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Colorado 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 Colorado, 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 Colorado's approach to SEL, its relevance to high-school students, and practical considerations for supporting neurodivergent learners.

Colorado SEL at a Glance

In Colorado, social-emotional skill development is officially established through the Colorado Academic Standards for Comprehensive Health and Physical Education (CHPE), specifically under the Emotional and Social Wellness (ESW) standard, and supported by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) Social, Emotional, and Behavioral (SEB) Competencies framework.

Official Framework & Core Terminology

Framework Name: Colorado Academic Standards: Emotional and Social Wellness (ESW) Standard & CDE Social, Emotional, and Behavioral (SEB) Competencies.
Structure & Terminology: CDE adopts the five CASEL competencies integrated into its statewide Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) frameworks. Key state terminology includes Emotional and Social Wellness (ESW), Social, Emotional, and Behavioral (SEB) Competencies, Behavior as Communication, "Can't Do vs. Won't Do" Mindset, and Positive Behavior Supports.

Grade Ranges & High School Applicability

Grade Bands: PreK–12 developmental continuum. High school is addressed under the Grades 9–12 CHPE Emotional and Social Wellness expectations.
High School Relevance: Secondary ESW standards focus on evaluating internal and external influences on mental wellness, developing coping mechanisms for life transitions, preparing for post-secondary education or workforce environments, and demonstrating self-advocacy and personal accountability.

Core Competencies Overview

  1. Self-Awareness: Identifying emotions, values, personal strengths, and recognizing how internal body/mind states influence behavior.
  2. Self-Management: Regulating stress, managing impulses, setting goals, and demonstrating perseverance across academic and life settings.
  3. Social Awareness: Empathizing across diverse backgrounds, understanding social norms, and taking perspectives.
  4. Relationship Skills: Communicating effectively, building supportive connections, negotiating conflict, and practicing teamwork.
  5. Responsible Decision-Making: Evaluating consequences, applying critical thinking, and making ethical choices for personal and community well-being.

Educator Mandate: State Explanation & Interpretation

The Colorado Department of Education interprets SEB competencies through an assets-based, non-punitive lens. CDE explicitly directs educators to operate from a "can't do vs. won't do" mindset, recognizing that unexpected behaviors often communicate undeveloped skills or unmet sensory and emotional needs rather than willful defiance. ESW standards are designed to be embedded directly into classroom instruction, health education, and school climate systems rather than taught as isolated or graded subjects.

High School Resiliency Breakdown for Neurodivergent Learners

1. Self-Awareness

  • What the State Identifies: Recognizing emotions, assessing personal strengths and growth areas, and understanding how internal thoughts and body signals impact mental well-being (ESW Standards).
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Identifying personal learning preferences, recognizing signs of sensory/cognitive burnout during exam blocks, and understanding one's neurodivergent profile during IEP/504 transition planning.
  • Neurodivergent Teaching Considerations: High school Autistic and ADHD students frequently experience alexithymia (difficulty naming emotions) or delayed interoceptive processing. Expecting cognitive self-reflection without first teaching bodily awareness skips a vital physiological step.
  • Communication Considerations: Use non-verbal check-ins, visual body maps, or digital rating scales rather than requiring immediate, on-the-spot verbal emotional labeling.

2. Self-Management

  • What the State Identifies: Regulating stress, managing impulses, executing goals, and adapting strategies in response to personal and academic challenges.
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Managing complex block schedules, handling sensory overload in loud vocational labs or cafeterias, and sustaining focus on long-term projects.
  • Neurodivergent Teaching Considerations: Executive dysfunction (working memory limits, task initiation inertia) and sensory processing overload directly impair self-management. Do not misinterpret executive burnout or sensory overload as intentional laziness or non-compliance.
  • Communication Considerations: Provide predictable visual schedules, pre-arranged sensory recovery passes, and structured transition supports rather than relying solely on abstract "self-control" prompts.

3. Social Awareness

  • What the State Identifies: Empathizing with others, understanding diverse perspectives, recognizing social cues, and respecting individual differences.
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Participating in diverse peer groups, understanding differing communication styles in group projects, 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: Present social norms as explicit, contextual rules to navigate rather than moral imperatives. Validate authentic neurodivergent interaction styles while providing practical decoding tools.

