Purpose: an educator reference guide covering what staff may see, what may be happening underneath, and what to do next for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It focuses on observable classroom and school patterns, plausible underlying mechanisms, practical adjustments, and the limits of what can be inferred from behaviour alone — it is not a diagnostic instrument, autism screening tool, behaviour support plan or functional behaviour assessment.
| Evidence category | Meaning in this resource | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Core diagnostic features | Required elements of the diagnostic construct. These are central to autism, although their outward presentation varies. | Social-communication/social-interaction differences; restricted or repetitive patterns; insistence on sameness; restricted interests; sensory hyper- or hyporeactivity. |
| Common associated or co-occurring differences | Frequently reported in autistic populations but not required for an autism diagnosis. | Executive-function difficulties, language disorder, ADHD, anxiety, sleep difficulties, motor coordination difficulties, feeding problems. |
| Variable / emerging concepts | Reported by autistic people and/or supported by a developing research base, but measurement, definition or generalisability remains limited. | Camouflaging, autistic burnout, interoceptive differences, monotropism, demand-avoidant profiles. |
| Not safe to infer from behaviour alone | Possible explanations that require assessment rather than assumption. | Pain, trauma, depression, bullying, abuse, seizure activity, medication effects, hearing/vision problems, learning disorder, intentional misconduct. |
Click the one closest to what you're seeing. Each page covers what it is, what it can look like at school, and what helps.
What autism is, and the two core diagnostic domains.
Motor coordination, interoception and alexithymia.
Commonly missed presentations, and how co-occurring conditions change the picture.
Hidden demands through the day, and a behaviour translation matrix.
Response principles, classroom adjustments, and what commonly backfires.
Burnout, useful school data, and when to escalate beyond the classroom.
A fast checklist and phrase swaps for busy moments.
The full reference list, with DOI links where available.
ES tools that may help with the classroom patterns you selected. These products do not assess or treat the condition above. They provide practical classroom systems that may help with some of the behaviours, demands, communication needs or regulation patterns you are seeing. Processing and demand load, clearer adult language, and regulation/escalation patterns.
A$100
A$200
Reciprocity, nonverbal communication and the hidden curriculum.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Reciprocity refers to the back-and-forth coordination of interaction. In school this can affect when to enter a conversation, how much information to give, when a listener is losing interest, how to repair a misunderstanding, and how to balance talking about one's own interests with another person's topic. The presentation can range from obvious difficulty initiating/responding to very subtle effortful compensation.
| What staff may see | What may be happening underneath | Useful educator response |
|---|---|---|
| Long monologues about a preferred topic | Interest-based communication; difficulty gauging listener cues; excitement; reduced awareness of implied turn-taking rules. | Acknowledge the interest, then make the conversational boundary explicit: time, turns, topic shift or check-in question. |
| Short, factual answers that sound blunt | Direct communication style; processing load; uncertainty about expected social padding. | Do not grade warmth from tone alone. Ask clear follow-up questions and teach hidden expectations explicitly when they are genuinely necessary. |
| Does not join casual group talk | High processing demand; unpredictable turn-taking; noise; previous rejection; preference for structured interaction. | Provide structured roles, smaller groups, predictable entry points and nonverbal participation options. |
| Looks socially skilled with adults but struggles with peers | Adult interactions may be more structured and predictable; peer culture is fast, implicit and status-sensitive. | Assess peer-context demands rather than assuming the student “can do it when they want to”. |
Repetitive movement, insistence on sameness, and focused interests.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Repetitive motor movements, repetitive use of objects and repetitive speech can serve many functions: enjoyment, sensory regulation, emotional expression, concentration, predictability or communication. Repetition should not automatically be suppressed because it looks unusual. The relevant questions are whether it is safe, whether it blocks essential access, and whether the student is being prevented from using a legitimate regulation strategy.
