Comments on: A Basic Request: Teaching Training to Teach Autistic Students

By: janny226

janny226 — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:14:25 +0000

I totally agree. I’m struggling with the same issue and my son is in a program that’s supposedly specifically for kids with his Dx, and the teachers are paid extra and the district gets extra $ to give them dx-specific training! Supposedly.

I think part of the problem is that the training aims to generalize the population, the The Whole Point of this population is that each one of them, ideally, will do best when approached as an individual.

Sometimes I think my son would be better off in a general classroom (if they just weren’t so gosh-darn BIG); I think he’d be treated as more of an individual than he is in his current classroom, where they take great pains (at least, it pains ME) to treat everyone the same.

By: Schools and Jobs and Finding Them………

Schools and Jobs and Finding Them……… — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:04:34 +0000

[...] I note regularly here, finding the right school and teachers for Charlie, and making sure the education he’s receiving is appropriate, challenging, [...]

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:25:20 +0000

@anon,
one thing we’ve learned, there’s never a geographical cure!

ditto Regan quoting mayfly

By: Regan

Regan — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:30:07 +0000

If one finds a method or methods which work, so much depends on the teacher and the relationship they build with the child.

Mayfly, I think you hit the nail on the head.

By: anon

anon — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:02:15 +0000

“we live in a school district that families move into because of its services ”
Your school district has just as many trying to move out, as fast as they can get out.

By: mayfly

mayfly — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:43:34 +0000

There is no guaranteed way to teach an autistic child. The method with the most research behind it, and the best success rate ABA does not help every child.

I have friends with a four-year old son who is eager to learn, but wants no contact with other children. He excels at learning and sees no reason for friendship.

My daughter shows little interest in learning anything from which she does not receive an immediate benefit. At 11.5 she keeps on slipping behind her peers. The four-year old is ahead of her. I don’t think she lacks the capability to learn, she lacks the will.

Finding a method which wants her to yearn for knowledge is a quest at which we, her parents have not succeeded. She is showing promise with an online ABA curriculum, but generalization of that has not been successful.

If one finds a method or methods which work, so much depends on the teacher and the relationship they build with the child.

By: John Lloyd

John Lloyd — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:08:34 +0000

I certainly agree that there is value in preparing teachers to be capable of teaching students with Autism. If one can teach kids with Autism, teaching other students is much easier, in my experience.

Of importance, however: What would one teach teachers to do? Should a teacher educator prepare her teacher-wannabes to use Method A, Method C, Method R, or Method X (which might be the eclectic approach)?

My bias, of course, would be to identify the practices, procedures, techniques, and curricula that have repeatedly been shown to be effective in rigorous studies and teach those prospective teachers those skills. However, given that they are skills and that they would have to be executed with fidelity, it would be important to teach them effectively. Doing so probably requires extensive practice in realistic situations with expert coaching. That would be pretty expensive, no?

So, perhaps is makes sense to prepare fewer people with pretty substantial expertise in faithfully employing extensively tested procedures. Sure, there would be some basics that one would hope virtually all teachers would know and employ (e.g., catch ‘em being good), but the heavy lifting would be better done by individuals with advanced preparation.

By: athina

athina — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:42:44 +0000

“emotionally and physically exhausted”…. yes, that describes me well enough. We had and continue to have some issues about our son’s school placement and conditions of education that made us realize how ignorant some people in authority can be about autism and special education in general. I felt really frustrated but now anger has taken place.

By: D

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:54:14 +0000

Absolutely agree!
Battling the school system is the most exhausting and stressful experience as parents trying to get appropriate accomodations in place.
Teachers and support often use sound bites of information they gather in determining the IEP. They just don’t have enough experience or training on autism – and they don’t like to be told otherwise! They end up always blaming the child, eventhough he’s been assessed with superior IQ and intelligence (they say; “we don’t see it”) What’s even more frustrating is that the board’s own so called specialists are not trained, other than taking a few general sessions on what autism is -yet they impart their “expertise” as the standard for approaching autistic teachings across the board.
When we finanlly got someone (EA) who had training in effectively dealing and working with autistic children, things improved a bit…until the teacher got involved and took the back seat driver approach with the trained EA…and now this year were back to battling them. I could go on but…
When it comes to teaching autistic children, it’s not only the techniques that are important, but the ability to interact and effectively respond to the actions and reactions of the child. It takes a trained person.