Peer Awareness Activity
Activity: Perceptual & Sensory (Tactile)
Age Range: All Ages
Time Needed: 20-30 minutes
Rationale:
Students need assistance to understand some of the sensory difficulties students with
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may experience. The more a peer understands about
the perceptions and experiences of a classmate with ASD, the more sensitive that peer is
likely to become. The activities can help to create a compassionate and safe learning
environment in which relationships can develop. (McGinnity & Negri, 2005) NOTE: Some
children may not enjoy this experience - choose your participant carefully.
How To:
Materials
-roll of masking tape and binoculars
-several strips of yarn, 4 feet in length
-garden glove with Velcro stuck on to fingers and palm
-large handful of lambs wool or a feather duster
Steps:
1. Place a length of tape on the floor. Have each child hold the binoculars on their
eyes, backwards. This causes perception to be distorted. Have students walk on
the line of tape.
2. Have each student jump rope using the yarn, instead of a rope. This causes the
feeling of distorted perception of the weight of the “rope.”
3. The teacher wears the scratchy glove and holds the soft feathers and wool. While
the students are participating in the above activities, walk by and touch a bare arm
or hand. This simulates the unpredictable sensation of the skin (either too scratchy
or uncomfortably soft).
Discussion:
Following the exercise the teacher asks the volunteers how they felt throughout the
exercise.
The teacher then leads a discussion about how it would feel to experience similar
challenges throughout the entire school day.
Students brainstorm ways that they could help a student with similar difficulties in their
class.
Write ideas down on a sheet of paper so they can be reviewed periodically.
References:
Fahery, C. (2005). Understanding Friends: A Program to Educate Children About
Differences, and to Foster Empathy. Retrieved July 16th, 2005 from
http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/
McGinnity, K., & Negri, N. (2005). Walk Awhile in My Autism. Cambridge, Wisconsin:
Cambridge Book Review Press.
This material adapted from Erinoak.
Peer Awareness Activity
Activity: Perceptual & Sensory (Fine Motor)
Age Range: All Ages
Time Needed: 20-30 minutes
Rationale:
Students need assistance to understand some of the sensory difficulties students with
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may experience. The more a peer understands about
the perceptions and experiences of a classmate with ASD, the more sensitive that peer is
likely to become. The activities can help to create a compassionate and safe learning
environment in which relationships can develop. (McGinnity & Negri, 2005)
How To:
Materials
-8 pairs of large cloth garden gloves
-8 sets of shoestrings and beads, each in a small tub
-8 sets of hardware (nut, bolt, washer), each in a small tub
Steps:
1. Find 8 student volunteers.
2. Each volunteer wears the gloves and tries to string beads and/or assemble
hardware.
3. Following the exercise the teacher asks the volunteers how they felt throughout the
exercise.
4. The teacher then leads a discussion about how it would feel to experience similar
challenges throughout the entire school day.
5. Students brainstorm ways that they could help a student with similar difficulties in
their class.
Things to Consider:
1)For K-1 students, have them just wear one glove and/or use larger beads.
2)Record how much time it takes students without fine motor difficulties (without gloves) to
complete the activity and compare it to the recorded times for the students with fine motor
difficulties (gloves). Have these two groups complete the activity at the same time and ask
the group wearing the gloves how they felt watching the students without the gloves
complete the activity so quickly.
References:
Fahery, C. (2005). Understanding Friends: A Program to Educate Children About
Differences, and to Foster Empathy. Retrieved July 16th, 2005 from
http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/
McGinnity, K., & Negri, N. (2005). Walk Awhile in My Autism. Cambridge, Wisconsin:
Cambridge Book Review Press.
This material adapted from Erinoak.
Peer Awareness Activity
Activity: Quotes
Age Range: Secondary School
Time Needed: 20-30 minutes
Rationale:
Something is often remembered best when it is personalized. By getting the students to
read these statements out loud and in the first person will hopefully help them to remember
the words long after the class itself and to appreciate the struggles their peers with ASD
experience.