A need for predictability can become visible around timetable changes, relief teachers, changed seating, altered task sequence, unexpected visitors, cancelled activities, changes to rules or ambiguous instructions. “Rigid” behaviour may reflect a genuine difficulty shifting mental set, uncertainty about what comes next, anxiety, loss of a trusted plan or an attempt to reduce cognitive load.
| Presentation | Check before responding | Potential adjustment |
|---|---|---|
| Distress when a lesson changes | How much warning was given? Was the original plan strongly cued? Does the student know what replaces it? | Preview changes, show the replacement plan, preserve one familiar element, and give a clear endpoint. |
| Argues that a rule is being applied inconsistently | Is there an actual inconsistency? Has the reason for the exception been explained? | State the rule and the exception explicitly. Avoid “because I said so” when the real issue is ambiguity. |
| Cannot move on from unfinished work | Perfectionism? strong completion drive? difficulty shifting? fear the work will disappear or count as failure? | Use a save-and-return routine, photograph work, write the next step, or give a defined stopping rule. |
| Becomes stuck after an error | Is the student uncertain how to recover, ashamed, overwhelmed or applying an all-or-nothing rule? | Normalise correction, reduce public attention, show the repair step, and avoid adding a lecture while the student is stuck. |
Highly focused interests can support motivation, knowledge, identity, connection and regulation. They can also become difficult when access is abruptly blocked, when the student cannot shift away from the interest, or when the interest consumes learning time across settings. Good support does not require removing the interest; it uses boundaries, predictability and purposeful incorporation where appropriate.
Sensory load can accumulate across the day and interact with attention and regulation.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Sensory hyperreactivity, hyporeactivity or unusual sensory interests are part of the formal autism diagnostic framework, but the actual sensory profile varies greatly. Difficulties may involve sound, light, touch, smell, taste, movement, body position or combinations of inputs. Sensory load can accumulate across the day and interact with attention, communication and emotional regulation.
| Channel | Possible school triggers | Possible observable effects |
|---|---|---|
| Auditory | Chairs scraping, bells, hand dryers, assemblies, multiple conversations, PA systems, sudden shouting. | Covering ears, irritability, leaving, delayed response, apparent inattention, escalation after noisy periods. |
| Visual | Fluorescent lighting, glare, cluttered walls, fast screens, crowded movement, visually dense worksheets. | Looking away, headache/fatigue reports, reduced task persistence, visual fixation, shutdown. |
| Tactile | Uniform fabric, tags, accidental peer contact, wet materials, glue, crowded lines. | Avoidance, clothing changes, pushing away contact, refusal of specific activities. |
| Olfactory/gustatory | Food smells, perfumes, cleaning products, science materials. | Nausea, avoidance, headaches, refusal to enter an area. |
| Movement/body position | Long sitting, crowded stairs, PE, unstable seating, limited movement opportunities. | Constant movement, crashing/leaning, avoidance of PE, fatigue, clumsiness. |
| Combined load | Noise + social demand + heat + unpredictability + academic task. | A student who manages each factor separately may lose capacity when several stack together. |
Fluent speech can mask significant receptive, pragmatic or processing demands.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Autism does not imply a single language profile. Some autistic students have co-occurring language disorder or intellectual disability; others have advanced vocabulary and strong factual knowledge but difficulty with pragmatic language, ambiguity, figurative language, rapid verbal processing or organising a response under pressure. Fluent speech can mask significant receptive, pragmatic or processing demands.
| Staff interpretation | Alternative possibility to test | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| “He heard me; he is ignoring me.” | The student heard the sound but has not processed the instruction, shifted attention or worked out the first action. | Use the student's name if helpful, pause, give one clear instruction, add visual information, then allow processing time. |
| “She is being deliberately literal.” | The wording is genuinely ambiguous or the student is relying on the literal meaning under stress. | Say exactly what is required. Avoid turning ambiguity into a compliance test. |
| “He knows the rule.” | The student can recite the rule but may not recognise when it applies in a new context. | Teach application with concrete examples and contrast cases. |
| “She can explain it after, so she could have done it at the time.” | Retrospective language in a calm state does not equal online processing during overload. | Compare performance across regulation states before inferring intent. |
Repeated or scripted language can be communicative, regulatory or meaning-based. Staff should consider context, timing and function rather than assuming repetition is meaningless. For some students, familiar phrases provide a ready-made language unit when spontaneous formulation is difficult.
Group-level differences in flexibility, working memory, inhibition and processing speed.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Executive-function differences are common in autistic populations but are not diagnostic criteria and are not unique to autism. Research shows group-level differences in areas such as flexibility, working memory, inhibition, attention and processing speed, with substantial overlap between autism and ADHD and considerable individual variability.
