Autism and the Post Primary School Programme (Joint) Scoil Chuimsitheach Chiaráin, Galway

Supporting Autistic Learners The session offers a sophisticated exploration of how autistic young people perceive, process, and engage with learning environments that are often fast paced, language heavy, socially complex, and sensory intense. Autistic cognition is positioned not as a barrier to learning, but as a valid and valuable form of human diversity that requires environments to be intentionally designed for access. Attention is given to the the visual approaches that align well with the learning preferences of many autistic young people, and to how visual approaches can function as access tools, supporting comprehension, predictability, emotional regulation, and independence across subject areas. Participants will gain insight into: How visual approaches support executive functioning, comprehension, and self-regulation in post primary classrooms. Why visual supports should be understood as structural access supports, not individual accommodations. How visual tools can support autonomy and reduce reliance on repeated verbal instruction. Ways to embed visual supports across timetables, classrooms, assessment formats, and transitions. A range of adaptable visual approaches that respect the young person's identity, interests, sensory experiences and access needs, and each young person's rightful place within the learning community.

Autism and Communication Autistic communication is presented as coherent, intentional, and meaningful, rather than as a failure to meet neurotypical norms. The session emphasises that communication is a shared responsibility, shaped by classroom culture, power structures, language demands, and access. Participants will: Explore contemporary theories that explain differences between autistic and non-autistic communication styles without pathologising autistic expression. Reflect on how Post Primary School expectations, rapid turn taking, abstract language, inference based questioning, can unintentionally exclude autistic students. Examine personal communication styles and how these may support or constrain participation and relational safety. Learn neuroaffirming approaches that value all forms of communication, including minimal speech, indirect communication, echolalia, written responses, and AAC. Develop practical strategies for making classroom communication clearer, slower, more predictable, and more accessible while respecting communication autonomy

Autism and Sensory Processing This session situates sensory processing as a central aspect of autistic experience, identity, and participation, particularly within Post Primary schools that are often noisy, crowded, visually complex, and movement intensive. Using a Rightful Presence framework, sensory differences are-examined as access needs, not behavioural problems. The session invites educators to consider how Post Primary schools frequently privilege certain nervous systems while marginalising others. Participants will be supported to: Understand sensory processing differences across all sensory systems, including interoception. Recognise how sensory overload can affect concentration, emotional regulation, attendance, and engagement. Understand that withdrawal, shutdown, reduced participation, or apparent avoidance may represent adaptive responses to sensory overwhelm. Identify subject specific sensory demands and pressure points across the school day. Implement practical, low cost environmental adaptations that enhance regulation, dignity, and sustained participation without singling out students.

Autism and Understanding Anxiety This training approaches anxiety as a contextual and relational response, particularly relevant during adolescence when academic pressure, social complexity, transitions, and expectations around independence intensify. Rather than locating anxiety within the young person, the session highlights how anxiety often arises from cumulative stress, chronic masking, sensory overload, rigid systems, and threats to belonging within Post Primary schools. Participants will explore: How anxiety is experienced physiologically and cognitively by autistic young people The impact of sustained effort, masking, and unmet needs over the school day. How anxiety frequently functions as a signal of reduced safety, predictability, belonging or agency. How fixed systems, assessment practices, homework demands, transitions, substitute teaching, can exacerbate anxiety. Environmental, relational, and communicative supports that reduce anxiety by changing expectations and structures, rather than expecting the young person to cope alone.

Autism and Reframing Behaviour This session introduces educators to the ongoing paradigm shift in understanding behaviour through a neurobiological, relational, and rights based lens, replacing compliance driven responses with curiosity, compassion, and accountability at a systems level. Behaviour in adolescence is reframed as meaningful communication shaped by nervous system state, identity development, environmental demands, and relational safety, rather than as defiance or disengagement. Grounded in neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology, participants will: Examine why traditional behaviour management approaches often escalate distress for autistic young people Explore how power dynamics, loss of autonomy, and lack of access contribute to distressed behaviour. Understand the role of neuroception and felt safety in regulation, learning, and participation. Reflect on how adult responses, assumptions, and emotional regulation directly influence outcomes. Develop proactive and responsive strategies that prioritise co-regulation, environmental adjustment, and dignity. Consider how interpreting many autistic behaviours as adaptive responses to lived experience shifts the focus from correction to understanding, preserving identity, reducing harm, and supporting long-term wellbeing.