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Indiana SEL for Neurodivergent High School Students: A Teacher's Guide

Social-emotional learning (SEL) can support students as they develop self-awareness, navigate relationships, respond to challenges, understand different perspectives, and make decisions in school and beyond.
For educators supporting neurodivergent high-school students in Indiana, understanding the state's own SEL framework can provide a useful starting point, but a state standard or competency does not automatically explain how that learning goal may look for every student.
This guide explores Indiana's approach to SEL, its relevance to high-school students, and practical considerations for supporting neurodivergent learners.

Indiana SEL at a Glance

Indiana established the Indiana Social-Emotional Learning Competencies grounded in a neurodevelopmental, culturally responsive framework. The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) further embedded social-emotional competencies directly into the mandatory Indiana K–12 Employability Skills Standards, explicitly linking social-emotional development to workforce readiness and Graduation Pathways.

Official Framework & Core Terminology

Framework Name: Indiana Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Competencies & Indiana K–12 Employability Skills Standards.
Structure & Terminology: Indiana’s SEL framework is built around 7 Competencies (Sensory-Motor Integration, Insight, Regulation, Connection, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Mindset).
Under the required Employability Skills Standards, these are aligned across 4 Key Domains:
  1. Mindsets (M)
  2. Work Ethic (WE)
  3. Learning Strategies (LS)
  4. Social and Emotional Skills (SE)
Key State Terminology: Neurodevelopmental Framework, Employability Skills Standards, Sensory-Motor Integration, Graduation Pathways (Box 2), Self-Regulation, and Workforce Readiness.

Grade Ranges & High School Applicability

Grade Bands: K–12 continuum structured across four grade bands (K–2, 3–5, 6–8, and Grades 9–12 / High School).
High School Relevance: For secondary students (13+ / Grades 9–12), Indiana’s framework focuses on career technical education (CTE) readiness, post-secondary transitions, workplace reliability, self-regulation in independent environments, and fulfilling Indiana's Graduation Pathways requirements.

Core Competencies Overview

  • Sensory-Motor Integration: The capacity to develop body awareness and recognize physical sensations, forming the physiological foundation for regulation, navigating environmental shifts, and learning readiness.
  • Insight: The capacity for self-awareness and self-understanding, mapping to personal identity, self-discovery, and understanding how internal thoughts and values impact behavior.
  • Regulation: The ability to recognize, manage, and adjust emotions, thoughts, and behaviors across various environments and high-stress situations.
  • Connection: The capacity for social awareness, empathy, perspective-taking, and building supportive relationships across diverse cultural contexts.
  • Collaboration: The ability to work effectively in team settings through clear communication, cooperation, active listening, and constructive conflict resolution.
  • Critical Thinking: The ability to analyze situational context, evaluate consequences, apply ethical reasoning, and solve problems creatively.
  • Mindset: The established set of attitudes impacting self-growth, including cognitive flexibility, perseverance, adaptability, self-efficacy, and resilience.

Educator Mandate: State Explanation & Interpretation

IDOE treats social-emotional and employability skills as universal (Tier 1) competencies intended to be embedded across academic curricula, CTE programs, and school climate initiatives. Indiana explicitly highlights a neurodevelopmental foundation, recognizing that cognitive self-regulation depends on underlying physiological and sensory regulation. State guidance emphasizes that SEL standards serve as developmental learning targets, not punitive metrics or subjective behavioral report card grades. afety initiatives. ADE explicitly instructs educators to implement SEL using a trauma-informed, culturally responsive lens. The state emphasizes that SEL competencies are developmental skill targets designed to build supportive school climates, not tools for behavioral compliance, forced assimilation, or report card grading.

High School Competency Breakdown for Neurodivergent Learners

1. Sensory-Motor Integration & Regulation (SE / Regulation Strand)

  • What the State Identifies: Processing sensory input, recognizing physiological distress, and managing emotional and behavioral responses.
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Managing sensory overload in loud CTE auto shops or crowded cafeterias and coping with physical anxiety during high-stakes exams.
  • Neurodivergent Teaching Considerations: Unique among state frameworks, Indiana explicitly recognizes that regulation begins at the sensory-motor level. Autistic and ADHD students frequently experience interoceptive differences or sensory processing overload. Expecting cognitive self-regulation without first addressing sensory-motor regulation ignores underlying physiology.
  • Communication Considerations: Offer low-demand visual check-ins and pre-approved sensory movement passes rather than requiring immediate verbal explanations when dysregulated.

