How to deal with autistic students’ challenging behaviour in the classroom

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A lot of teachers have a student in their class who has been diagnosed as having autism or who they believe may have autism. When they tell me about this student, the anecdotes they mention often involve examples of behaviour which one could describe as challenging or difficult. The behaviour may be purely disruptive or involve dominating a discussion or refusing to cooperate, or simply not following instructions and completing a task in the way that the student would like to complete it. The questions these teachers have are, of course: How do I deal with this behaviour? What is going on here?

The situation can become even more confusing when the students in question are also well-behaved at school most of the time. Why is a child who does their best at school most of the time suddenly refusing to follow instructions? And why is that child refusing to sit down and trying to disturb other students as they work when he or she has a real passion for the subject being taught?

"When you’re considering how to deal with autistic students’ challenging behaviour, keep this equation in mind: autistic students + environment = outcome."

From the perspective of neurotypical people, these apparent inconsistencies are perplexing. In fact, students who are well-behaved in class some of the time and achieve good grades may be viewed more critically by their teachers when they behave inappropriately than those who consistently do this. There’s the feeling that the former type of student, who often have autism, should and could just “pull themselves together”. Why can’t they behave appropriately all the time if they can do it some of the time? Teachers may also believe that there is always a direct link between strong academic performance and appropriate classroom behaviour. When they see that this link doesn’t always exist, that can be very confusing.

When you’re considering how to deal with autistic students’ challenging behaviour, keep this equation in mind: autistic students + environment = outcome. In this context, the ‘outcome’ encompasses how the student feels, how they perform academically, and how they behave in class. The equation tells us that the same autistic student can and usually will feel and behave differently in one environment than in another. That is because one of the things which differentiates autistic individuals from the rest of the population is the extent to which their thoughts, emotions and behaviours are influenced by their environment.

For neurotypical individuals who are not influenced to the same extent by their surroundings, this aspect of autism can be difficult to understand. Change the environment or change how the autistic student feels in or perceives that environment and you can usually change the student’s behaviour and how they perform in it. This may not take immediate effect, but if you persist the effort will pay off. Let’s look at three common examples of challenging behaviour that autistic students may display in your classroom, keeping in mind that every autistic student is different and not all of them will routinely behave in these ways.

First, there’s the autistic student who talks too much in class and speaks when they should be listening. Why does this happen? Because autistic students often struggle to adapt their behaviour to the specific situation that they’re in, for example, one where the teacher is giving you instructions and you need to listen to them. For neurotypical students, it’s usually easy to recognise that this situation requires you to be quiet and listen, but autistic students may not be aware of this. For teachers, the situation is very frustrating and they’re likely to warn or punish the autistic student for their inappropriate behaviour. However, that will only increase the autistic student’s stress levels, making it harder for them to regulate their emotions and focus on adapting their behaviour to the situation they’re in. Instead, autistic students are likely to benefit more from a firm but friendly reminder of the requirements of the situation. As obvious as these requirements may appear to neurotypical students, they may not be obvious to autistic students at all.

Also keep in mind that autistic students are more likely to struggle with adapting their behaviour to the situation when they’re feeling stressed, under pressure or bored. Check in with them regularly and privately to find out how they’re feeling, whether anything is bothering them and whether you can do anything to alleviate their stress or give them a greater challenge in class.

The second example of challenging behaviour that I want to focus on involves autistic students not following or just ignoring instructions and doing what they want to do instead. Autistic students tend to be in such a rush to get going with a task that they don’t even read the instructions written on a worksheet or course book page, or they may just read one part of the instructions or one question. Often, they are so convinced that their own interpretation of the task’s requirements is correct that it doesn’t occur to them to check to make sure that they’re on the right track. The result? Strong autistic students fail to complete a task or complete it correctly. This can be very frustrating for you as a teacher, and unpleasant for autistic students when they’re confronted with their errors. They may lose confidence as a result.

Before it gets to that point, be proactive in checking that autistic students have fully read and understood the instructions before they start the task. Reading the instructions aloud and writing them up in class can help autistic students to focus on them, but there also needs to be a verbal check to confirm that they know exactly what they need to do. If possible, you could also set up a buddy system where a student who sits with an autistic student – ideally also a friend of theirs – repeats the instructions for them and checks that they’re following them. This can make the process of ‘checking in’ on the autistic student less obvious for other students and make the autistic student feel more comfortable. When I gave a webinar about increasing accessibility for autistic students at the Macmillan Global Festival 2025, I discussed some more strategies that teachers can use to help autistic students feel comfortable in their classroom. There are many low-effort measures that teachers can take to move towards this aim.

“Autistic students often struggle to adapt their behaviour to the specific situation that they’re in.”

The third type of challenging behaviour I want to look at it is a big one: saying or doing inappropriate things in class. This could encompass a wide variety of actions from laughing at other students to saying things the autistic student finds funny but nobody else does, to standing up and dancing in class. The in-built gauge which tells neurotypical students what is and isn’t appropriate in the classroom usually works a little differently with autistic students. For example, an autistic student may believe that they will receive positive feedback from those around them for specific behaviours or for saying specific things when, in fact, the group, and you as the teacher, sees them negatively and labels them ‘inappropriate’.

Keep in mind that the autistic students almost always have good intentions in these situations. Their motivation is wanting and needing to get that positive confirmation from their peers which they may really struggle to achieve in other ways. Although the student with autism has usually already been told that the behaviour in question is inappropriate, he/she often needs to have that message reinforced much more often than a neurotypical student would to change or stop the behaviour. When you’re dealing with this kind of challenging behaviour, keep the student’s likely motivation for it in mind. Always address it with kindness and the expectation that you may have to discuss the behaviour with the student several more times before it changes. If it’s possible, have this discussion in private so as not to risk embarrassing the student in front of others. That is likely to make the student feel more socially uncomfortable and, with autistic students, feeling socially uncomfortable often leads directly to behaving in a way that’s deemed inappropriate.

When you’re thinking about and addressing the issue of inappropriate behaviour from students with autism, keep in mind that every student with autism is different. Some may behave in a way that their teachers describe as exemplary and win praise for their behaviour. These students are usually the quiet ones who prefer to keep their head down in class. They may not make contributions in class even when they know the answers because they find the prospect of speaking out in class too intimidating.

The students who exhibit one or all of the three types of challenging behaviour outlined above are often also “good students” in the sense that they are very academically able and interested in learning. This can make their inappropriate behaviour seem more confusing and harder to process and deal with for their teachers. However, understanding the reasons for that behaviour, which we have explored in this blog post, is key to reacting to it appropriately and helpfully. As is regularly checking in with students with autism about their feelings and stress levels and setting up buddy systems so that other students can also support them. A good dose of patience is needed though. Don’t expect progress to happen overnight.