Wednesday, 04 November 2009
-
Teachers should be educated in how to handle Asperger students
Okay, let's make this perfectly clear. If I could just TALK my asperger son out of his obsessive behavior, I would be touring the world, making millions of dollars talking other kids out of their syndrome. What don't educated people realize about this? He is NOT like the other students in their class. It is back to why he is so misunderstood. He may look like the other children, in fact, he is quite handsome. He gets very good grades and can compete academically. He is behind socially, but so are many neurotypical children. I was VERY shy for most of my academic life. So when I get these endless telephone calls or have conferences from a person who has many years of education and usually a great deal of experience working with children asking me to have a talk with my son and expecting that to work, I throw my hands up in exasperation.
We have tried behavior charts. reward systems, chore sticks, coupons and punishments (taking away video games, television, his favorite books, whatever we think might cause him to want to do his work). These plans work for a short time and then we are back to the drawing board as he figures out a way to get around them or he just doesn't care.
Our son doesn't really care if he gets 100 on a test. He does care if he answers something incorrectly, but the number grade doesn't seem to affect him. It is what happens in the now that concerns him, not on the regents exam in two years or on his report card in a month. If teacher assigns homework that is due on Friday, but assigns it on Monday, even though he is at the age where he should understand that he needs to work on it daily and not wait until Thursay, all he sees is the word Friday and thinks he does not have to work until the day before. Talking to him about it, doesn't work, believe me I have tried. I suggested to the teachers that they make his schedule somewhat different. The counselor finally decided to put him on his own special calendar where his assignments have different due dates than the other students (earlier) and are written on this calendar. This way it is concrete.
I am totally aware that I cannot do it all. I am running myself ragged going to soccer, religion, therapies, basketball, scouts, and being a wife and mother taking care of a home, which suffers trust me, but it is better the home suffers than the children, it will get done eventually after the family is cared for. I need these professionals to understand that I can do the best I am able at home, but once he gets to school, it is in their hands. I cannot go into the building and hand in his assignments for him. He has done them, they are in his schoolbag or on his flashdrive so it is up to them to get him to give it to them. If he doesn't, then he take the zero like any other student would. He has to learn by experience.
What troubles me is that autism, autism related disorders like aspergers, pdd and ADHD fill our school buildings these days. Why do our professionals have to educate themselves? Why are they being provided assistance and offered strategies to help them manage a classroom when they are presented with students who have these issues? Where is our government? Don't they recognize the statistics? 1 out of 91 children is the current number. That is how many will be affected with autistic spectrum disorders. Not all of these children will be placed in special classroom. Many, such asperger children will be mainstreamed, even honors students, like my child. Why not help out teacher understand? Why not provide them with the tools they need to run their classroom more proficiently?
I must admit, we have been repeatedly blessed with eduators who study and learn on their own time how to handle our son. They have been fantastic with him and I credit them with much of his progress. In our 11 years of dealing with his diagnosis, we have encountered less than 5 teachers who refused to learn and grow. Those are amazing numbers. However, we have had to guide and educate many of them ourselves or encourage them to read books to help themselves. They should not have to do this on their own time. The education should be provided. It is in the best interest of ALL of the students. The children on the spectrum as well as the neurotypical children.
-
recommend
- recs 2
-
share
-
email
- sent 2
Related Posts
Post a Comment
- Back to autisable's Autisable Site!
- Note: your comment will appear in autisable's local time zone: GMT -05:00 (Eastern Standard - US, Canada)
About the Author
-
- From: bizymomof3
- About Me: I am a busy mother of three. My oldest son has a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome which has become a full time job. I spend a great deal of my time educating people about Aspergers and making sure that his services are in place. Each year we battle the Department of Education in order for our son's education to be handled properly. Much of what I write or post will be about issues of special needs parents/children and adults. I have been a teacher for 20 years. I am currently employed as a part time Museum educator, which is interesting and alot of fun. I have two other children, both are soccer players, very bright and keep me just as busy as the oldest child. I have published two articles in my local newspaper about raising a child with Aspergers and I am currently working on a novel about the same subject. I have published a children's book, Spenser's Pencil, which took place while I was a third grade teacher. I never have enough hours in the day to get everything done, so I
Stats: This Week All Time Posts: 0 15 Views: 0 6717 Comments: 0 98 View all posts by bizymomof3
Comments (13)
Interesting.. I am considering becoming a teacher. I suppose teachers' education programs think that all kids on the autistic spectrum will get their own class, so they don't educate "regular" teachers on how to deal. If they had to educate regular teachers about how to deal with every type of special kid that might be thrown their way, teachers would have to spend a ton more time in school. Perhaps they just decided that the numbers are (as of now) too insignificant for widespread education to be necessary.
Normal
0
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
The blog is
very informative. Generally
everybody feels that teacher’s job is easy but I feel this job is very
difficult specially like making class plans, question papers etc. However you
can use old plans, question papers which could be in pdf or scanned format
(tiff/jpg). You can directly convert by clicking www.onlinedocumentconversion.com
and edit for fresh use. I feel even
if you have to pay a little bit it’s worth it, because paid sites are definitely
better then unpaid sites. Caution!Avoid free
sites or sites with no after sales support is a NO NO.