2. Insight & Self-Awareness (Mindsets / Insight Strand)

  • What the State Identifies: Recognizing personal emotional states, evaluating individual strengths, and understanding one's identity and personal values.
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Recognizing signs of academic burnout, understanding personal learning needs, and exploring one's neurodivergent profile during IEP/504 transition planning.
  • Neurodivergent Teaching Considerations: High school Autistic and ADHD students frequently experience alexithymia (difficulty naming internal feelings). Expecting instant emotional labeling without teaching bodily awareness skips a critical developmental step.
  • Communication Considerations: Use visual body maps or digital tracking scales rather than demanding immediate, on-the-spot verbal descriptions of feelings.

    • 3. Connection & Social Awareness (SE / Connection Strand)

    • What the State Identifies: Demonstrating empathy, understanding diverse perspectives, and building supportive professional and social networks.
    • What This Looks Like in High School: Participating in diverse peer groups, recognizing differing communication styles in workplace settings, and navigating high school social environments.
    • Neurodivergent Teaching Considerations: Apply Damian Milton's Double Empathy Problem. Social breakdowns are often mutual communication mismatches between neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals, not a one-sided neurodivergent empathy deficit.
    • Communication Considerations: Frame social norms as explicit, contextual rules to navigate rather than moral standards. Validate authentic neurodivergent interaction styles while teaching practical decoding tools.

    4. Collaboration & Relationship Skills (SE / Collaboration Strand)

    • What the State Identifies: Working well with others in teams, communicating effectively, negotiating conflict, and building productive working relationships.
    • What This Looks Like in High School: Collaborating on group CTE projects, asserting personal boundaries, and communicating accommodation needs to teachers or employers.
    • Neurodivergent Teaching Considerations: Masking (suppressing natural neurodivergent traits to blend in) causes extreme mental fatigue. Collaboration goals should prioritize authentic communication and mutual clarity over neurotypical behavioral conformity.
    • Communication Considerations: Explicitly teach paralinguistic elements (decoding vocal pitch, cadence, volume, and posture) as objective context signals. Never demand forced eye contact or suppress natural self-regulatory movements (stimming).

    5. Critical Thinking, Mindset, & Decision-Making (Learning Strategies Strand)

    • What the State Identifies: Analyzing information, applying creative problem-solving, setting goals, and demonstrating perseverance through setbacks.
    • What This Looks Like in High School: Making decisions regarding academic accommodations, managing multi-step capstone projects, and preparing for post-secondary employment.
    • Neurodivergent Teaching Considerations: Executive dysfunction (working memory, task initiation barriers) can cause decision fatigue under stress. Structured decision-making templates remove cognitive barriers to effective action.
    • Communication Considerations: Frame self-advocacy as a primary problem-solving skill. Provide choice matrices and email templates so students can request accommodations with minimal social friction.

    Neurodivergent Interpretation of Indiana SEL

    Indiana’s framework is uniquely aligned with neurodiversity because it explicitly roots self-regulation in Sensory-Motor Integration and neurodevelopmental principles. For neurodivergent high schoolers, workforce readiness and self-management require building internal bodily awareness (interoception) and understanding non-verbal communication channels (paralinguistics) in real-world contexts without forcing behavioral masking.
    To align Indiana's neurodevelopmental framework with practical neurodivergent instruction, explore the Neurodivergent Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) Course curriculum, designed to build internal body awareness and clear communication without forcing masking.

    Applying SEL in Practice: High School Classroom Examples

    Example 1: Sensory-Motor Regulation in CTE / Vocational Labs (Sensory-Motor Integration & Regulation)

    • Scenario: A 10th-grade Autistic student in a Career-Technical Education (CTE) welding lab experiences intense sensory overload from loud machinery and sparks, leading to task shutdown.
    • SEL Strategy: Aligned with Indiana’s Sensory-Motor Integration competency, the teacher helps the student track physiological stress markers (e.g., muscle clenching, elevated heart rate). The student uses a pre-arranged pass to move to a low-stimulation area for 5 minutes to reset before safely returning to complete lab work.