How To:
Materials
Sheets with quotes (attached)
Steps:
1. Give a quote to as many students as you have quotes for.
2. Ask students to stand up one at a time and read each quote then sit down.
3. After all quotes are read, discuss each quote and how the students interpret and
relate to the ideas therein.
References:
McGinnity, K., & Negri, N. (2005). Walk Awhile in My Autism. Cambridge, Wisconsin:
Cambridge Book Review Press.
This material adapted from Erinoak.
Quotes
1. “My hearing is like having a sound amplifier set on maximum loudness. My ears are
like a microphone that picks up and amplifies sound. I have two choices: 1) turn my ears
on and get deluged with sound or 2) shut my ears off.”
(Temple Grandin)
2. “When my mom moved the furniture in the house I got very very upset. I hated the
change. I felt like I was not at home any more.”
(Paul McDonnell)
3. “I loved repetition. Every time I turned on a light I knew what would happen. When I
flipped the switch, the light went on. It gave me a wonderful feeling of security because it
was exactly the same each time.”
(Sean Barron)
4. “I felt secure in ‘my world’ and hated anything that tried to call me out of
there…….People, no matter how good, had no chance to compete.”
(Donna Williams)
5. “I learned to talk at 4. I didn’t learn to communicate until 11 or 12”
(Bill Donovan)
6. “I was rarely able to hear sentences because my hearing distorted them. I was
sometimes able to hear a word or two at the start and understand it and then the next lot of
words sort of merged into one another and I could not make head or tail of it.”
(Darren White)
7. “I have just come from another classroom where I had been tortured by sharp white
fluorescent light, which made reflections bounce off everything. It made the room race
busily in a constant state of change. Light and shadow dancing on people’s faces as they
spoke turned the scene into an animated cartoon.”
(Donna Williams)
8. “I just CAN’T understand human emotions, no matter how hard I try.”
(Paul McDonnell)
Quotes, Cont’d
9. “In the past I used to ask the same questions over and over and I used to drive my
parents crazy by doing that! I wanted to hear the same answer over and over because I
was never sure of anything…….I wanted an exact answer to everything: uncertainty used
to drive me crazy.”
(Paul McDonnell)
10. “I wanted to understand emotions. I had dictionary definitions for most of them and
cartoon caricatures of others…….I also had trouble reading what other people felt.”
(Donna Williams)
11. “I would often talk on and on about something that interested me……I really was not
interested in discussing anything: nor did I expect answers or opinions from the other
person, and I would often ignore them or talk over them if they interrupted.”
(Donna Williams)
12. “When I encounter a new social situation, I have to scan my memory and look for
previous experiences that were similar. As I accumulate more memories, I become more
and more skilled at predicting how other people will act in a particular situation.”
(Temple Grandin)
13. “I was never quite sure how to handle certain situations. It is very difficult…..to know
exactly when to say something, when to ask for help, or when to remain quiet…..Life is a
game in which the rules are constantly changing without rhyme or reason.”
(Anne Carpenter)
14. “It’s not so much about winning or losing, but the process, and being able to
participate.”
(Jerry Newport)
Peer Awareness Activity
Activity: Idioms
Age Range: Grade 2 to Secondary School
Time Needed: approx. 30 minutes
Rationale:
Much of our daily living is governed by unwritten rules. Many of these rules are not
expressly taught to us, but we learn them based on an instinctual ability to decipher
“codes of behaviour”. Many students with ASD find this very challenging.
How To:
Materials:
Overhead projector with a list of these idioms (and/or perhaps some of your own):
Bent out of shape
Ants in my pants
Catch 22
Grab the bull by the horns
Butterflies in my stomach
Feeling under the weather
Put two and two together
Keep your head above water
Loose lips sink ships
Pie in the sky
It’s raining cats and dogs
Fork in the road
Steps:
1. Have the students take out a sheet of paper and a pencil and write down
individually what they think each idiom means.
2. Give them a few minutes to complete this exercise then have them mark their own
papers as you reveal the answers.