| Demand | Possible classroom presentation | Support |
|---|---|---|
| Task initiation | Sits without starting, asks repeated questions, sharp refusal at the first step. | Make the first action visible and small; provide a worked start; reduce verbal preamble. |
| Working memory | Forgets multi-step instructions, loses place, completes only the final step. | Externalise steps; checklist; model; leave instruction visible. |
| Shifting | Difficulty stopping a preferred activity or moving from one solution to another. | Countdown, transition cue, save point, bridge task, explicit “old plan/new plan”. |
| Planning/organisation | Has the knowledge but cannot assemble materials or sequence an assignment. | Provide structure, milestones, templates and explicit sequencing. |
| Inhibition | Calls out, acts before checking, cannot stop a repeated response. | Reduce delay demands; cue before high-risk moments; teach replacement response; consider ADHD overlap. |
| Processing speed | Long latency, late response, apparent blankness under questioning. | Pause. Avoid repeating/rephrasing immediately. Allow written or visual response pathways. |
Distress arises when demands exceed available capacity.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
“Emotional dysregulation” is not a core diagnostic criterion, but distress can arise when communication, sensory, executive, social, physical or predictability demands exceed available capacity. The same outward behaviour can have different functions on different days.
Meltdown is a widely used descriptive term rather than a formal DSM/ICD diagnosis. In practice it refers to an acute loss of behavioural control associated with overwhelming distress or load. Behaviour may include crying, shouting, aggression, throwing, fleeing, self-injury or repetitive movement. The important distinction is functional: during acute overload, adding reasoning, moral discussion or consequences often increases processing demand.
Shutdown is also a descriptive, non-diagnostic term. Staff may see reduced speech, stillness, withdrawal, head down, delayed response, hiding, inability to initiate, or a strong need to leave interaction. A quiet student can be highly distressed. Absence of external disruption is not evidence of regulation.
Strategies used to conceal or compensate for autistic characteristics.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Camouflaging refers to strategies used to conceal, compensate for or reduce the visibility of autistic characteristics in social situations. Research supports the existence of camouflaging across autistic populations, but definitions and measurement methods vary and samples have often underrepresented autistic people with intellectual disability or higher support needs.
Autism does not make every refusal “PDA”.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Avoidance of demands can occur for many reasons: task difficulty, anxiety, executive-function load, unclear language, sensory discomfort, fear of failure, perfectionism, low perceived control, prior coercive interactions, fatigue, learning difficulty, ADHD, trauma or ordinary preference. Autism does not make every refusal “PDA”.
Pathological Demand Avoidance / Persistent Drive for Autonomy is a contested concept and is not established as a separate diagnosis or formal subtype of autism in major diagnostic systems. Systematic reviews have raised concerns about definition, measurement and circularity. It is safer for educators to describe the observable demand-avoidant pattern and investigate function rather than treat a PDA label as an explanation.
| Check | Questions | Possible response |
|---|---|---|
| Clarity | Does the student know exactly what “done” looks like? | Reduce ambiguity; show start/end; visual model. |
| Skill | Can the student actually perform the task independently? | Teach missing skill; scaffold; reduce output while preserving learning intent. |
| Control | Is every part of the task fixed unnecessarily? | Offer genuine choices about order, tool, location, partner or response mode. |
| Threat/anxiety | Is failure, correction, public exposure or unpredictability driving avoidance? | Reduce public pressure; preview; use graded entry; separate practice from evaluation. |
| Load | Is the student already carrying sensory, social, executive or emotional load? | Reduce concurrent demands; schedule recovery; alter timing. |
| Interaction history | Has this become an adult-student power struggle? | Change the adult pattern; reduce repeated commands and public confrontation; re-establish neutral predictability. |
A lifelong neurodevelopmental condition with substantial individual variation.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition characterised by differences in social communication and social interaction together with restricted or repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests or activities. Sensory hyperreactivity or hyporeactivity is included within the restricted/repetitive domain in DSM-5-based criteria. Features begin in the developmental period, but some may become more obvious only when environmental and social demands exceed the person's available capacities or when learned compensatory strategies no longer hold.
The word “spectrum” does not mean a straight line from “mild” to “severe”. Two autistic students can have the same diagnosis and very different profiles. A student may communicate fluently yet have marked difficulty interpreting ambiguity, managing rapid social exchanges or shifting attention. Another may use few spoken words but show strong visual learning, pattern recognition or practical problem-solving. Support needs can also change substantially across the day.
| Domain | What it can involve in school | Important caution |
|---|---|---|
| Social communication and interaction | Back-and-forth interaction, nonverbal communication, interpreting context, developing or navigating relationships, adjusting communication across settings. | This does not equal “no empathy”, “does not want friends” or “cannot communicate”. Differences may be subtle, reciprocal and context-dependent. |
| Restricted/repetitive patterns, interests or activities | Repetitive movements or speech, strong routines, distress with change, highly focused interests, sensory seeking/avoidance or unusual sensory responses. | A preferred routine or interest is not automatically a problem. The educational issue is whether the environment creates unnecessary barriers or the pattern is causing distress, risk or restricted access. |
Common in autistic children, but not required for diagnosis.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Motor differences are common in autistic children, including difficulties with balance, manual dexterity, ball skills, coordination and motor planning. These are not required for autism diagnosis and may reflect a co-occurring developmental coordination disorder or other motor issue. Recent systematic reviews continue to find substantial variability but consistent group-level motor difficulties.
