Our autism outreach workers are specialist teaching assistants. They directly support schools using a shadowed working or training approach such as: 

  • modelling interventions and strategies 
  • setting aims with the school 

We deliver formal training through teachers, the speech and language therapist or outreach workers as appropriate. All our courses, except for Attention Autism, are free for schools. 

We can also train the whole school on site for programmes like ASD awareness or ASD for mealtime supervisors.

View courses on Direct Services to Schools

Contact Autism Outreach

Telephone: 020 8921 3311 

Email: asd-outreach@royalgreenwich.gov.uk

Read about our approach to supporting children and young people with autism:

Strategies to use at school

You can help your students by: 

  • applying routine, structure and consistency 
  • preparing for any changes 
  • adapting your communication to use shorter sentences and emphasising key words 
  • giving children processing time to respond to you (we suggest up to 10 seconds) 
  • using visual supports such as gestures, pictures and symbols to back-up communication 
  • supporting children to have their own means of communication, even if they do not have language 
  • being aware of children's sensory needs and trying to meet them, not stop them 
  • being aware of anything the child finds triggering and planning for this 
  • motivating and rewarding desired behaviour – reprimands are rarely as effective 

Visual processing

You can help a student with their visual processing by: 

  • building up the sides of a desk with cardboard to block out distracting stimuli 
  • keeping visual and auditory distractions (such as wall displays) to a minimum to help focus their attention 
  • seating them beside the teacher to help them attend to directions and tasks 
  • using different colours for different lines on the board

Find visual resources to use at school

Read more about understanding sensory needs for sight