3. Discuss the possible ways these idioms came into being making the point all the
while that they were not taught all of them (maybe a couple) but they deciphered
their meaning based on
i.
other’s responses
ii.
the situation it was presented in
iii.
repeated exposure to similar situations
4. Discuss how the students might help someone with ASD who may not be able to
decipher the meaning of unwritten rules.
References:
Jackson, L. (2002). Freaks, Geeks & Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence.
London, England: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Snodgrass, Catherine S. (2004). Super Silly Sayings That Are Over Your Head.
Higganum, CT: Starfish Specialty Press.
This material adapted from Erinoak.
Peer Awareness Activity
Activity: Pattern Recognition
Age Range: Grade 2 to Secondary School
Time Needed: 10-20 minutes
Rationale:
Students with ASD consistently have difficulty “decoding” a situation (understanding the
unwritten rules and the non-verbal behaviour). Often they need to be taught and
memorize the rules for specific situations.
How To:
Materials
Overhead projector
Preprinted code below:
OTTFFSS…what letter comes next in the sequence?
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
OTTFFSS…(O)TTFFSS
OTTFFSS…(S)SFFTTO
OTTFFSS…(P)TTFFSS
OTTFFSS…other possibilities???
Steps:
1. Project the first line on the screen and ask the students what the next letters in the
sequence should be.
2. After a couple of seconds reveal line i. as a possible answer, then line ii. and then iii.
3. Say: I will now give you the key to the Secret Code: the letters are the first letter of each
number going in sequence starting with 1. Hence the correct next letter should be E
(Eight).
4. Discuss how easy something is when you know the secret code, and consider how silly
someone else may appear to them just because they do not know this code of behaviour.
5. Bring home the point that while it is easy to laugh at first we can all appear silly when we
don’t know the rules.
Things to Consider:
This activity can be varied by asking a student to leave the room before you start, and then
letting the rest of the class in on the code. Ask the student to then re-enter and figure out
the answer. Ask them afterward how it felt to know that all the other students knew the
answer when they didn’t.
This material adapted from Erinoak.
Peer Awareness Activity
Activity: Degrees of Formality
Age Range: Grade 2 to Grade 8
Time Needed: 10-15 minutes
Rationale:
We all speak to different people in different ways yet we probably are not taught this.
There may be “unwritten rules” about appropriate ways to speak to different people that
students with ASD may not be aware of. They may be unaware of the subtle social cues
and “unwritten rules” that exist within the school environment. Peers may be very
important in the process of teaching students with ASD about the “unwritten rules” within
the school culture.
How To:
Steps:
1. Call up students at random and pretend to be one of the 3 levels of acquaintanceship.
Start a conversation with the student.
i.
Most formal--Principal, Parent’s friends, strangers
ii.
More comfortable acquaintanceship--Teacher, relatives, cashier at a frequented
store
iii.
Least formal--Peers/friends
2. Discuss the fact that the students do not speak to each category of person the same
way, ie. with the same degree of familiarity. Ask them: How do they know that? Who told
them? Did they ever get in trouble when they spoke inappropriately to someone? Have
they ever sat down with anyone and gone over this or any other “unwritten” rule?
3. Discuss some of the reasons why someone with ASD who doesn’t understand these
unspoken social rules may have difficulty “fitting in”.
4. Brainstorm how you can help students with ASD learn social rules and “fit in”.
This material adapted from Erinoak.
Peer Awareness Activity
Activity: 3 bowls
Age Range: Grade 2 to Secondary
Time Needed: 20-30 minutes
Rationale:
Our senses can be easily fooled. Many of our students with ASD encounter situations
where their senses send erroneous information to the brain, causing sensory overstimulation, making judgment calls difficult and hampering their ability to concentrate.
How To:
Materials
 3 bowls large enough to put a hand in.
 1 bowl to be filled with cold water, 1 with room temperature water, and 1 with water
hot enough to still safely put your hands in.
 paper towels to dry off with afterwards.
Steps:
1. Arrange the 3 bowls with the WARM in the middle of hot and cold water. Students
try this experiment one at a time.
1. Put one hand into the Cold for 2 seconds, then dunk in the Warm. The warm water
will feel hot.
