Hello there, I'm a tutor working for the local authority. My job involves me providing education to those whose educational needs "can't" be met in mainstream education. I have to say, this mainly involves students with ASD in their profile. Having worked a lot in mainstream, alternative provisions and SEN I'm quite good at meeting the challenges/ opportunities that ASD presents to learning.
However, I seem to have met my match with an individal of year 7 stage, because he has Alexithymia in his profile. Through reflective practice I've managed to narrow down our struggles to two factors; the learner has some deep seated ideas/ trauma around what learning he "should" be doing, and he's unable to successfully regulate when he's getting overwhelmed.
What we've tried so far is flash cards, so he can express himself nonverbally. We've tried the pomodoro technique, so as to "chunk" his learning. However this causes him stress because he believes he's taking too many breaks. We've tried a very student lead "Teach me to reach me" approach, which has built a wonderful rapport between us, however he still finds learning a stressful experience, particularly maths.
If I could be so bold, can I ask if anyone has any experience in this and maybe could offer some insights? I've done some research on Alexithymia and SEMH interventions, however there seems to be a lack of evidence based interventions for this specifically.
Any help would be appreciated, I have no intention of letting this little genius down.
Thank you!