Every classroom has neurodiverse students, and it is essential to engage them so that they are focused and ready to learn.
Neurodiversity can be seen in every classroom, and we need to incorporate the needs of neuro-diverse students into our pedagogy. Our neuro-diverse students are often great at hiding how overwhelmed they are in the classroom. Often, students will present their anxiety through fidgeting, talking to themselves, or engaging in off-task behaviour that soothes them or in a variety of other ways that are specific to them.
The following strategies can help make these students feel less anxious and help them stay engaged in class.
1. The First Five Minutes: Students need to feel at ease in class and being seen is the best way to start. It is always a great way to connect with students and learn about them as people. The first five minutes spent walking around the classroom, talking to students, and asking about themselves help children feel connected.
2. Relaxation: Another great way to help our neurodivergent students in the classroom is to use calming meditation often throughout the day. Taking time to calm minds can help our most anxious students. The hustle from one class to the next and possible school challenges can cause any student, especially neurodivergent ones, to have difficulty getting into the right frame of mind for class.
Many great apps and YouTube videos can walk the class through a 5-minute breathing exercise. Spending the first 5 minutes focused only on relaxing is lovely and works particularly well after lunch or physical education class.
3. Keep it Moving: Allowing students to move their bodies in class whenever possible is essential, especially for neurodivergent students. Students who find sitting challenging may wander the room, adjust their seats, or dig in their bags. Giving movement breaks in the classroom helps students to release their energy. If the student is physically settled, they can focus in class. Wobble chairs or exercise balls, and fidget toys can help as well.
4. Helping Students Organise: Neurodiverse students struggle with executive function, making organisation difficult. The best example would be a student cleaning their desk by jamming everything in their backpack or cleaning out their backpack by stuffing everything in their desk.
These messy places are not about students being messy but about their inability to organise. Making class organising time something for everyone is helpful. Cleaning desks, lockers, and bags together help students not feel singled out or overwhelmed by the task. Helping students organise engages them better in the classroom.
5. Words Matter: Students show greater interest in completing tasks after being exposed to the teacher's positive talk. Students' motivation, engagement, behavior during lessons and attitude towards the subject increased significantly, leading to better results. Research shows that teachers and students perceive positive teacher language as necessary, whereas negative talk is a source of students' discouragement.
6. Rule of Three: Following the rule of three helps the students to learn what is expected of them. Telling the students about a task, writing it down on the board and then talking to them one-on-one is helpful in a classroom. This way, there have been three touch points in the class activity. The one-on-one touch point is always the most effective for neurodiverse students, but the first two are great for the students who do not need to have the one-on-one talk. Over time, all students learn the routine of where the information can be found to do the work in class.
Neurodivergent students need a little extra help, so they do not get lost in our classrooms. Establishing these patterns early can really help them be successful in school.
The author is an educational psychologist.
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