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Welcome to TeamCollaborate™
Transitioning from primary to secondary school settings often causes considerable stress and anxiety for autistic students and families, resulting in difficulties to attain successful social and academic outcomes.
Effective collaborative communication between both internal and external stakeholders supporting autistic secondary school students can assist in improving both social and academic outcomes for students.Offering an engaging and interactive professional learning experience, TeamCollaborate aims to improve support for secondary school students with autism and additional needs, alongside educators and external supporting stakeholders.
How we support secondary schools:
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TeamCollaborate™, a collaborative communication digital app designed to identify points of need using student regulatory zones, highlighting where collaborative communication between stakeholders is beneficial.
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Encourages student voice.
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Allows external stakeholders, such as parents and therapists, to view regulatory zones of students during each school day.
About the App
TeamCollaborate™ is an app designed for time-effect use, alongside ease and efficiency.
TeamCollaborate™ assists school stakeholders to identify when and where collaborative communication between stakeholders could improve outcomes for secondary school students with autism.
TeamCollaborate™ uses regulation zones for each secondary school student, using digital timeframes as an effective communication conduit, embracing feedback from school stakeholders, inclusive of students themselves.
How it works
TeamCollaborate™ uses three regulation zones, coloured red, orange and green; one colour can be selected by stakeholders, inclusive of students, to report student regulation before school (parents/carers), and each consecutive school period for the school day. TeamCollaborate™ can generate daily and weekly heat maps for review and feedback.
Daily and weekly heat maps can assist to identify when students are working at best capacity, as well as identifying where collaborative communication between stakeholders could benefit both students and educators.
Importantly, external stakeholders, such as parents and therapists supporting the student can log in to TeamCollaborate™ to remotely access regulatory zones for specific students during the day or week. If a red zone is selected, a silent red alert signals upon log in, ensuring stakeholders are prepared to support students at their next destination.
TeamCollaborate™ realises privacy settings are important. Each student supported via TeamCollaborate™ receives a unique “Friend Code”. The Friend Code links all stakeholders supporting the student to access regulatory zones for the particular student.
TeamCollaborate™ is supported by four online tutorials, readily available once access is established. Professional learning is available for school stakeholders as requested.
What we need to know
Neurodiversity
Autism is an example of neurodiversity. Autistic adolescents may have unique individual education needs relating to social and reciprocal communication, variances in sensory thresholds and executive functioning pathways. Autistic individual can demonstrate specific interests (formally referred to as restrictedinterests). Fostering and supporting specific interests can enable successful educational outcomes. Whilst often referred to as “being on the spectrum”, many in the community prefer identity first language namely being “autistic”. autism can also have co-occurring conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, sensory processing issues, intellectual difficulties and communication.
Social and reciprocal communication
Autistic adolescents desire meaningful social connections like all people. At times, autistic students may have difficulty in expressing language, although communication requirements are understood. This disparity can lead to isolation from neuro-typical peers and misunderstandings of educators and school stakeholders about capacity and intent of autistic students. Autistic adolescents can, like all other people, are able to form life-long successful friendships and relationships with community members.
Verbal and non-verbal communication
Autistic individuals can sometimes misinterpret communication and language of adults and peers, in addition to finding it difficult to reciprocate their thoughts and feelings. This is not a lack of empathy to others. Many children with autism have delayed expressive language, with some autistic individuals having limited speech, although there is receptive language understanding. Communication support with teachers and peers is essential, with engagement of AAC (Augmented Alternative Communication devices), with the use of visual symbols and schedules to assist transitions, photos, and gesture. Communication methods for adolescents require consistency to ensure success with non-verbal forms of communication.
Processing sensory information
Autistic individuals’ can display atypical levels of sensory perception, with Sensory threshold lower or higher than other students. Sensitivities can be linked to many things; touch, sight, vestibular balance, proprioceptive (body awareness), taste, noise or unexpected events. Sensory overload can contribute to autistic students becoming overwhelmed, as it is difficult to separate the most relevant sensory information to attend to, resulting in high levels of anxiety. Therapy teams often work with students and schools to assist in regulation and sensory supports.