Perceiving bodily signals, and difficulty identifying or describing emotions.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Interoception refers to perception and interpretation of internal bodily signals such as hunger, thirst, heartbeat, temperature, bladder signals and arousal. It is often discussed in autism, but the research is inconsistent. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis found no evidence that autism is universally associated with impaired cardiac interoceptive accuracy and concluded that findings across other interoceptive dimensions remain mixed.
For educators, the practical implication is not to assume “poor interoception” from a diagnosis. Instead, observe whether a specific student consistently notices bodily needs late, has difficulty linking bodily sensations to emotional states, or requires external routines for hydration, toileting, food or breaks.
Alexithymia describes difficulty identifying and describing emotions. It is more common in autistic populations but is not synonymous with autism and is not present in every autistic person. Meta-analytic evidence suggests elevated rates, while child/adolescent research remains less developed than adult research.
| What staff may see | Do not assume | Try instead |
|---|---|---|
| “I don't know” when asked how they feel | Defiance, lack of insight or unwillingness to cooperate. | Offer concrete body/context choices: “tight chest, hot face, shaky, tired, okay, not sure?” Allow “not sure”. |
| Emotion identified only after escalation | The student should have warned staff earlier. | Teach and track early observable cues when calm; staff may need to notice patterns before the student can label them. |
| Uses behaviour rather than emotional language | The behaviour tells you the exact emotion or motive. | Treat behaviour as data, not a mind-reading tool. Check context and competing explanations. |
Females can be under-recognised or diagnosed later.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Autism is diagnosed more often in males, and evidence suggests that females can be under-recognised or diagnosed later. Proposed contributors include differences in observable phenotype, camouflaging, diagnostic expectations and referral patterns. These are group-level findings and should not become a new stereotype that all autistic girls are socially skilled or heavily masked.
Can change the school presentation more than autism itself.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Co-occurring conditions can change the school presentation more than autism itself. Large reviews consistently identify high rates of ADHD, anxiety, sleep problems, gastrointestinal difficulties, feeding/eating problems, motor difficulties and other mental-health or developmental conditions in autistic populations, with estimates varying substantially across studies and populations.
Hidden demands at each point of the day.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
| Context | Possible hidden demand | What staff may misread |
|---|---|---|
| Arrival | Transition from home; unpredictability; social entry; noise; separation; remembering materials. | “Bad attitude first thing.” |
| Whole-class instruction | Sustained listening; filtering noise; inferential language; sitting still; working memory. | “Not listening.” |
| Independent work | Initiation, planning, uncertainty, error tolerance, help-seeking. | “Lazy” or “refusing.” |
| Group work | Rapid reciprocity, role negotiation, shared control, unpredictable peers. | “Bossy”, “withdrawn” or “doesn't cooperate.” |
| Recess/lunch | Unstructured social rules, noise, crowds, eating/sensory load, lack of recovery time. | “Chooses to isolate” or “always causes drama at lunch.” |
| PE | Changing, noise, motor coordination, team rules, touch, competition, performance exposure. | “Won't have a go.” |
| Assemblies/events | Crowds, sound, waiting, unclear duration, disrupted routine. | “Attention seeking” when leaving or covering ears. |
| End of day | Accumulated sensory/social/executive load; transition; unfinished work. | “Falls apart over nothing.” |
Hypothesis-based, not diagnostic — widens thinking before a response is chosen.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
The following table is deliberately hypothesis-based. None of the “possible explanations” can be assumed from the behaviour alone. Its purpose is to widen staff thinking before a response is selected.