4. Relationship Skills

  • What the State Identifies: Communicating constructively, collaborating in teams, resolving conflicts respectfully, and seeking help when needed.
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Partnering on group assignments, asserting personal boundaries with peers, and communicating accommodation needs to teachers and employers.
  • Neurodivergent Teaching Considerations: Forced masking (suppressing natural traits to pass as neurotypical) leads to severe mental health fatigue and burnout. Relationship goals should prioritize authentic communication and mutual clarity over neurotypical conformity.
  • Communication Considerations: Explicitly teach paralinguistics (decoding vocal pitch, cadence, volume, and posture) as objective context signals. Never demand forced eye contact or suppress natural self-regulatory movements (stimming).

5. Responsible Decision-Making

  • What the State Identifies: Evaluating choices considering safety, ethics, and personal well-being, and applying problem-solving skills systematically.
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Making decisions regarding academic accommodations, managing post-secondary planning, and navigating peer dynamics ethically.
  • Neurodivergent Teaching Considerations: High stress and cognitive overload can cause decision fatigue and working memory breakdown in neurodivergent teens. Structured decision-making templates remove cognitive barriers to effective action.
  • Communication Considerations: Frame self-advocacy as a core decision-making skill. Provide choice matrices and email templates so students can request accommodations from instructors with minimal social friction.

Neurodivergent Interpretation of Colorado SEB Framework

Colorado’s emphasis on "behavior as communication" and a "can't do vs. won't do" perspective aligns directly with neurodiversity-affirming education. For neurodivergent high schoolers, true emotional and social wellness requires recognizing neurodiversity as a natural human variation. Building authentic self-management and interpersonal skills requires teaching internal bodily awareness (interoception) and objective communication channels (paralinguistics) in real-world contexts without forcing behavioral masking.
To align CDE’s Emotional and Social Wellness standards with practical neurodivergent instruction, explore the Neurodivergent Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) Course curriculum, designed to build internal body regulation and clear communication without forcing masking.

Applying SEL & Resiliency in Practice: High School Classroom Examples

Example 1: Interoception & Stress Regulation in High School Health Labs (Self-Management)

  • Scenario: A 10th-grade Autistic student experiences intense anxiety and sensory overload in crowded physical education or health lab environments, leading to unexpected class departures.
  • SEL Strategy: Aligned with Colorado’s ESW self-management standards, the teacher guides the student to use an interoception tracking log (identifying physiological stress markers like elevated heart rate or muscle clenching). The student uses a pre-arranged pass to move to a quiet media center space for 5 minutes before sensory overload triggers a shutdown.

Example 2: Paralinguistic Decoding in Group Projects (Relationship Skills)

  • Scenario: An 11th-grade ADHD student in a social studies discussion speaks rapidly and loudly when enthusiastic, which group members misinterpret as aggressive or dominant.
  • SEL Strategy: Supporting CDE's relationship skill competencies, the teacher delivers a mini-lesson on paralinguistics (how pitch, volume, and pacing alter message delivery). The group establishes visual communication cues to help all members monitor speech rate and volume without singling out the neurodivergent student.

Example 3: Self-Advocacy Matrix for Post-Secondary Preparation (Responsible Decision-Making)

  • Scenario: A 12th-grade student with executive function challenges struggles to request extended deadlines on capstone research projects, risking graduation credits.
  • SEL Strategy: Aligned with Colorado's responsible decision-making indicators, the student uses a 3-step self-advocacy matrix: (1) Identify the project roadblock 48 hours early, (2) Select an approved IEP/504 accommodation option, and (3) Utilize a structured email template to send the request to the teacher.

State-Specific FAQs

Are high schools in Colorado legally mandated to teach SEL?

  • Colorado does not mandate a standalone course explicitly titled "Social-Emotional Learning." However, social and emotional wellness is legally integrated into the mandatory Colorado Academic Standards for Comprehensive Health and Physical Education (1 Colo. Code Regs. 301-81). Districts must deliver health standards that encompass ESW competencies in secondary schools.

How do Colorado’s SEB competencies accommodate neurodivergent students with IEPs or 504 Plans?

  • CDE explicitly frames SEB competencies through a positive behavior support and MTSS framework. Accommodations listed in an IEP or 504 plan, such as visual decision templates, sensory recovery passes, or modified communication formats, serve as essential access points that allow students to demonstrate skill growth without being penalized for neurodivergent processing differences.

Should Colorado high schools assign report card grades for SEB competencies?

  • No. CDE treats SEB competencies as developmental learning targets meant for formative assessment, self-reflection, and guiding instructional practice, not as subjective criteria for report card 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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