Teaching Personal Space: Middle High School

Updated 7/24

Do you teach personal space concepts to middle and high school students with autism during your in-person or online speech therapy or special education sessions? This blog post is on personal space activities with older students. If you are looking for personal space ideas for preschool or elementary students, this blog post may help or you might like these products from my Teachers Pay Teachers and Boom Learning stores:

Teaching Personal Space by Relationships

Personal space becomes a critical issue for middle and high school students. Infractions can lead to trouble at school and even legal troubles. Students may need more intensive social skills training in this area. One method is teaching the difference between different groups of people in the teenager’s life and what behaviors or social proximity is appropriate with each group. In the example below, we discuss whether “hugging” is appropriate with family, teachers and strangers.

• Family – these are the people who live at home with students, it is ok to hug and be close to a person in my family,
• Teachers – it is not usually ok to hug teachers,
• Strangers – a stranger is someone I don’t know. I don’t know a stranger’s name. It is not ok to hug or kiss a stranger or get too close to them.

When I did brick and mortar social skills group, I would greet certain students while invading their space and we would start out the group discussing how this felt for them. It prompted great discussions and funny moments!

In the humorous video below, they organize personal space into these categories:

• Public,
• Social,
• Personal, and
• Intimate.

This can be a good model to use with young adults or older high school students.

Even if you don’t use the categories reviewed in the video, it’s a funny personal space video from BBC Three that you can use to discuss reactions to personal space invasions. It is 4:07 long.

Teaching Personal Space with a Target

Another way to teach it is using a personal space target and associating the student’s relationship with the person to a line on the target. Using this target to demonstrate, you would draw, write or put a picture of the student in the middle of the target (the bullseye), then use the next rings to demonstrate who it is safe to have a smaller space bubble with and who should be kept at a greater distance.  Family members would be in the ring next to the bullseye and strangers would be in the outermost ring. My speech therapy students with autism benefit from the visual representation of the relationships.

Teaching Personal Space Infraction Signs!

Personal space requires an awareness of proximity and recognition of nonverbal communication signs. Teach students to recognize the signs that they have infringed upon the personal space of another person. These are important elements for speech therapy sessions for your students with autism. Help them tune in to the facial expressions and body language of other people. If they have significant needs in this area, you might want to do more in depth teaching-this prior blog post on identifying nonverbal communication in others might help!

Signs We are Too Close!

1. Facial expressions of discomfort, nervousness or fear
2. Body language, such as leaning back, turning away, or walking away.
3. Verbal language: “you’re too close.” “space, please.”

Here’s a sample of the social narrative from my personal space packet for older students with autism.

This is a great clip for personal space, a YouTube video on the “close talker” that is 1:55.  Elaine’s boyfriend invades the personal space of Jerry’s parents and others in Jerry’s small apartment. Note the subtle changes in facial expressions and leaning back exhibited by Jerry’s parents when they encounter a “close talker.”

After viewing, complete the activity that accompanies this video clip from my personal space packet for MS and HS.

Teaching Personal Space Exceptions in Speech Therapy

Alas, there are exceptions to the general personal space rules. For example, often we have to work in crowded spaces at school or work. When there is no choice but to stand close to others, we can teach them ways to minimize disruptions, such as not making big body movements.

Putting it All Together

Once I’ve taught the concept of personal space, I typically incorporate activities with photographs and scenarios:

1. Identify the situation as either respecting or invading personal space.
2. Identifying the relationship of the people in the scenario.
3. Identifying the facial expressions and body language that might indicate an infraction.

The example below is a slide from my personal space packet.

Personal Space Activities: Older Students with Autism

I’ve put multiple teaching and intervention activities into this personal space packet for older students. This packet is a print and no print version in TPT’s EASEL. You can find out more or grab it in my Teachers Pay Teachers store below.

Do you need digital only or prefer BOOM cards?

Click below to see my personal space teaching and intervention set of BOOM cards.

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