Students Needs

Oh gosh, what a refreshing post. It's a difficult question to answer since each autistic child needs such a specific education. I would say to please, please listen to the parents in those ARDs. Turn school complaints into educational goals. Help the parents navigate the special ed system and acquire the services YOU see that their child needs, whether they realize it's available to them or not. Suggest that the district also fund parent attendance at NELI conferences and seminars by the district's special ed law firm (Walsh for McKinney?).

There are so many parents who feel trapped by their districts, and there are many things that could be done in Texas to make them feel they truly are equal partners in carrying out the IDEA.

Hi B.,

Call Kristen Estell she is a behavior specialist and works with children and young adults who have AU. She will be able to help you ###-###-#### with ideas.

Best of Luck!

C. Roeschen
The Trinity Group
Keller Williams
###-###-####
____@____.com
www.TheTrinityGroup.org
www.ValueMyNeighborhoodOnLine.com

It's wonderful that you're asking!

It depends on the type of autism. Is it Asperger's or the lower functioning autism?

As an Aspie parent it's just nice when the teacher actually relates to my child and fulfills my requests. Like emailing me when I've asked to be emailed for issues... like does he participate in class, is he picking at his skin all day, whatever it is just let me know.

Or I like it when the teacher helps by understanding, like if my son doesn't see his homework, it doesn't exist... even if it's behind a paper in his binder. So sometimes the teacher has to be specific like, "Did you look through ALL your papers for your homework?" or the teacher lets him hand in homework late etc.

Really, they are all different but the one thing I hear from other parents is email/communication on a regular basis is very helpful since our Aspie children tend to communicate with us even less than non-Aspie children.

I am a mother of an Autistic child. One thing i love is the correspondence of his teachers. If you have a behavior folder that comes home daily make sure it is filled out with the good bad and the ugly of how their day went. It helps the parents make changes or talk to them at home about school. When the students do something well Praise them and let the parents know with a quick phone call, email or note. It makes the student feel special and the parents can continue the praise at home and the child is more likely to repeat the wonderful behavior. All the parents of the special children can hope for is an understanding and patient teacher and if we get that for your kids thats the support we need.
We need more teachers like you.
Keep up your great work.

Did you watch the CNN Heroes Awards the other night? There was a girl named Kayla Cornale whose autistic cousin had a knack for remembering songs. At 16, Cornale invented a system called Sounds Into Syllables. She figured out a way to link sounds to language, to help her cousin communicate. Two years later, Cornale, 18, runs a pilot research program while attending Stanford University. Maybe you could check out her system.

Hi, I'm both a teacher and a mom of a child who was first diagnosed with PDD-NOS, then Autism, then Asberger's. I received some training through CTAC (Central Texas Autism Center) that helped (your school may pay to send you - a lot of teachers and parents go, sometimes together).

I ended up putting my son in Capitol School of Austin, a speech based program for speech delayed children. They also have Autism classes for one on one help depending on the severity. He is in a low ratio class now with 7 kids, one lead teacher, and two part time assistants. They focus on teaching speech, and that really has helped him overcome so many other issues. He is very visual, and they use pictures to tell the story of what they want him to do. He also needs consistancy and that helps him make good choices behaviorally. They give us the same thing to do at home that they are doing at school with weekly schedules of what they are doing so we can ask him detailed questions in an effort to communicate with him. It works so much better to say, "What happened in the story about the rabbit that you read in class today?" rather than asking "What did you read today?", which gets no response. By knowing what they are doing, I can trigger his memory and language. It really helps to be using the same things to reinforce what he is doing at school. I need all the help I can get! I needed to know about community resources and what was normal developmentally and what I could do to help. I taught older kids in inclusion classrooms, but I hadn't dealt with a kid like mine. Parent information varies, and sometimes I get overwhelmded at all I need to do, but I'm grateful for the advice anyway. We also get homework to do with him and that helps reinforce his learning at school.