that of security (Gray, 2004).
  • Practice with them a phrase to say the moment they get into with them; keep it simple and as true as possible (for example, “already I have heard you "," I need you to stop "or" I don't like this, for now ").
  • Teach them to try to stay in calm, but serious, with the right body and the head up, keep a safe distance, and then contact a trusted person who can help them (Gray, 2004).
  • Develop assertive strategies and prioritize them over strategies avoidant or aggressive. In this sense, it is important to teach them to detect some short phrases that generate in the aggressor the sensation of being unmasked, from respect.

The social relationships are especially important for the peer group. Due to the characteristics of ASD, students with this type of disorder have special difficulties, such as: share leisure time or group school activities with other classmates, understand social conversations, such as those related to respect for authority in the school context, share school supplies or participate in activities that involve reciprocity in the interaction.

To help them in these situations, it is useful to:

  • Facilitate the gradual integration of the student with ASD in the group, proposing works in small groups, in which the what and how of their participation are specifically defined, as well as the deadlines to do so, encouraging them to develop their source points in the share activity.
  • Practice social and emotional skills with the student with ASD, such as the use of reciprocal conversation, providing written scripts of questions or topics that they can share with their classmates.
  • Prioritizing responsibility, anticipating consequences and promoting respect for diversity and promoting inclusion by example.
  • Be consistent and act with authority and a sense of justice in the classroom.