Educator and peer supports
Social interaction with adults and peers can be difficult and tiring. Social cues are tricky, with difficulties in understanding how social rules change in different contexts. Socially appropriate behaviour is sometimes difficult to ascertain from an autistic teenager’s perspective, reading situations and emotional intentions of peers and staff makes reciprocal (two-way) communication difficult. Actions of adolescents with autism can be misinterpreted as intentionally insensitive or defiant. Strategies for self-regulation are important for adolescent autistic students to adopt, alongside the support of educators and peers. Therapists supporting autistic students, alongside parents and carers, can share successful self-regulation strategies adopted by students. Autistic students also are very adept at sharing what works for them.
Executive Functioning
Increasing awareness of the importance in developing executive functioning (EF) capacity has been recognised as important for autistic students. Executive functioning, inclusive of planning, understanding concepts, predicting, management of transitions with routines, warning prior to unexpected changes in the school day, and ability to attend to auditory or verbal information. Working memory, can be an issue with learning new materials and specific strategies can assist autistic students in managing multiple tasks in secondary school settings, alongside developing skills for post-secondary school options.
Who are TeamCollaborate?
Christina Holly
Founder | Director
Christina is a secondary school trained educator, a university lecturer in both primary and secondary education, and experienced education consultant with a passion for improving secondary school outcomes for students with autism, in addition to other additional needs. Currently completing her PhD in autism education, Christina shares her expertise via university lectures and teaching, conferences, and presenting in secondary schools using evidence-based research to support students. Christina recently presented at the regional Spectrum Space conferences in Geraldton, Bunbury and Kalgoorlie (Western Australia) and is presenting at the 2021 ARCAP Inaugural Sydney Conference Innovations in Autism Practice, October 21-22, 2021.
Christina is a strong advocate of inclusive education practices, and supporting autistic secondary school students and families, through an educational lens. Christina believes improving conduits for collaborative communication between stakeholders in professional learning communities can optimise student outcomes in secondary school. Christina has experience with processes of differentiation of learning materials, collaborative strategies and is passionate about importance of disability legislation in Australia, having been a consult to the 2020 Disability Standards for Education Review.
Christina has a 17-year-old daughter with autism who attends a secondary fully inclusive school. The family journey through school has not been seamless, with Christina acknowledging difficulties in collaborating with multiple stakeholders upon entry to secondary school, and ongoing challenges with social and academic inclusion. Christina is a strong advocate of inclusive education, whilst recognising real challenges for autistic students, parents, and carers, as well as increasing demands for educators, education inclusion assistants, school leadership and allied health service providers to collaborate to optimise social and academic student outcomes.
Luke Brook
Technical Lead
Luke is an innovative digital software developer who has vast experience in software development across many domains, including developmental roles in ground-breaking apps. With his vast experience in game culture, visual and conceptual design, we are so excited Luke is the Technical Lead for our app, TeamCollaborate™, alongside professional learning delivery with Christina and the rest of the team. Luke is involved in serious game applications aimed at enhancing mental health and wellbeing of hearing-impaired children and virtual training simulations for paramedics. Luke has a PhD in Games Design, is a Lecturer and Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University in School of Arts and Humanities, Games Design and Culture and Games and Interactivity. In addition, we are thrilled to have Luke as our Technical Lead as Luke is a strong advocate for students with disability, and an integral and valued member of our team!!
Stakeholders in the professional learning community
There are many stakeholders supporting secondary students with autism; each stakeholder has different access to collaborative communication opportunities, via their specific roles. These stakeholders make up the professional learning community (PLC).
Effective collaborative communication between key stakeholders in professional learning communities (PLCs), inclusive of educators, inclusion assistants, school leadership, allied health service providers (AHSP), parents and secondary school students with autism is essential to achieve optimal outcomes.
