https://bcforhighschool.gov.bc.ca/offshore/bc-curriculum-assessment-overview/the-educated-citizen/
The Sixth Sense – An Autism Awareness Lesson Plan
https://www.autisminspiration.com/members/586.cfm
Either a teacher or a parent of a child with ASD can teach this lesson. This lesson can be taught without mentioning the child’s name. However, if you plan on using the child’s name be sure to ask for parent permission first. If you are a parent and wish to teach this lesson, just ask your child’s teacher if you can visit the class and teach it. Most teachers welcome chances to help promote awareness and tolerance amongst their students.
This lesson is based off of The Sixth Sense II by Carol Gray. For more information and ideas for things you can implement, please refer to her book.
Objective:
To understand that we are all different and improve understanding of Autism or Asperger Syndrome
Grade Level:
Third through high school
Length:
30 minutes
Materials:
This is Asperger Syndrome by Elisa Ganon and Brenda Smith Myles
Sixth sense pictures laminated
Magnets or tape
White board
Small object such as a stuffed animal
Anticipatory:
Ask the students to name the five senses.
Instructions:
- Ask the students to name the different senses that we use. As the children state each sense, attach the picture to the white board.
- Ask the students to name what kinds of accommodations are given to people who struggle with one of these senses.
- Explain that there is a sixth sense which is a social sense and put up the picture on the whiteboard.
- Explain that the sixth sense is what helps us know how to figure out how people feel, why they do the things they do, being OK with taking turns and knowing how to make friends. Tell the students that you are going to give some examples of the social sense.
- Ask someone from the back of the room to be a volunteer. Have them stay at the back of the room. Ask the student to tell you what it is he sees in front of him. Then ask him to tell you without turning around what it is that you might see.
- Ask the volunteer how he knew what it is that you would see. Explain that the social sense allows you to take the perspective of someone else and be able to pretend to be able to think or see like the other person.
- Have the kids then watch as you place an object behind the desk or other place. Then ask a volunteer to leave the classroom for a moment. Once the child is out of the room, take the object and hide it somewhere else. Ask the students where they think the volunteer is going to look for the object when he comes back in. Then ask the child to come back in and ask him to retrieve the object.
- Ask how the students knew that the volunteer would look in the original spot. Talk about how our social sense helps us to keep track of what other people know. A person who struggles with the social sense will not keep track of what the other person will know and will only think about what he or she knows. For example, the person with a struggle with the sixth sense would have said that the volunteer would have looked for the object in the second place.
- Make some faces at the children such as sad, happy, surprised, mad, excited (jump and down with this one) and ask them to identify the emotion. Ask them who taught them to identify these emotions. The discussion should be centered around the fact that nobody really did and it is something that they learned on their own. We use cues of other people’s emotions in order to help us make guesses about how they are feeling and help us be able to interact with others appropriately. Someone with a social sense difficulty may not be able to identify these emotions, which makes it hard for them to know when they have upset somebody.
- Ask the students the following questions and discuss how they could help someone learn to improve their sixth sense.
• What challenges do you think you would have if you had a difficulty with the sixth sense?
• Would it be easy to talk to others?
• Would it be easy to understand why you needed to follow rules for a game?
• Do you think that you may act inappropriately if you struggled with the sixth sense? How do you think you may act?
• Would it be easy to make friends if you had a difficulty with the sixth sense? - At this point many of the children are going to know who you are talking about and may ask questions. Try to gear discussion around how to help someone with this struggle and make a list on the board. Sometimes children realize that they struggle with this sense and will want to talk about it. This is a good opportunity for them to discuss why they feel this way and what they would want people to do to help them.
- Read the story This is Asperger Syndrome. You may want to read only selected pages.