Print and send: http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/teachers_guide.html -- I had books I had to order remotely, pages I had to print at the local library, and materials that I dragged with me to every damned IEP. That link is the first of many to bring Xeroxed copies of.
Things like that helped me with explaining what "autism" meant to some.
As someone studying to be a teacher, I can assure you that there is a degree of training required, but it will never be enough. I will only be ready to handle a child with autism in my classroom because I have taken a special interest in learning about it since I started college. The classes we take on special education, though, have to cover all of the disorders and disabilities that we may encounter. If we spent in-depth time on autism, we'd be doing it at the neglect of dyslexia or something else. The sad thing about classroom schooling is that teachers cannot be specialists in everything. We do our best, and good teachers will do their homework as soon as they find out the needs of their students, but it is impossible to be prepared for everyone ahead of time, or have workshops on every possible special need.
No idea what to do about this, personally. It's hard enough for me to deal with my Aspie daughters as a homeschooling mom. I can't imagine having to navigate them through public school. You have my prayers and my condolences.
"he is at the age where he should understand that he
needs to work on it daily and not wait until Thursay"
That age is never. =P
There should be "special classes " for TEACHERS of neurotypical children,..Yes,..BUT these children should only be in regular classes IF they don't desturb the reguar classroom. i am all for mainstreaming children but sometimes certain types of special needs children really don't benefit from being in "regular" classes and the non-neeurotypical children don't benfit from having such children in the class.
@shards_of_beauty@xanga - @Stanelle@xanga - I agree with these two people. Mainstreaming is great but what we end up with is children who are in a classroom where their teacher may not have had enough special education training to deal with all of the children they encounter in the classroom. If they are lucky, they will have an aide whose specialty is special education and even in those cases the aide may not have chosen to focus on ASD. Mandating that all teachers focus on special education because of mainstreaming only adds to the already heavy load that undergraduate education majors have to take. Even though the result would be good for those who do graduate, we would most likely decrease the number of people who would get an undergraduate teaching degree.
I think you are doing the right thing by educating the teachers your son has. I am sure that it gets exhausting but it is the best thing you can do for your son. If the teacher is doing their job, they'll do the research on their own (many of these teachers will have a Masters, EdS, or PhD, but you will find a few with only a BS). They'll also appreciate any information you give them. The average teacher will take the information you give them and use it, but won't take the initiative to do their own research. Then you have those teachers that shouldn't be in the classroom and the best thing for you to do is to request that your son be transferred to another class. You'll know those teachers when you find them.
yeah, teachers should be educated about asipes. but to be fair, they really should be educated about every disorder, and honestly, its going to take a while for that to happen. theres a lot of time money and effort that goes into that... most teachers are trained for the "normal" (whatever that means) kids and situations... it would be nice if they could be specialists in everything. but i don't know if that is realistic.
Teachers aren't specialists. Yes I think that teachers should be understanding and compassionate - but they shouldn't be required to know how to act with a certain disordered child. That's what special ed is for, or home schooling.
As a teacher who has had to deal with Asperger's students I will say I was never prepared. Schools do not teach you properly how to deal with special needs kids. Thankfully my office mate has a soon who has Aspergers/ If he wasnt there I would not have dealt with my student properly. He frustrated me each and every day and honestly there were some day sI felt like I should definitely be paid more to deal with this. It wasnt in my job description but I did it nonetheless. Did he get a good grade?...fair. Would I want to teach another kid like him?...no. Anyone who deals with this on a daily basis is a saint. I did what I had to each and every class I talked to him at the beginning and at the end of class to make certain he stayed on task. I know he will probably never get a job doing what he wants to do because he is too slow. It frustrates me, but I know it probably frustrates him more.
Yeah, a teacher's job is already really hard. People don't understand how hard it is, and some expect every child to cater specifically to their child's needs. I'm not saying your doing this, of course. I feel that teachers should have to go through training to deal with special needs children that may be in their classes. Not at the disadvantage of the other students, though. No child should be ignored because someone with more needs requires the teacher's attention.
My mom is a teacher, and she has to go through special classes to deal with autism. So do all the teachers that teach in that school system. They are all very well trained to deal with special needs kids. I don't know about other school systems, though.Currently I have a student that has Asperger's syndrome. I am stumped at how to assist this child. He is eleven years old and is not able to handle any of his emotions. Everyday is a roller coaster. He is not medicated and his parents do not understand or know much about his situation. He has been diagnosed since he was 5, but they have never taken him to specialist. Everyday I am in fear that he is going to become violent with me or another student. We have even had incidents where he has ran off from adults and flipped a desk in the room. Today he screamed and threw everything off of my desk because he didn't want to do his math. Was I taught how to handle this in college? NO. Was I taught how to handle this in graduate school? NO. I have taught other autistic children, blind students, students who have cerebral palsy and have been successful. Does anyone have any idea what could be going on with this student? Are these behaviors worst than those expected from aspergers?