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

Maryland SEL at a Glance

The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) establishes social-emotional development through the Maryland Cross-Curricular Social and Emotional Learning Overview, integrating CASEL’s core competencies directly with state academic standards, the MSDE Educational Equity Framework (COMAR 13A.01.06), and secondary Comprehensive Health Education standards.

Grade Ranges & High School Applicability

Grade Bands: PreK–12 developmental continuum. High school is specifically addressed through secondary academic crosswalks, Health Education standards (Grades 9–12), and post-secondary readiness frameworks.
High School Relevance: For high schoolers (13+ / Grades 9–12), Maryland’s framework focuses on self-advocacy, managing complex academic and vocational stress, analyzing systemic/institutional barriers, navigating post-secondary transitions, and developing personal agency.

Official Framework & Core Terminology

Official Framework Name: Maryland Cross-Curricular Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Overview & MSDE Educational Equity Framework.
Structure & Terminology: Organized around 5 Core Competencies adapted from CASEL, crosswalked with Maryland Fine Arts, Health, and Physical Education standards. Key state terminology includes Social-Emotional Academic Development (SEAD), Educational Equity (COMAR 13A.01.06), DESSA Competency Crosswalk, Cross-Curricular Alignment, and Whole Child Well-Being.

Core Competencies Overview

  1. Self-Awareness: Recognizing emotions, identifying personal strengths and growth areas, understanding body signals, and building healthy identities.
  2. Self-Management: Regulating emotions, managing stress, demonstrating impulse control, and setting/achieving personal and collective goals. ing stress.
  3. Social Awareness: Empathizing across diverse backgrounds, taking perspectives, recognizing situational/cultural norms, and understanding systemic contexts.
  4. Relationship Skills: Communicating effectively, collaborating in teams, negotiating conflict constructively, and maintaining supportive connections.
  5. Responsible Decision-Making: Evaluating choices considering safety, ethics, and well-being, and applying critical problem-solving skills.

Educator Mandate: State Explanation & Interpretation

Under MSDE’s Educational Equity Regulation (COMAR 13A.01.06) and the MSDE Educational Equity Guidebook, Maryland interprets SEL through a Social-Emotional Academic Development (SEAD) lens. MSDE directs educators to embed SEAD directly across academic disciplines, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), and school climate initiatives to eliminate systemic barriers to learning. The state explicitly emphasizes that SEL competencies serve as developmental learning targets for growth, not subjective behavioral compliance rubrics or grading criteria.

High School Competency Breakdown for Neurodivergent Learners

1. Self-Awareness

  • What the State Identifies: Recognizing emotions and values, understanding how internal states influence behavior, identifying strengths/limitations, and developing self-efficacy.
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Recognizing sensory and cognitive fatigue during AP or block scheduling, evaluating personal accommodation needs, and exploring neurodivergent identity during IEP/504 transition planning.
  • Neurodivergent Teaching Considerations: High school Autistic and ADHD students frequently experience alexithymia (difficulty naming internal emotional states) or delayed interoceptive awareness. Expecting emotional self-reflection without first teaching bodily awareness skips an essential physiological processing step.
  • Communication Considerations: Use non-verbal check-ins, visual body maps, or digital mood-tracking scales rather than requiring immediate, on-the-spot verbal emotional identification.

2. Self-Management

  • What the State Identifies: Managing emotions and behaviors across environments, demonstrating impulse control, managing stress, and maintaining goal-directed focus.
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Managing high-stakes academic workloads, coping with sensory overload in crowded halls/labs, and maintaining momentum on long-term projects.
  • Neurodivergent Teaching Considerations: Executive dysfunction (working memory limitations, task initiation inertia) and sensory processing overload directly impact self-management. Do not misinterpret executive burnout or sensory overload as willful non-compliance or laziness.
  • Communication Considerations: Offer 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: Understanding social norms, empathizing with and respecting others across cultures, taking perspectives, and recognizing community contexts.
  • 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 friction is often a bi-directional mismatch in communication styles 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: Establishing and maintaining positive relationships, communicating clearly, cooperating in teams, resolving conflicts peacefully, and seeking/offering help.
  • 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 & Intellectual Habits

  • What the State Identifies: Analyzing situations, evaluating consequences, applying ethical reasoning, and solving personal and social problems systematically.
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Making choices regarding academic accommodations, managing post-secondary planning decisions, 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 Maryland SEL

Maryland’s SEAD framework and Educational Equity Regulation (COMAR 13A.01.06) prioritize removing systemic barriers and affirming student identity. For neurodivergent high schoolers, equity requires recognizing neurodiversity as a natural form of human variation. Developing true self-management and interpersonal skills requires teaching internal bodily awareness (interoception) and objective communication channels (paralinguistics) in real-world contexts without requiring behavioral masking.
To align MSDE’s SEAD and Equity framework 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 in Practice: High School Classroom Examples

Example 1: Interoception & Stress Management in Secondary CTE / Science Labs (Self-Management)

  • Scenario: A 10th-grade Autistic student in a Career and Technology Education (CTE) lab experiences intense sensory overload from machinery noise and flickering lights, leading to sudden task shutdown.
  • SEL Strategy: Aligned with MSDE Self-Management competencies within health/academic crosswalks, the student tracks physiological stress markers (e.g., muscle clenching, elevated heart rate) using an interoception check-in scale. The student uses a pre-arranged accommodation pass to step into a quiet media center space for 5 minutes before safely returning to complete lab work.

Example 2: Paralinguistic Decoding in Academic Seminars (Relationship Skills)

  • Scenario: An 11th-grade ADHD student in a social studies discussion speaks rapidly at a high volume when passionate, which group members misinterpret as aggressive or dominant.
  • SEL Strategy: Supporting MSDE Relationship Skills crosswalks, the teacher delivers a mini-lesson on paralinguistics (how pitch, volume, and pacing alter message delivery). The discussion group adopts an objective communication rubric to evaluate discussion points based on content rather than vocal inflection.

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

  • Scenario: A 12th-grade student with executive function challenges struggles to ask teachers for extended deadlines on senior capstone projects, risking graduation credits.
  • SEL Strategy: Grounded in MSDE Decision-Making crosswalks, the student uses a 3-step self-advocacy framework: (1) Identify the project roadblock 48 hours early, (2) Select an approved IEP/504 accommodation option, and (3) Use a structured email template to send the request to the instructor.

State-Specific FAQs

Are high schools in Maryland legally required to teach SEL?

  • Maryland does not require a standalone course titled "SEL." However, under MSDE's Educational Equity Regulation (COMAR 13A.01.06) and state Health Education standards, Maryland public school systems must incorporate Social-Emotional Academic Development (SEAD) strategies into district curricula, MTSS frameworks, and school climate initiatives.

How do Maryland SEL competencies adapt for neurodivergent students with IEPs or 504 Plans?

  • MSDE explicitly frames SEAD through an equity and barrier-removal lens. 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 enable neurodivergent students to demonstrate competence without penalty.

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

  • No. MSDE treats SEL competencies as developmental guidelines intended for formative assessment, self-reflection, and guiding instructional practice, not as criteria for summative 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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