A holistic approach to learning should never focus on your student’s diagnosis.  The best way to determine the approach that is right for your child starts with an initial period of observation and interaction, testing different methodologies for efficacy.  The best interventions will involve you, the parent, in a collaborative process to come up with a program at school that can be reinforced at home.  With all that in mind, children who have been diagnosed with high functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome (HFA/AS) have been found to respond extremely well to interventions that have been developed for nonverbal learning disability (NLD; Donaldson and Zager, 2010).  About 25% of HFA/AS students exhibit similar patterns of math difficulty as is commonly observed in NLD students, including organizing information on a page, comprehending the language in instructions or word problems, or remembering operations throughout an equation.  If you are working with a child with HFA/AS or NLD, the following strategies should be incorporated to the observational period:

• self-regulation:  Students complete a checklist as they move through a computation, with reminders for each step and teacher feedback following task completion.  Students can also use verbal feedback strategies to repeat important instructions, creating additional structure and helping to ensure that the step is completed.
• direct instruction:  In a one-on-one setting, the teacher demonstrates how to perform the task, prompts and guides the student, and reinforces correct responses.  Identifying specific skills for direct instruction should involve collaboration with the child’s regular teacher.  Direct instruction is particularly useful in situations where the student’s learning issue has resulted in high levels of anxiety surrounding math learning, as it provides the greatest opportunity for emotional support.
• goal structure:  A learning goal is set and reaching the goal is rewarded.  Students can collaborate with teachers to come up with a personal goal that they are invested in reaching, and rewards do not have to be a piece of candy.  Playing a math game is often an excellent reward for a job well done.
• concrete-representational-abstract:  In CRA, students are shown a concrete example, which is followed by a pictorial representation of the concept, followed by an abstract symbol.  For example, cutting an apple in half would be followed by a square with half of it colored in, followed by the fraction ½.
• integrated behavioral experiential teaching:  IBET is often used for teaching social skills to children on the autism spectrum.  It combines some of the behavioral principles of direct instruction with the progression of CRA to create a program that is highly relevant to the student’s life.

While found to be particularly effective for HFA/AS and NLD students, the strategies detailed here are simply sound teaching for all students.  Whenever a student is referred for math learning difficulties, many different strategies should be tested for individual learning style.  If HFA/AS or NLD are of particular concern, however, the strategies above can provide a starting point for a more effective intervention.

Source:  Donaldson, J.B., and Zager, D. (2010).  Mathematics Interventions for Students with High Functioning Autism/Asperger’s Syndrome.  Teaching Exceptional Children, 42(6), 40-46.