Autism: Creating Readiness To Learn
With Richard Hirstwood and Chris Barson
26 March 2025: 9 am – 12 noon
This session will help you create an autism-friendly learning environment in your classroom to build learning readiness, by combining sensory profiling, environmental audits, and sensory-rich learning spaces.
Session 1: Creating a Positive Sensory Plan
In this session, you will learn:
how to create a sensory profile – an efficient and accurate method to identify learner’s sensory learning strategies
how to gather evidence and observations
how to record for evaluation, monitoring and review
Session 2: Autism-friendly environments
In this session, you will explore:
how adverse environmental factors, often challenging to identify, impact on teaching, learning and behaviour
why pupils’ environmental triggers are particular to them
how to identify these using a variety of easy and effective environmental audits
Session 3: Available, accessible, appropriate – meeting sensory needs
In this session, you will learn:
how to flexibly individualise the learning environment to support different sensory needs and activities
how to create safe spaces to re-establish calm
how to engage, focus attention and motivate using sensory-based learning activities
Session 4: Resources to help you create structured learning experiences
In this session, you will discover:
what structured teaching is, and why it supports learners with autism
how to create a sensory focus in the learning environment
what’s ‘now’ and ‘next’: ideas for visual timetables
timers: low-tech and hi-tech
sensory cues and clues for transition
9 am Admissions and virtual tea/coffee to start the session!
9.05 am Welcome & introductions. Let’s start with a warm up…
9.15 am Session 1: Creating a Positive Sensory Plan
In this session, you will learn:
how to create a sensory profile – an efficient and accurate method to identify learner’s sensory learning strategies
how to gather evidence and observations
how to record for evaluation, monitoring and review
10 am Session 2: Autism-friendly environments
In this session, you will explore:
how adverse environmental factors, often challenging to identify, impact on teaching, learning and behaviour
why pupils’ environmental triggers are particular to them
how to identify these using a variety of easy and effective environmental audits
10.30 am Session 3: Available, accessible, appropriate – meeting sensory needs
In this session, you will learn:
how to flexibly individualise the learning environment to support different sensory needs and activities
how to create safe spaces to re-establish calm
how to engage, focus attention and motivate using sensory-based learning activities
11 am COFFEE BREAK
11.15 am Session 4: Resources to help you create structured learning experiences
In this session, you will discover:
what structured teaching is, and why it supports learners with autism
how to create a sensory focus in the learning environment
what’s ‘now’ and ‘next’: ideas for visual timetables
timers: low-tech and hi-tech
sensory cues and clues for transition
11.50 am Q & A
12 noon Plenary, thank you and goodbye!
This will be appropriate for classroom practitioners from special schools and colleges, mainstream settings with specialist SEN provision and early years settings, who are working with pupils with Autism.
Chris Barson founded Positive About Autism in January 2009. Before that he was External Training Manager for the National Autistic Society. Chris has a long involvement with disability and autism and first joined the National Autistic Society (NAS) in 1996 as a Project Officer in Wales on a Children in Need project reviewing short-term care provision.
After working with the NAS Regional Development Team promoting service development throughout the UK, Chris went to work at the Royal College of General Practitioners in 2000, where he managed Professional Development and Quality programmes. Chris rejoined NAS in 2004. Chris has contributed to the design and delivery of courses provided by Canterbury Christ Church University, and the University of Cumbria.
Chris is a contributing author to ‘The Autism Spectrum in the 21st Century: Exploring Psychology, Biology and Practice’ Jessica Kingsley Press 2010 (Highly Commended 2011 BMA Medical Book Awards).
Richard Hirstwood is passionate about enabling educators/practitioners to maximise the impact of delivering sensory learning opportunities, in a sensory room or other learning environments, with the available resources. His extensive experience is based on practical knowledge, giving him insight into what works and what doesn’t in multi sensory practice. Regular sessions with children and adults with autism and all additional needs in a variety of multi sensory and classroom settings enable him to maintain this excellent practice.
Each place costs £135 plus VAT
You can pay by credit card for this booking or request an invoice on the booking form.
The recording of this event will be in your account at online.hirstwood.com. You will access this using the email address on the booking form and your password (instructions for creating your password are in the joining information).
Here you will find:
a digital recording of the event
a transcript of the Zoom chat
These will be available for 10 days after the event.
NEW for 2025!
We will suggest practical reflective practice for this event to support you in implementing your key takeaways from this session in the classroom.
We’ll also offer a toolkit of additional resources to help, which may include further documentation, videos or links to valuable resources/websites.
Please join our Facebook Group, Sensory Support Spaghetti, to connect with us and other like-minded professionals – for everything sensory!
“Practical ideas and a renewed understanding of sensory differences.”
“One of the best courses I have attended recently.”
“This course covers sensory issues, and it really changed my view of how a person with autism has sensorial needs.”
