Outdoor Education: A Natural Fit for Nonverbal Autistic Learners

Integrating outdoor learning into homeschooling offers significant benefits for our students by addressing challenges such as motor planning, attention, and social interaction, while also leveraging their strengths to create a more holistic and enriching educational experience.

The following is a breakdown of just some of the key benefits:

🌿 Cognitive and Academic

• Enhanced Focus and Attention: Engaging with nature can help restore attentional capacity in autistic children, providing opportunities for improved cognitive and behavioral performance.
  
• Improved Motor Planning: Outdoor activities that involve physical movement can aid in developing motor planning skills, which are often areas of difficulty for our students.
  

🧠 Mental Health and Emotional Well-being

• Stress Reduction: Exposure to natural environments has been shown to lower stress levels and promote emotional regulation in children with autism.
  
• Sensory Integration: Outdoor sensory activities can enhance sensory processing skills, contributing to better emotional well-being.
  

🏃 Physical Health and Development

• Gross and Fine Motor Skills: Participating in outdoor play, such as ball games or obstacle courses, supports the development of both gross and fine motor skills.
  
• Coordination and Balance: Activities like running, jumping, and climbing help improve coordination and balance, which are often areas of challenge for our students.
  

🤝 Social Skills and Collaboration

• Enhanced Social Interaction: Outdoor group activities can provide opportunities for our students to practice social skills, such as communication and cooperation, in a less structured environment.
  
• Building Confidence: Engaging in outdoor play can boost self-esteem and confidence, encouraging more positive social interactions.
  

🌎 Environmental Awareness and Stewardship

• Connection with Nature: Regular exposure to natural settings can foster a sense of connection and responsibility.
  
• Understanding Ecological Concept: Hands-on experiences in nature help make ecological and environmental concepts more tangible and understandable.

So what does this look like in a realistic setting? If you have a backyard, porch, or patio bring homeschool outside! Toss a blanket on the ground and simply do your work, floor game, reading, anything right there. 

Use the outdoors as an opportunity to point out environmental items, counting examples, or introduce new vocabulary. 

If you’re able to be a bit more mobile with your student, you can take them to local parks,  open-space preserves, or help support our amazing National Parks. You don’t have to bring worksheets with you! Just lean into what your student loves to do - for example, my daughter likes to spell new words. So maybe that’s the best time to do some site word work with her AAC device as we sit at a park. I’d provide another list of words found at the park (native plants, land features, historical or nature facts) – there is a lot that can be utilized. 

Heather has a great example of this; if life permits it, she drives out with Tosh weekly to the airport and they park in the perfect spot where they can watch the planes land and take off. Here is where she goes over some work with him. In this example, Tosh was working on his history lesson:

Whether it’s a quiet moment in your backyard or a spontaneous lesson sparked by planes soaring overhead, outdoor learning can be both powerful and personal. For our nonverbal autistic students, it offers a world of opportunities beyond the walls of a traditional classroom — a space where movement, curiosity, and connection come alive. 

Jennifer Bullock, Contributing Author

Homeschooling-experienced mom to a tween, non-speaking daughter, Jennifer is also Marketing Outreach Coordinator for The Autism Oasis. With 20+ years experience in marketing, advertising, and social media communications, you will see her occasionally supporting the blog and social media channels with various content related to Autism Oasis.