As I think about my last blog for this class, I
notice that my student, who is Autistic, is talking with his hands, moving from
side to side in his desk and all of a sudden starts beating the desk with his
fist. I began to wonder if he has taken his medication today. He is very
restless and will not follow instructions, so I call his mom. Well guess what,
she said: “I may have forgotten to give him his medication today, but I will
bring it around 11:00.” So in the meantime, I am trying to get him to focus and
complete his assignment which all the other students in the classroom are
laughing at his antics. There is general chaos in the classroom.
The general education teacher and I decide to take
him to the quiet room until his mother brings his medicine. I was wondering
what would happen to the class if I did not have a quiet room to take him to.
There would be no work completed by any student. When he is in this type of
mood, there is no controlling his actions, especially talking and moving about.
It really disrupts the entire class. Part of me wants special needs students in
the classroom, but then when I see him acting up, at times, I believe that he
needs to be in a self-contained classroom. There is no concrete answer to what
is the best way to teach these amazing students.
As I take him to the quiet room, he begins saying, “Mrs.
Ellison, Rapunzel?” like am I Rapunzel? I never know what is going on in his
mind. Then he starts telling me about “cookie monster, eating a healthy
breakfast” and you might know that he has learned how to “burp” like cookie
monster, but at least he will say “excuse me.” This continues for another hour.
I try to get him to focus on writing his spelling
words three times each. He looks at me and says “one time each?” so we go over
this several more times until he finishes writing his words. Now I want you to
know, it generally takes him about thirty-minutes to write twenty spelling
words three times each, but today it has taken us two hours. Finally we are
finished with spelling. I give him his math sheets to work on. One is a
multiplication time sheet. He looks at me and asks, “thirty-seconds?” We have
been practicing completing one column in thirty-seconds, so I tell him yes. And
I start the time. Of course he finishes before the thirty-seconds is up, so I time
him on all four columns. If only I had more multiplication sheets for him to
work on today. He is very smart in math
and loves to answer addition, and multiplication problems. He writes his
answers for addition and subtraction problems, from left to right instead of
writing right to left and he never shows how he borrows or carries a number.
I know that I have written about one special needs
boy in this last blog, but he is what special education is all about. Every one
of us can say what we will do in certain situations, but when you are dealt
with different students, you handle them the only way they can be handled. With
lots of love and show them you care. This makes them want to learn for you.
Here is a video from
YouTube showing the characteristics of a 4-year old with Autism.
My student acts like this sometimes, especially
without his medicine.
Special education and technology goes hand in
hand with teaching special needs students. A teacher may have a student who
needs adaptive equipment so he or she can see the assignments better or they
may need a hearing device. There are many new technology devices which will
help students with special needs. The following
video shows how technology has helped special needs students:I have learned a lot about Autism and other special needs disorders. May my blogs be beneficial to everyone.
