Prevention of absenteeism and school failure in students with ASD: Improving the transition from primary to secondary school

Students with ASD may have difficulty understanding or misinterpreting the actions of their peers, therefore, they may have many behaviour problems. The lack of empathy and understanding of the emotional repercussions that their behaviours can cause on their peers can cause them to have inappropriate or even aggressive behaviours.

All this can generate uninhibited behaviours since in students with ASD cognitive empathy is normally altered "Ability to understand the thoughts that lead other people to certain emotions" (Hervás A., Rueda I., 2018) and more preserved emotional empathy, which is "The ability to emotionally tune into the emotions of other people" (Hervás A., Rueda I., 2018)

These behavioural alterations usually cause difficulties in cognitive flexibility, when organizing, planning, anticipating situations or responding in an organized and planned way to an unexpected situation.

Therefore, to reduce these behaviour problems we can follow some guidelines to change the desired behaviour:

1. Environmental adaptations. We must remove the stimuli that cause hyper stimulation, create motivating activities and a space where students with ASD can relax.
   
2. Change your emotional state. Carry out activities that change your emotional state favouring positive self-regulation.
   
3. Use structure, routines and visual aids. The structure helps them to understand the environment, the routines to anticipate sequences and the images can be used as reminders or transitions.
   
4. Use positive proactive instructions. If they are blocked, use activities that are pleasant and that are of interest to them and then try again.
   
5. Use distraction and surprise situations to get them out of unwanted behaviours.
   
6. Consequence-based interventions. Ignore harmless behaviour and redirect it to achieve the desired behaviour while removing any consequences that reinforce the behaviour.