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Hi, my name is Erin Peters and I teach at River Valley High School.
What is Autism? Autism is a range of complex neurodevelopmental disorders that can affect
three primary areas that include: social, language and behavior skills.
When working with students that have been classified as “autistic” there are things
that you should notice depending on the level he or she exhibits this disorder. For instance
in the social aspect you may notice the student has poor eye contact, appears to not be listening,
rather work or be alone and may not even pick up of certain social cues such as sarcasm
or facial expressions that may tell a story itself and they don’t realize it.
Being a teacher in the high school setting – I have noticed these behaviors and wondered
if the student had been tested for autism or not. Of course this all happens before
you can get any information from the case carrier or counselor on campus.
In my experiences there are no two students that are alike in your classroom – whether
they are classified as a student with special needs or not. So I have found that at the
beginning of each class I ask the students to write me a letter. And in this letter I
have them cover three major topics. Number 1 – tell me why you chose this class and
what do you hope to learn while you are here. Number 2 – Tell me about your strengths
and weaknesses in school. This is their chance to tell me they are horrible test takers,
procrastinate in doing their homework or assignments. And this is also where I like them to talk
about their past school experiences such as teachers they have really connected with (maybe
I can use them as a resource later), subjects they excel in or even struggle with and I
hope they will tell me if they have an IEP, SST or 504 – because at our school site
this info is not usually relayed to the teachers until we are a couple of weeks into class.
And finally number 3 is to tell me about your life outside my classroom. Here they can tell
me about their families, pets, jobs, friends or anything they feel comfortable telling
me about.
After this assignment is completed I can start to direct how this class will be taught, what
teaching methods may work best and even what parts of the FFA or SAE’s may be covered.
I have found that I have never taught the same class twice. There are times when I would
love to teach extemporaneous speaking or parli pro but looking at the students in my class
that may be a stretch of what they really are ready for. So we may work on Plant ID
and everyone will learn a part of opening and closing ceremonies.
I have also found that when working with students that are Autistic you have to stay on a plan
or have a definite class structure. Now at times this may be difficult as we can never
do everything we want to when we want to do it. But I have noticed that my autistic students
do really well when I teach plant ID in greenhouse management. They know they will receive 9
new plants on Monday, they will learn the common name as well as the scientific name
and I will provide them with 3 to 5 facts about each plant and on Friday they will have
to tell me the common name and 2 facts about that plant.
So I believe structure is the best way to deal with a student that falls somewhere on
the autistic spectrum. Thank you.