2/22 ASD

I have been doing some research on Autism Spectrum Disorder, since that is what the only special ed. student in the classes I observe has. At first my research was not very productive because I kept finding articles and books that described diagnosis and treatment and didn't have much about adolescents with the disorder, since this is usually diagnosed in toddlers. Melissa was researching the topic too, since we field teach together, and she reminded me that I should search include "Teaching" in the search, and I found better results. (Obviously.) I did learn a lot about ASD from reading the general description and all the information about diagnosis, etc. which helps me understand the disorder in general. For example, now I know that I really don't have to worry about an un-diagnosed ASD student in my classroom, because it's pretty much impossible to miss in infants/toddlers, so it's not likely something a student would have developed later on and therefore had missed having been diagnosed. I also understand better why the name was recently changed to Autism Spectrum Disorder, since the student in the class I observe obviously has a very mild case. (He really only has one indicator or symptom off the lists I found.) I also learned that 1 in 4 with ASD experience seizures, which is a little scary, but if there was a possibility of that happening, I'm sure the IEP would mention it and I as a teacher would be informed of what to do in that situation. The websites/articles that I looked at that dealt specifically with teaching students with ASD were really interesting, and they reinforced the idea we've been talking about in our special ed labs that any accommodation you make for a special ed student will be helpful for any student. Many of the items on the list were things we've talked about in our methods course, like give an opportunity for choice, gage pacing and processing, and use activity-based instruction. Many of these things take no extra consideration because most teachers (hopefully) do them anyway since they know their students have varying interests. It was nice to have what we're learning reinforced by these articles. The one question I had involves the environment aspect of ASD, since these students may be extremely sensitive to sensory experiences. I guess this would again depend on the student and the IEP, but some of those sorts of things seem out of my control as a teacher. I can't force every student to sit still in silence so as not to bother their peer. I guess what I can do is ask the student what I can do to help him/her deal with such distractions.

On another note, I had my first response to my post on the a to z teaching page! It was from a early childhood special educator who works with 2-5 year olds, and she said her advice is to never view these students as kids I don't want in my classroom. It's heartbreaking to her to hear her little students referred to as "those kids." So my lesson learned here is the attitude part. I don't think I will have a problem teaching special ed. students in my class because I will have a good attitude about it, this is something I'm finding I really care about and I want to provide the best education possible to all of my students.

Another question I'm having is, with the new language graduation requirements, are more bilingual special educators coming up? It seems necessary, because even the kids that are in pull-out classes will have to take a language in order to graduate.

Here are the links to a few ASD websites that are pretty good:
http://chileda.org/resources/strategies.htm
http://www.education.gov/ab.ca/k_12specialneeds/autism.asp
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/autism.cfm