    Example 2: Paralinguistic Decoding in Group Projects (Collaboration & Connection)

    • Scenario: An 11th-grade ADHD student in a business class speaks rapidly and loudly when excited, which peers misinterpret as domineering or aggressive.
    • SEL Strategy: Supporting Indiana’s Employability Skills Collaboration standard, the teacher delivers a mini-lesson on paralinguistics (how pitch, volume, and pacing alter message delivery). The group adopts an objective communication rubric to evaluate ideas based on content rather than vocal inflection.

    Example 3: Self-Advocacy Matrix for Graduation Pathways (Learning Strategies & Mindset)

    • Scenario: A 12th-grade student with executive function challenges struggles to ask teachers for extended deadlines on senior capstone requirements (Box 2), risking graduation requirements.
    • SEL Strategy: Grounded in Indiana’s Learning Strategies standards, the student uses a 3-step self-advocacy framework: (1) Identify the project bottleneck 48 hours early, (2) Select an approved accommodation option, and (3) Use a structured email template to send the request to the instructor.

    State-Specific FAQs

    Are high schools in Indiana legally required to teach SEL?

    • Yes. In 2019, IDOE adopted the mandatory Indiana K–12 Employability Skills Standards, which explicitly embed Social and Emotional Skills (Regulation, Connection, Collaboration) across all grade bands (K–12). Fulfilling employability skills experiences is also tied to Indiana Graduation Pathways requirements (Box 2).

    How does Indiana's framework accommodate neurodivergent students with IEPs or 504 Plans?

    • Indiana’s framework is explicitly built on a neurodevelopmental model. Accommodations listed in an IEP or 504 plan, such as sensory modifications, visual decision trees, or alternative communication channels, serve as essential access points that enable neurodivergent students to demonstrate competence without penalty.

    Should Indiana high schools assign report card grades for SEL competencies?

    • No. IDOE explicitly treats SEL and Employability Skills competencies as developmental learning targets meant for formative assessment, self-reflection, and guiding instructional practice, not as criteria for subjective letter grades.
    Go Deeper

    Want to explore these communication skills further?

    SpeechScape’s Neurodivergent SEL course provides a practical way to explore the communication skills behind SEL, including tone, facial expressions, emotional awareness, and social context. With structured lessons and real-world audio examples, it can complement SEL teaching for neurodivergent teens and adults.
    100+ audio examples | 33 topics | Lifetime access
    explore the course

    Understanding SEL in High School

    SEL does not end in elementary school.
    For high school students, social and emotional learning may intersect with increasingly complex situations involving friendships, group work, classroom participation, conflict, communication with teachers, employment preparation, further education, and greater independence.
    For neurodivergent students, these situations can involve communication and social demands that are not always obvious.
    A student may:
    • understand a literal message but not an implied one
    • find tone of voice difficult to interpret
    • communicate differently from peers
    • need more explicit information about an interaction
    • find it difficult to recognize or describe changing internal states
    • communicate less effectively when stressed
    • need alternative ways to participate
    These differences do not automatically represent a lack of social or emotional competence.
    The goal is to support students in understanding themselves, understanding different communication styles, and developing strategies and choices that are useful to them.

    What Are the Core SEL Skills?

    SEL is often described through five broad areas: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. CASEL uses these as five interconnected areas of competence, although states do not all adopt the CASEL framework or terminology directly.

    Self-awareness

    Understanding emotions, thoughts, preferences, needs, strengths, and internal experiences.
    For a neurodivergent learner, this might include recognizing communication preferences, identifying emotional or physical signals, or developing language to describe what is happening during a challenging interaction.

    Self-management

    Managing emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in ways that support a student's goals and circumstances.
    In communication, this might involve recognizing when stress is affecting an interaction and considering whether to pause, seek clarification, use an alternative strategy, or ask for support.

    Social awareness

    Understanding other people's perspectives and recognizing that people may communicate, respond, or interpret situations differently.
    This can include exploring tone, pacing, facial expression, body language, context, and different communication styles.