2. Have them put the other hand in the Hot for 2 seconds then dunk in the Warm. It
will feel cold.
3. Repeat for all the students.
Discussion:
Sometimes their peers with ASD may have instances where their senses get a little mixed
up and they may become overwhelmed as a result. Their brains are ‘reading’ what they
feel, hear, see, smell, and taste in a way that is different from ours. For instance their
sense of smell may be so attuned that they react very harshly to ‘normal’ smells in a
cafeteria. The recess or fire alarm may be painful to their ears. The may not like the feel
of some things like Playdoh, or sunscreen on their skin. They may not like certain foods
because they taste and feel weird on their tongues. Some lighting may bother their eyes.
Sometimes the sensory stimulation they are experiencing can become so overpowering
that they cannot concentrate on anything else.
Things to Consider:
The area of sensory issues with students with ASD is still hotly debated and the best ways
to help these students is still a ‘work in progress’. The aim here is to create awareness
and understanding, rather than to come up with ways in which to help them with these
issues.
This material adapted from Erinoak.
Peer Awareness Activity
Activity: Hidden Curriculum/Personal Space
Age Range: Secondary School
Time Needed: 30-45 minutes
Rationale:
The ‘Hidden Curriculum’ is the set of unspoken or unwritten rules that are not necessarily
taught, but are assumed to be known. It is the set of ‘rules’ that helps us to know what to
do in most everyday situations. For example, when someone is speaking, we know to
listen quietly. When we are in a theatre, we whisper so as not to disturb others around us.
We ‘know’ what to wear to ‘be cool’ and fit in.
There are different rules for different situations. Being aware of your and other’s ‘personal
space’ is something that most people practice without even being aware that they are
doing so.
This exercise illustrates how personal space is different depending on the situation as well
as the people involved, and how difficult it can be for someone who doesn’t automatically
understand the boundaries of personal space. People with ASD may not understand the
social rules of how close to stand, what to say, or what to do in a situation without being
taught or shown.
How To:
Materials
2 students
A list of scenarios for students to act out where one person approaches another and has a
face-to-face conversation with them. (have students come up with different situations).
Examples
You go up to a stranger to ask for directions to the bathroom.
You approach your close friend and ask what tomorrow’s homework is.
You want to share a secret with a close friend.
A policeman approaches you and starts asking you questions.
You are talking with your mom or dad about the weekend.
You are walking with your girlfriend or boyfriend.
You are talking with your teacher about an assignment.
Steps:
1. Have the students act out each scenario with appropriate personal space.
2. Act out the scenario again, this time with the Teacher being one of the people in the
scenario. Be sure to invade the personal space of the other person.
3. Discuss why each situation is awkward and/or uncomfortable. Discuss also how
close you should stand and note if it is different for each person. Do factors like
familiarity come into play? How do you know how far or close to stand to someone?
What do you do when this rule is violated?
4. Would you act differently in the future if a student with ASD isn’t following the social
rules? How could you help them to understand?
This material adapted from Erinoak.
Peer Awareness Activity
Activity: Hidden Curriculum/Hanging out with friends
Age Range: Secondary School
Time Needed: 20-30 minutes
Rationale:
Often people with autism do not know what to do or say, or how to act in a social situation.
They have difficulty understanding body language (facial expressions, gestures, tone of
voice, position of body, i.e., hands on hips, etc). Our ‘conversations’ mainly consist of this
non-verbal or unspoken communication. Furthermore, people with autism speak and think
in very concrete and literal ways. That is, they literally interpret what you are saying. For
example, if you said “sweet” meaning you liked that DVD, they would interpret that you
meant the DVD was actually sweet (tasted sweet), which of course doesn’t make sense to
either you or them! Therefore, we can appreciate how confusing conversations may be to
someone with autism.
How to:
Materials:
2 or more student volunteers
A list of common social situations in which you hang out with your friends.
Examples of different situations:
Hanging out at the mall with your friends.
Hanging out at a friend’s house.
Sitting in a movie theatre with friends.
Steps and Discussion:
1. Students act out one scenario at a time, without any body language, non-verbal
gestures, or facial expressions.
