Your Thoughts Requested: How Far Should Teachers Go to Include Children with Autism?
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With all these concerns on the one hand, it's also the case on the other hand that schools and teachers are pressed very, very hard to provide "special" accommodations for increasing numbers of students. It's not uncommon for a regular ed teacher of 21 students to have 6 students with Individualized Educational Plans in her class - and only minimal special education training and support. At the same time, schools and teachers are also required to prepare all of those students for stringent, high stakes tests - tests that are extremely challenging to students with special needs.
Right now, I'm in the middle of reviewing a book called Asperger Syndrome in the Inclusive Classroom (Betts, Betts and Gerber-Eckard). The book is intended for teachers, and describes some very time-and-energy-intensive accommodations that can (and in their opinion should) be made for the child with Asperger syndrome. The book, for example, describes a teacher as selecting reading material for the entire class on the basis of one autistic child's special interests - and then engaging the class in discussions and activities focused on those interests. It describes a teacher calling a family of a child with autism prior to the start of the school year, providing the parents and child with a special tour, and creating a photo-based visual plan, schedule and map for the child.
From a parent's point of view, of course, this kind of positive and special treatment sounds fabulous. That, I'd like to think, is what inclusion is all about. But from a teacher's point of view, it sounds overwhelming. Should the teacher be expected to provide not one but six or seven students with a special tour and set of visual aids? Should she select reading materials to accommodate each student's individual interests?
In short, how far should teachers go to include children with autism in their classroom? Is there a limit? Should teachers be rewarded for taking extra time to support their students with special needs? What are your thoughts?
Comments
This is why I really support co-teaching (a special education teacher and a general education teacher teaching an inclusive class). That way, the workloads is not all put on one teacher, plus you have co-workers who each bring a unique set of knowledge and experience to the classroom.
I also really like what our school does. I’m the Autism Specialist for a small inclusion school (for kids with special learning needs and typically developing kids). I help teachers make visuals, lesson modifications, etc. We are a small school, with small classes (12 students max) and a student to teacher ratio of approximately 6:1 (varies depending on the needs of the class). I am amazed at how much the students love and support each other, including students who have aggressive behaviors, kids with very limited speech, and kids who talk and stim loudly (after a while, the kids can even do their work completely unphased when this occurs). I think that the small group, as well as supportive teachers helps a lot.
With these environments, kids with special needs benefit from increased expectations for success, learning from a challenging academic curriculum, opportunities for friendship with their peers, etc. I think it’s also really beneficial for the typically developing students. They learn to value diversity, how to work with people who are different from themselves, and how to more effectively communicate with others.
Nicole Caldwell, M.Ed. of http://www.positivelyautism.com/
If a teacher is required to include autistic children in their classrooms, they should be painstakingly trained and handsomely rewarded for the nobel cause of their undertaking.
A child without developmental challenges requires more time, energy, commitment and sacrifice than most people realize. Add a special needs child to the mix and you are putting an unnecessary strain on an educational system that is already overtaxed and underpaid.
Something is wrong with a society that produces millions of dollars for athletes (men and women)to enjoy a sports career, and next to nothing for funding its educational system. Now, you want to jeopardize the opportunities of the normally developed student, by bringing children who need specialized attention into the classroom. The teacher spends lots of time trying to calm, break through to and ensure the autistic child’s inclusion while the other children go lacking.
An inclusionary environment is education at in it’s most excellent form, but only after thorough reseach, educator training and a respectable compensation scale put in place. Until then, “yall” need to investigate other options.
I’d like to hear from the teachers themselves: the Margurite Bruces’…Dorothy Everetts’…William Scharriters’…Susan Zupzics’ and Mabel Wakefields’ of this world(my former teachers). Otherwise, I think it may be anoither case of the powers that be jumping up and down, begging to be called upon with the answer, when they have not done their homework.
How Far Should Teachers Go to Include Children with Autism? Simple answer: As about as far as the Federal and State laws says. The question really should be “How far Is ‘Ok’ For A Teacher To Exclude A Child With Autism?”
Many accommodations for any kid with a disability can be simple ones to do. Some of these things aren’t the responsibility of the teacher either, the Special Ed department creates and prepares many of the accommodations. I make my own kids visuals, parents can help out the over taxed teacher. Sometimes parents make them better than Special Ed does anyway since they know their child better. A special tour would be nice, but transitional meetings do work well for many. They take the kids as a group to the new class room. Six students in a class with an IEP, we’d all have to assume they all have a ton of accommodations and adaptations in order to make it difficult for the teacher. Since we don’t know this, it’s hard to comment on it. For those high stakes tests, there was no over preparing for my child and he didn’t even take the tests with his peers in the class room.
