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

Wisconsin SEL at a Glance

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) outlines social-emotional learning through the Wisconsin PK–Adult Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Competencies, aligning social-emotional growth with Academic and Career Planning (ACP) and student mental health initiatives.

Official Framework & Core Terminology

Official Framework Name: Wisconsin PK–Adult Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Competencies.
Structure & Terminology: Organized around 3 Primary Domains (Emotional Development, Self-Concept, and Social Competence) crosswalked directly with the 5 CASEL competencies. Key terminology includes PK–Adult Continuum, Academic and Career Planning (ACP), Strength-Based Lens, Functional Performance, and Systems Approach.

Grade Ranges & High School Applicability

Grade Bands: PK–Adult continuum structured across six developmental grade bands: 4K–5K, Grades 1–3, Grades 4–5, Grades 6–8, Grades 9–10, and Grades 11–Adulthood.
High School Relevance: For high schoolers (Grades 9–12 / 11–Adulthood), Wisconsin’s framework emphasizes post-secondary and workforce readiness, self-determination in transition planning, managing independent workloads, navigating adult social dynamics, and developing functional performance skills for life after graduation.

Core Competencies Overview

  1. Self-Awareness (Self-Concept Domain): Identifying personal traits, understanding internal emotions and body signals, recognizing personal identity, and evaluating strengths/growth areas.
  2. Self-Management (Emotional Development Domain): Regulating emotions, managing stress, demonstrating perseverance, and setting academic and personal goals.
  3. Social Awareness (Social Competence Domain): Demonstrating empathy, taking diverse perspectives, recognizing cultural contexts, and understanding social dynamics.
  4. Relationship Skills (Social Competence Domain): Communicating clearly, collaborating in diverse teams, negotiating conflict, and seeking/offering support.
  5. Responsible Decision-Making (Emotional Development & Social Competence Domains): Analyzing situations, evaluating ethical consequences, applying critical thinking, and making constructive choices.

Educator Mandate: State Explanation & Interpretation

Wisconsin DPI frames SEL as a strength-based, equity-focused continuum integrated into Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS), Academic and Career Planning (ACP), and IEP functional performance development. DPI explicitly advises educators that SEL competencies are developmental guidelines for instructional planning and progress monitoring, not static proficiencies to be used for report card grading, deficit tracking, or behavioral discipline.

High School Competency Breakdown for Neurodivergent Learners

1. Self-Awareness

  • What the State Identifies: Recognizing emotions, evaluating personal strengths and challenges, understanding cultural assets, and developing personal identity (Emotional Development & Self-Concept).
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Recognizing signs of sensory and cognitive burnout during block scheduling, evaluating personal accommodation needs, 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 internal emotional states) or delayed interoceptive awareness. Demanding immediate emotional self-reflection without first teaching bodily awareness skips an essential physiological baseline 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: Regulating emotions, managing stress, demonstrating impulse control, and setting/monitoring goals toward independence (Emotional Development).
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Managing complex high school block schedules, handling noisy vocational/lab settings, and maintaining momentum on long-term Academic and Career Planning (ACP) tasks.
  • 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 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: Empathizing with others across diverse identities, recognizing social cues, understanding group dynamics, and identifying community supports (Social Competence).
  • What This Looks Like in High School: Participating in diverse peer groups, understanding differing communication styles in group projects, and navigating high school and workplace 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 effectively, collaborating in diverse teams, negotiating conflict constructively, and establishing supportive relationships (Social Competence).
  • 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, personal well-being, and community impact while solving problems systematically (Emotional Development & Social Competence).
  • 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 Wisconsin SEL

Wisconsin’s SEL framework explicitly links social-emotional competence with Academic and Career Planning (ACP) and lifelong functional performance. For neurodivergent high schoolers, transition planning and career readiness require affirming 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 Wisconsin DPI’s PK–Adult SEL competencies 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 Vocational Labs (Self-Management)

  • Scenario: A 10th-grade Autistic student in a Career and Technical Education (CTE) shop lab experiences intense sensory overload from loud machinery and flickering lights, leading to sudden task shutdown.
  • SEL Strategy: Aligned with DPI Self-Management competencies within CTE/ACP standards, 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 library 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 DPI Relationship Skills competencies, 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 DPI Decision-Making competencies, 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 Wisconsin legally required to teach SEL?

  • Wisconsin does not mandate a standalone SEL course by statute. However, DPI strongly encourages districts to integrate the PK–Adult SEL Competencies into general instruction, Academic and Career Planning (ACP), Comprehensive School Mental Health Systems, and Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS).

How do Wisconsin SEL competencies accommodate neurodivergent students with IEPs or 504 Plans?

  • Wisconsin DPI explicitly connects SEL competencies to IEP functional performance goals. 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 Wisconsin high schools assign report card grades for SEL competencies?

  • No. DPI explicitly emphasizes that SEL competency assessments are designed for formative instructional planning, monitoring developmental progress, and continuous quality improvement, not for assigning report card grades or identifying student deficits.
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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