Teaching English to Primary Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Case Study

Nowadays, the identification of learners with special needs is proliferating worldwide. One of these is the increasing prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) among children. The study’s primary goal was to investigate the major challenges and obstacles that foreign language teachers face when teaching English to gifted language ASD students, as well as effective teaching practices that can be adapted to address the psychosocial and intellectual needs of autistic learners in English lessons. The research material was collected through a case study conducted on an English teacher and a gifted ASD English learner participating in an individual teaching program of English at a selected primary school in Poland. The findings of the study reveal that teaching itself is extremely multi-faceted, with numerous critical tasks and challenges that teachers must face. However, in the case of students with special needs, teachers’ roles become even more important and cannot be underestimated. The study outcome can serve as a key factor in providing remedies for teaching English, particularly to talented students with ASD.