| What staff see | Possible explanations to test | Response worth trying |
|---|---|---|
| Refuses to start work | Unclear first step; executive initiation difficulty; fear of error; task too hard; demand-related anxiety; low relevance; fatigue. | Clarify first action; show model; check skill; reduce public pressure; offer structured choice. |
| Rips or throws work after a mistake | Perfectionism; cognitive inflexibility; shame; overload; limited repair strategy. | Reduce audience; give a concrete repair pathway; teach error recovery when calm. |
| Argues about exact wording | Literal interpretation; need for consistency; uncertainty; genuine rule discrepancy. | Clarify wording and rationale; distinguish rule from exception; avoid escalating over semantics. |
| Keeps asking the same question | Uncertainty; reassurance seeking; processing delay; answer not concrete enough; anxiety. | Write the answer/plan; set a check-back time; reduce repeated verbal negotiation. |
| Leaves the room | Sensory escape; overload; task avoidance; social threat; learned escape; need for regulation. | Check antecedent and destination; establish safe exit/re-entry routine; do not assume one function. |
| Covers ears and shouts | Auditory pain/overload; sudden sound; cumulative load. | Reduce sound where possible; offer ear protection if individually useful; move rather than lecture. |
| Does not respond to name/instruction | Deep focus; processing delay; auditory load; shutdown; hearing issue; avoidance. | Gain attention without threat, pause, simplify, visualise; check pattern across contexts. |
| Talks constantly about one topic | Focused interest; regulation; social connection attempt; difficulty gauging reciprocity. | Acknowledge then set explicit turn/time boundaries; use interest strategically. |
| Corrects teachers/peers | Rule focus; accuracy drive; literal interpretation; anxiety about inconsistency; social-pragmatic difficulty. | Acknowledge accuracy where appropriate; teach when correction matters and how to signal it. |
| Laughs during correction or serious events | Nervous response; mismatch in affect display; scripting; discomfort; genuine amusement. | Do not infer disrespect from expression alone; check understanding directly. |
| Pushes a peer in a crowded line | Touch sensitivity; startle; space issue; conflict; impulsivity; aggression. | Address safety, then investigate proximity, sequence and peer context; adjust line position if warranted. |
| Sits alone at lunch | Chosen recovery; social exclusion; bullying; no shared interests; sensory avoidance. | Ask rather than assume; distinguish preferred solitude from unwanted isolation. |
| Completes advanced work but cannot pack bag | Uneven profile; executive/organisation demand; motor demand. | Externalise routine; do not use academic ability as evidence that organisation support is unnecessary. |
| Appears fine all day then refuses school next morning | Accumulated load; anxiety; masking; bullying; sleep; health; avoidance maintained by relief. | Investigate the full day/week, not only visible incidents; include family/student report. |
| Becomes distressed when relief teacher arrives | Predictability loss; unclear expectations; relationship uncertainty. | Preview known changes; provide written routine and named support person. |
| Cannot stop preferred activity | Attentional capture; transition cost; unclear endpoint; reward contrast. | Use visible endpoint, save point, countdown and bridge to next task. |
| Says “I don't care” | Defence; alexithymia; shame; overload; genuine lack of concern. | Avoid mind-reading; reduce heat; revisit later with concrete questions. |
| Repeatedly breaks a social rule | Rule not understood in context; impulse control; peer reinforcement; oppositional behaviour; skill gap. | Teach concrete examples and consequences; collect context data; do not assume diagnosis explains it. |
| Sudden increase in aggression/self-injury | Pain, sleep loss, anxiety, bullying, change, medication/health issue, overload, learned function. | Treat change from baseline seriously; assess safety/health and context; escalate through appropriate pathway. |
| Stops speaking | Shutdown; anxiety; selective mutism; fatigue; overload; communication choice. | Reduce verbal demand; allow alternative communication; do not force speech. |
Matching the response to the mechanism, not the surface behaviour.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Instruction design, communication, environment and social participation.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Some ordinary responses can backfire under overload.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
| Adult/environment pattern | Why it can backfire | Better direction |
|---|---|---|
| Repeated verbal commands during overload | Adds language and social demand while processing capacity is reduced. | Shorten language; pause; make the next action visible. |
| Public correction or argument | Adds audience, shame, status threat and peer attention. | Move interaction private where possible; be brief and concrete. |
| Removing all preferred interests as punishment | May remove a major regulation/motivation resource and increase adversarial dynamics. | Use proportionate consequences linked to behaviour; preserve legitimate regulation supports. |
| Demanding eye contact | Can increase cognitive/sensory load and does not prove listening. | Measure comprehension and response. |
| Changing the plan without explaining replacement | Creates uncertainty rather than teaching flexibility. | State old plan, change, new plan and endpoint. |
| Treating every refusal as defiance | Misses skill, sensory, communication, anxiety or executive causes. | Analyse the demand and context before deciding the behavioural response. |
| Assuming calm appearance means low distress | Masked/internalised distress can go unnoticed. | Use student report, family information, attendance, fatigue and pattern data. |
| Over-accommodating without review | Can unintentionally reduce opportunities to build skills or narrow participation. | Use accommodations to improve access, then review function and independence over time. |
Elevated risk of school absence and sustained exhaustion.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Autistic students have elevated risk of school absence. Research links non-attendance with mental-health difficulties, co-occurring neurodevelopmental conditions, bullying and school-related factors, although intervention evidence remains limited.
