November 2009 Vol. 1, Issue 10 (PDF - 16.2Mb) - Department of ...

Case Study
Alfonso was a Year 4 student with high-functioning
autism. He recognised that other children had
friends in the playground, and as he was having
difficulties making and keeping friends, he decided
that he would no longer go to school. Part of the
intervention to address his school refusal was to
teach him a sport, as he claimed ‘all the popular
kids play a sport’, and ‘You can’t have friends unless
you play sport’.
Australian Rules Football was taught to Alfonso, as
this was the game most other boys his age played at
recess. Alfonso was taught how to kick, bounce and
catch the ball. He was then taught how to kick for a
goal, and how to hand-pass. When he was proficient
with these skills, Alfonso was then taught the rules
of the game, and shown how to include handballs,
bouncing and kicking for a goal into the game.
When returning to school, Alfonso was assisted to
join the other boys from his year level in a footy
game at lunchtime. Unfortunately, as the children
in the playground did not wear team jumpers as per
AFL games, Alfonso had difficulty telling who was
Xxxx
on his team, as the composition changed from one
lunchtime to the next. Due to the difficulties this
caused, the intervention was changed somewhat
to decrease the complexity.
Alfonso was then introduced to a small group of
boys in a younger grade who liked football, but
rather than playing a formal match, just played
‘kick-to-kick’. Alfonso was encouraged to bring
his own football, and taught to join this group
for the less formal game. Alfonso enjoyed this
immensely, as he was able to teach the younger
children how to hand-pass. They looked up to him
as he knew all the rules of AFL. Alfonso was also
encouraged to practice his formal game skills in
PE (physical education) where the children wore
bibs to differentiate the two teams.
Shine 17
Eventually, with some persuasion from teaching
staff, the other children in Alfonso’s year level were
encouraged to differentiate ‘teams’ by having one
team turn their school jumper inside out whilst they
played. This then gave Alfonso a visual cue about
who his teammates were.