Autism Awareness~ From the Mouths of Babes

Autism Fact~
People with autism have difficulty using and understanding verbal and non-verbal language, such as gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice, as well as jokes and sarcasm.

Competition~ Leave a comment about autism and education, or just say hello. One person will will a $10 gift card to Amazon and a book of their choice from my list.
The contest runs until the end of the hop., April 15th. Check out all the great participants here.
April Autism Blog Hop

When I'm not reading, reviewing, or writing, I teach. I love my job; interacting with the kids, getting them to open up and share- not a simple task when you teach high schoolers.  And even more challenging when you have students with special needs. I am not a Special Education teacher but I have students with IEP’s for a variety of  situations that are in my classes. Teachers of IEP students receive a copy in order to know the circumstances and adaptions that must be taken and fulfilled. Sometimes these things are an easy fix- chunk matching to no more than five, only give three choices in multiple choice questions, etc. But other times the “fixes” are not that easy. And to top it off regular education teachers are not given the same amount of training a special ed teacher is.

I have been very lucky in my career. I’ve had some bad experiences and some good ones. But one stands out the most. Let’s call my student Joey. Joey has autism and was in one of my classes a few years ago. He was an extremely pleasant boy, very meticulous in all his work to the point of fixating on one task at a time. I remember one day in particular when we were working on maps and Joey was getting very frustrated. Usually all the students left him to himself, but this day another student “ Danny” went and sat with Joey and offered to help him color code his map. I stood back, ready to jump in if needed, but Joey immediately took to Danny. Joey smiled and Danny looked at me and said, “Don’t worry, Mrs,…I’ll help Joey. Right Joey?” The look on Joey’s face was priceless. 

The boys have since graduated, three years ago. I often hear from Danny and he tells me that he and Joey are still friends.

One kind gesture when you least expect it can form a lasting friendship.

Spread the word~ Autism Awareness