Autistic burnout is an emerging construct described in autistic-led and qualitative research as severe exhaustion, reduced functioning and increased difficulty managing everyday demands after sustained overload. A 2025 systematic review synthesised 48 studies and found themes including sensory/social overwhelm, camouflaging, stigma and everyday life challenges; however, participants were predominantly adults, White, female and late-diagnosed, so direct generalisation to all school-aged autistic students is not justified.
For schools, the useful response is to take sustained deterioration seriously: reduced attendance, loss of previously manageable skills, increased shutdown, reduced tolerance of sensory/social demand, prolonged recovery and marked exhaustion warrant a broader review rather than simply increasing pressure to perform at the previous level.
Describes context and change, not a count of “autistic behaviours”.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
| Collect | Examples | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Antecedent/context | Task, staff member, group size, noise, transition, unexpected change, peer event, time of day. | Identifies environmental patterns and competing hypotheses. |
| Observable behaviour | Specific action: left seat, covered ears, tore sheet, stopped speaking, repeated question 8 times. | Avoids vague labels such as “dysregulated”, “defiant” or “autistic behaviour”. |
| Duration/intensity/recovery | How long, safety impact, time to return to baseline, what recovery looked like. | Tracks actual burden and whether support changes outcomes. |
| Adult response | Exact instruction, language used, consequence, accommodation, delay, location. | Adult behaviour is part of the environment and can alter the pattern. |
| What changed | Relief teacher, sleep, medication, timetable, family report, illness, bullying report, assessment period. | Sudden change may require a different pathway. |
| Successful conditions | Where the same demand goes well and what is different. | Often more informative than analysing failure alone. |
Patterns that warrant escalation beyond the classroom.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
Other explanations worth checking before attributing a change to autism.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
| Presentation | Other explanations that may need assessment |
|---|---|
| New aggression or irritability | Pain, sleep loss, anxiety/depression, bullying, medication effects, trauma, seizures, environmental change, learning frustration. |
| Sudden withdrawal or loss of speech | Shutdown/overload, anxiety, depression, selective mutism, bullying, medical/neurological issue. |
| Poor academic progress | Specific learning disorder, language disorder, intellectual disability, attention difficulties, attendance, inaccessible teaching, vision/hearing issues. |
| Inattention | ADHD, sleep, anxiety, sensory distraction, task difficulty, boredom, medication/health factors. |
| Refusal | Skill deficit, fear, anxiety, autonomy conflict, unclear demand, learning difficulty, fatigue, oppositional behaviour, peer context. |
| Social withdrawal | Preferred solitude, exclusion, bullying, depression, anxiety, exhaustion, sensory overload. |
| Repetitive questioning | Uncertainty, OCD symptoms, anxiety, language processing, memory, reassurance seeking, habit. |
| Food restriction | Sensory preferences, feeding/eating disorder, gastrointestinal issues, allergy/intolerance, anxiety, oral-motor issues. |
| Frequent toileting/avoidance | Medical issue, anxiety, sensory factors, escape, constipation or continence problem. |
An order to check through when a student isn't doing what you expected.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.
| Instead of | Try |
|---|---|
| “You know what you're supposed to do.” | “The first step is ___. When that is done, show me.” |
| “Stop arguing.” | “The rule is ___. This time the exception is ___ because ___.” |
| “Look at me when I'm talking.” | “Show me the first thing you're going to do.” |
| “Calm down and tell me what happened.” | “You don't need to explain yet. We'll sort it when you're ready.” |
| “Everyone else can cope with this.” | “What part of this is hardest: the noise, the change, the task, or something else?” |
| “You're choosing not to.” | “Something is blocking this. Let's work out whether it's the task, the load or the plan.” |
The full reference list from the source document.
Reference tool — informs practice, does not diagnose or label.