Transition to Middle to High School: Increasing the Success of Students with Aspergers Syndrome

Intervention in School & Clinic

Diane Adreon and Jennifer Stella, Vol.36 No. 5 May (2001) pp 266-271

The transition from elementary to secondary school is challenging for all students as a number of environmental, social, psychological, and physiological changes are imposed on them. These challenges often have a significant effect on typical students but may have an even more profound effect on students with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) due to the nature of the disability. This article outlines the numerous difficulties that students with AS may encounter during the transition to middle and high school. In addition, a range of specific supports and strategies are offered in order to assist students with AS making a successful transition.

Foremost among these changes are increases in school size and departmentalised teaching. In addition, students meet with increased expectations for achievement and behaviour. Students are also subject to more rigorous grading policies and more copious homework assignments. At the same time, social expectations increase, and peer relationships become more complex. Students encounter a larger and more diverse student population where conformity and social competence are stressed. Alongside these demands, students must cope with the physiological changes associated with the onset of puberty.

Although students with AS may excel in the academic arena, they will find expectations in the social and behavioural domains to be quite elusive. Students with AS are more likely to be misunderstood by their teachers in middle and high school than in elementary school. This may be because middle- and secondary -level teachers often have less opportunity to get to know a child well. Children with AS are frequently excluded, teased, or bullied and may begin to feel left out, misunderstood, or persecuted. Students with AS are likely to be quite anxious about completing increased homework assignments, interacting with older students, navigating a larger school building, getting lost, and being late to class. However, students with AS are also likely to experience anxiety about the same activities that typical students look forward to. Individuals with AS will most certainly experience anxiety regarding lockers, changing classes, and adjusting to different teachers. Research on the transition process has suggested that proactive planning has had a positive effect on typical student’s adjustment.

The Transition-Planning Meeting.
The first step to ensuring a successful transition is to hold a transition-planning meeting. Whenever possible, it will be important to have personnel in attendance from both the school being transitioned from and the school being transitioned to.

Training For School Personnel
In order for the student to be as successful as possible, it is imperative that school personnel have an understanding of Asperger Syndrome and how this disorder will affect the student’s behavioural and academic performance.

Student Orientation
Student orientation activities are based on the premises that for students to feel comfortable in their new school, they must become acquainted with it.

Support may include:

• Preferential seating
• Visual supports
• Reduction in number of assignments
• Organisational supports; and
• Note taking assistance

Unstructured Times
For many students with Asperger Syndrome, the unstructured times are the most problematic activities of the day. Common problem times include:

• Bus rides
• Change of classes
• Lunch
• Physical education
• Study hall; and
• Before / after school

These periods of the day are problematic because during these times the social demands become more complex, and the rules for acceptable behaviour become less clear.