2. Students then act it out again as they normally would.
3. Other students list their body language, and words they use that have more than
one meaning.
4. Discuss what the body language communicated. Identify the literal meaning of the
words.
5. How would someone with autism interpret what he or she heard or saw? How can
we better help them to understand social situations?
This material adapted from Erinoak.
Peer Awareness Activity
Activity: Fun Quiz
Age Range: Grade 6 to Secondary School
Time Needed: 20-30 Minutes
Rationale:
Many situations in daily living are not expressly “taught”, but we learn the rules from
observing and interacting with others. We are able to understand that words or phrases
can have more than one meaning, therefore we can understand sarcasm. We can then
interpret which meaning should be used within a certain situation. People with autism are
concrete or literal thinkers, and they may have difficulty understanding what is meant by
sarcasm, or ‘slang’ words or phrases.
How To:
Materials
 A list of sarcasm, idioms/slang created by the classroom (don’t discuss the
meaning of these terms yet).
Examples:
 Sweet!: that’s great, good. I love it.
 Sick!: that’s great, fantastic, cool.
 Yeah, right!: meaning, ‘no way’, I don’t believe you, you are wrong
 Talk to the hand.: leave me alone, I’m not listening
 Whatever!: I can’t be bothered listening to you, you are wrong, annoying, etc.
 I’m screwed!: I’m am in trouble, I did something wrong.
Steps:
1. Have the students take out a sheet of paper and a pencil and write down what they think
each slang term means to them, and also the literal translation.
2. Discuss how they understood the double meanings; did anyone ever teach them what
each slang term meant?
3. Discuss how they deciphered their meaning based on
i. other’s responses (being able to interpret another person’s reactions)
ii. the situation it was presented in
iii. repeated exposure to similar situations
Things to Consider:
Variation: Send 1 child out of the room and give definitions of idioms (use older idioms, ie,
‘take the bull by the horns’ ‘pie in the sky’, etc).,then call him/her back in. Ask the student
the meaning of each, and let the other students correct them when a mistake is made.
Ask the student afterwards how it felt when everyone else knew the answers and they
didn’t.
References:
Jackson, L. (2002). Freaks, Geeks & Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence.
London, England: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
This material adapted from Erinoak.
Peer Awareness Activity
Activity: Sensory Stimulation
Age Range: Grade 2 to Secondary School
Time Needed: 30 minutes
Rationale:
Some students with ASD may be overly sensitive to things that we don’t seem to notice or
pay attention to, and this can be very distracting. We can usually ‘filter out’ information or
distraction that is not important to us, ie. we can listen to the teacher even though there are
other noises around us like cars driving by, birds chirping, etc. People with ASD may not
be able to filter out other things around them, or are very sensitive to some things. This
may cause them to become frustrated or overwhelmed, and they may act out. This
exercise is designed to let the students in the class experience a “walk in the shoes” of the
student with ASD.
How To:
Materials
 Boom Box or loud radio
 Feather duster or ribbon or other material to tickle with
 Blindfolds
 a number of students to ‘stimulate’ the other students.
 A set of instructions such as:
i. add all the ages of the people who live in your house
ii. divide by 2
iii. add 11
iv. subtract your age… no wait, subtract your mother’s age… no wait subtract your father’s
age (to deliberately confuse them)
v. take the answer and add it to your house/apt number etc.
Or for younger kids: instructions such as ‘Simon says’…
Steps:
1. Set up the radio and all the materials to be used.
2. Assign a student to distract the volunteer, plus a student who will flick the lights on
and off.
3. Have the students go through the list once without distraction.
4. Start all the distractions available and have the student go around and tickle the
volunteer with the feather duster/ribbon while you ask them the list of questions
again except with slightly different numbers.
5. Initiate a discussion about how challenging it was to think the second time around.
Relate this to how challenging even seemingly simple tasks might be for their peers
with ASD.
Things to Consider: Flicking of lights on and off should not be attempted if any students
with Epilepsy are present. Caution students to be gentle in touching others with objects.
This material adapted from Erinoak.