    Relationship skills

    Building and maintaining relationships through communication, listening, cooperation, problem-solving, boundaries, and repair after misunderstandings.

    Responsible decision-making

    Considering context, possible consequences, and available options when deciding how to respond.
    These skills often overlap in real-world communication.

    SEL and communication

    Communication is one of the many ways students apply SEL skills.

    SEL area

    Communication connection

    Self-awareness
    Recognizing emotions, internal signals, communication preferences, and personal needs.
    Self-management
    Managing communication when stress, frustration, or strong emotions affect an interaction.
    Social awareness
    Interpreting tone, pacing, facial expression, body language, context, and different communication styles.
    Relationship skills
    Navigating conversations, misunderstandings, disagreement, collaboration, and communication repair.
    Responsible decision-making
    Considering possible interpretations and choosing how to respond in different situations.
    For neurodivergent learners, making these communication patterns explicit can provide a practical bridge between broad SEL goals and everyday experiences.
    Read more: SEL and Communication: Supporting Neurodivergent Learners

    Communication Beyond the Words

    Some meaning in communication comes through more than the words themselves.
    Tone of voice, pitch, pacing, volume, pauses, facial expression, body language, and context can all affect how a message is interpreted.
    For some neurodivergent learners, these features may be difficult to interpret or may be interpreted differently from the people around them.

    Educators can explore questions such as:

    • How does the same sentence sound when the tone changes?
    • How can context change the interpretation of a message?
    • What can a student do when they are unsure what someone meant?
    • How can different communication styles coexist without assuming that one is automatically correct?

    Interoception and Self-Awareness

    Interoception refers broadly to awareness of signals originating within the body.
    In a communication-focused learning context, discussing interoception can provide one way to explore connections among internal states, emotions, communication, and everyday experiences.
    A student might notice that they are becoming tense, that their heart is beating faster, that thinking has become more difficult, or that an interaction suddenly feels uncomfortable.
    Rather than assuming that a particular physical sensation always has one meaning, educators can encourage students to explore:
    SpeechScape incorporates relevant interoception concepts in the context of communication and emotional awareness. It is not a sensory therapy program; rather, these concepts are used to support communication awareness and understanding of internal states in everyday situations.

    Supporting Communication Without Teaching One "Correct" Way to Communicate

    SEL instruction for neurodivergent students should not automatically become instruction in how to appear more neurotypical.
    A student does not necessarily need to change a natural communication style simply because it differs from the style expected by another person.

    Instead, educators can help students:

    • understand different communication patterns
    • recognize that communication can be interpreted differently
    • identify their own preferences and needs
    • ask for clarification
    • communicate boundaries and needs
    • repair misunderstandings
    • consider different response options
    • choose strategies that are useful in particular situations
    The goal is greater understanding, flexibility, and communication choice—not compliance with a single social norm.

    Practical SEL Applications for Neurodivergent High-School Students

    SEL becomes more meaningful when students can connect concepts with situations they actually encounter.

    Tone and meaning

    Compare different ways of saying the same words and explore how tone, pacing, or volume can influence interpretation.

    Communication preferences

    Explore what makes communication easier or more difficult for individual students and what support they may need.

    Recognizing internal signals

    Identify physical or emotional changes that students associate with stress, frustration, excitement, discomfort, or other experiences.

    Communication breakdowns

    Discuss what students can do when they are unsure what someone meant or when someone has misunderstood them.

    Relationship skills

    Explore conversations, collaboration, disagreement, boundaries, perspective-taking, and communication repair.

    Real-world communication

    Connect learning with group projects, teacher interactions, workplace preparation, interviews, friendships, and other situations relevant to life beyond school.

    Explore more SEL activities for neurodivergent students

    A Practical Communication Focused SEL Resource

    SpeechScape's Neurodivergent Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) Course explores communication skills that can intersect with SEL, including paralinguistic communication, tone of voice, direct and indirect language, nonverbal communication, social context, relationship skills, and interoception-related emotional awareness.
    The course uses practical examples and professionally recorded audio to help learners explore not only what people say, but how communication can be expressed and interpreted.
    For educators, it can provide a resource for exploring communication-related aspects of SEL with neurodivergent learners in high-school, transition, and other settings.

    Explore SpeechScape's SEL Course

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