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

Strength-based assessment (SBA), which has been used in work with children with milder behavioural disorders, may also have value for individuals who have ASD. SBA provides a method for identifying personal, familial, and broader contextual strengths and it can be a useful addition to assessment protocols because it provides specific information on assets that can be incorporated into interventions. Further, SBA has the potential to affect the attitudes and beliefs of parents and educators involved in the assessment, creating greater hope about the ability of the child to function well and contributing to a stronger bond between the assessor, the child, and their family. 

It will increase motivation and success in learning. There is a growing body of research that agrees about the manifestation of specific talents in autism, but also these existing talents go unnoticed on many occasions, and there are almost no references or models focused on educating these students on educating them from their strengths and potentials instead from their weaknesses.

Some remarkable strengths should be:

• Great attention to Detail
• Honest and Direct Communication: tendency to be honest and non-judgemental
• Thrive with Routines
• They use to follow rules in strict sense
• Love patterns, and predictability 
• Extensive knowledge about topics of interest: they usually have a very high level of motivation in topics and activities that are of interest. 
• Excellent Memory Skills: specially for facts and figures.
• Logical and Independent Thinking: Ability to bring an innovative approach to problem solving
• Visual learners: their ability to look at parts of a whole and focus on small details and patterns. They use to be able to use written reminders, photos, visual schedules and diagrams to enhance their learning.
• Exceptional skills in creative arts, such as Art and Music
• Tendency to have a strong sense of loyalty in all social relationships

Splinter skills may be exhibited in the following skill areas or domains: memory; hyperlexia (the exceptional ability to read, spell and write); art; music; mechanical or spatial skill; calendar calculation; mathematical calculation; sensory sensitivity; athletic performance; and computer ability. These skills may be remarkable in contrast to the disability of autism

Existing literature stresses the importance of using teaching approaches that encourage students to explore the intersections and boundaries shared by different disciplines, thus fostering cooperation between participants and talents, understood as the ability to ask questions and develop novel solutions.

In this sense, project-based learning involves the development of a final product that justifies and makes learning meaningful. The selection of such a product involves developing negotiation, communication, decision-making, problem solving, and structuring and planning skills among groups of students. The autonomy of the participants to regulate their own work is the basis for the development of meaningful learning. 

The teacher only represents a guide or a scaffolding figure for their learning process, and provides them with tools to search for solutions. Thus, each session encourages the development of questions and interest by exposing students to unanswered stimuli that improve their interest and desire in learning about fundamental concepts of the physics of sound. In this sense, learning is eminently practical and tangible, taking into account the special characteristics of information processing that has students with autism.