High Functioning Autistic Class

[katiefins]

Hello! I am a teaching assistant for an autistic support class at a local high school in Raleigh, North Carolina. Every Friday our class gets together for 90 minutes to work on social skills. During this time we pretend to be in a drama/theatre class, instead of curriculum assistance. We dress up with goofy hats, masks, silly wigs, and scarves. These funny props enable our students to be someone else for a short while. This class period gives our students a chance to have fun and act out! The teacher I work along side of is great at mixing in activities that focus on emtions and body movements rather than verbal skills. Our hope is that our students learn the importance of how to show their emotions through facial and body language. This is still a new activity for us, so I was wondering if anyone has any other ideas to help us! I would really appreciate it!
Thank you so much!
Katie

[MissTeach]

Wow, what a fantastic idea! I would love to be a fly on the wall and watch your class. I don't have any suggestions for you, but I do encourage you to keep up the good work. Having worked with autistic students, I know your class is a valuable experience for your students.

[Brit]

cool....one activity that comes to mind -- each prop could become a different emotion (have the kids free-associate, or designate the emotions yourself, I don't know waht would work best). Then, as each child is passed the prop, they have to act out taht emotion -- lots of modelling first, of course. Then you can do a social story for "when I feel _______________-" with each to give students some framework for how to deal with each emotion.

for example, a big, tall black hat represents "angry". They need to make an angry face and stomp around the room. after everyone has a turn, you can do a social story saying "sometimes I get angry. When I am angry, it is okay to....it is not okay to...."

I've never worked directly with autistic kids or not, so I don't know if they'd be able to separate the activity from actually starting to feel angry anytime they saw a tall black hat, which might be a problem. Still, if it works, it could be something new for you.