The variables are all there, sagging budgets and many special ed kids of all kinds however, it never takes too much to increase a child’s self esteem, but as much effort as it takes to break that self esteem.
The fact remains that some school integrate children with special needs very successfully, and others find reasons not to. Personally, I have experienced both extreme.
The first case where my child was suspended and extensively excluded, was a disaster…until the money came through. He then became “a delight”. Go figure.
In the second school, which is good at integration, the strategies are in place (its starts with the top), the teacher is supported by the principals, and there is no question of my son who has mild aspergers being able to attend.
I think that the difference is that in the second school, it is taken for granted that he ‘can do it’ and that his disability is not an excuse. Yes, they are compassionate and appropriate in their strategies, but my son has to work hard.
Interestingly, the first school spend more time in meetings about my son, to which either ourselves, the doctors or the teacher were not invited, Our feeling was that their were drumming up a good case to exclude him, which of course made him more anxious. Everything was always his fault. A lot of the problem was one other parent, who wielded considerable power over the school and the school was fearly of possible future litigation.
In the other school, calm when incidents occur. Firm consequences for my son. Insistence on positive outcomes, and no relative calm for us. Oh, and other parents are kept in their place. My son has a right to be there and the school takes responsibility for managing the children!
So much is to do with attitude. If staff want integration to work, on the whole it works. If they want it to fail, it is a self fulfilling prophecy.
How far they should go? As I said, less theorising, ask the schools that make it work often without funding.
But honestly, I support what Nicole Caldwell’s school does.
It’s a sensible approach, that caters to the needs of the special ed children, and the other students. My son would fall in the middle, his needs are mild, but strategies need to be in place to keep him in line, and someone like Michelle could advise and support the teacher.
But please do not overlook the importance of attitude and keep the emotional heat down and ‘other’ parents in check. And treat the asperger child’s family with some dignity. Calm parents means a much more manageable child.
As a teacher of 32 students at a local public school, I have less than two minutes to spend per hour per child (on the average.) As a parent of a child with Aspergers, I know my child requires more individual teacher/student time than that to succeed. I have had special needs students and there is one truism that I stand by. There is no subtraction clause. If you are given a student who will require more of your time, the school district will not take away any of your responsibilities (yard duty, etc…)to make up for the time. I understand that it is my job to teach any and all students enrolled in my classroom to the best of my ability. I also wish the district understood that it’s their job to give me all of the support I need to succeed. No answers, only questions.
No one working in education wants to see any child fail. This especially holds true for many special educators and administrators who stress the necessity lies with general and special education uniting, exploring and determining whatever a child needs to embed success into the general education and within the school day, and then to get it done. It’s often difficult and overwhelming; with all the demands placed in today’s classroom, to single out that one child’s success may take hours of modifications and accommodations both outside and also within the general education classroom. Fortunately, current educational mandates and increased visibility in the world of autism hope to make this outcome a reality in the lives of many children.
Wow! Has anyone read the law? Has anyone read the constituiton?
The 14th amendment guarantees all children the same rights to an education. Schools failed to do this in specialized setting and chose to put all the resources into general education. Now that parents say we want our children included where the real leraning takes place they object and say it is an unfunded mandate. Teachers want to be treated as professionals, but they have organized under a union and act like the UAW. The whine that they are over worked and under paid. Well start acting like professionals and you will be treated like one.
I see some of the posts that suggest the general education teacher is over worked and has no time to spend with a child needing extra help. The IDEA requires that the supports and services are placed into the general education classroom and yes this includes moving special education services and supports to the classroom. This requires the differentiation of instruction and the use to accommodations and aids (technology and non-technology) to insure that each child progresses in the general education classroom. Where are these overworked and unsupported teachers during the IEP when they are suppose to be identifying these supports and services. Most times they are sucking up to the special eduaction director and the school officials when they should be advocating for the student and themselves in the case conference. Where is their powerful union when they are in the case conference? The teachers act like they are so afraid the school will fire them. The bottom line is they don’t want change. They are afraid of success for our children and they are afraid to show the courage to be professional and leaders in the area of special education.