Talking about autism and the mesures to deal with it in scholar contexts, as I have a sister who is a teacher in a Primary school, I have interviewed her about how do they deal with students with autism in their general education classrooms, and her responses have been as follows:
First of all, have you dealed in first person with a case of autism in your class? Yes, I have been the formal teacher of four kids with ASD, each one of different ages and severity degrees of the disorder.
So, in terms of dealing with this kids with autism, which mesures have been adopted? Well, in all the cases, we have used a system of communicating via pictograms, which is better for them as the majority of them have trouble to express verbally, so in this way they can express themselves more efficiently, they can intervene more in the classroom and they can learn to make their own requests. Also, it is common to give them a schedule of the order of the activities that are going to be held in the class and their timing, so they can more easily follow the learning situation; also, this helps them to not get stressed because of the ambiguity of the classes, they need to have an structured timetable to know what is going to be done in each moment. Another way to help them understanding concepts and improve their academic performance, is proposing brief and concise activities which they can understand better, instead of elaborating more complex and long formulations. As regards communication with them, you must avoid using irony because they doesn't understand it and they may get frustrated.
So you have talked about some preventive and supportive mesures of dealing with ASD students. What about the corrective ones? I particularly doesn't like treating my pupils in a way of giving them prizes or punishing them for their disruptive behavior. I know that some other teachers do it this way but I really think that we should invest our greatest efforts in supporting children, improving the way we communicate to them and assuring they get a good learning experience by adapting to their communication, social and behavioral needs. If this is done effectively, I'm sure that almost none of the corrective mesures would have to be adopted. However, if you need to call attention to an ASD student because he is not behaving as he should, you must try to make him understand what are you saying by looking him in the eyes and making sure he is listening and paying attention to you. You must talk to him in a clear manner to make him understand your message.
Therefore, you think preventive and supportive mesures must be more used than the corrective ones? Logically, the preventive and supportive mesures should be more promoted than the corrective ones, because keeping correcting the kids doesn't make any sense, and we, as teachers, must adapt to our students necessities and particularities. It is required to make individual programs to address diversity.
And do you agree with the idea of integrating this ASD kids into the general education system? Why? Of course I agree, I really think they should be in general education schools with other children, because I have seen important changes in the behaviour and social skills of this ASD kids among the years: those who had really poor contact with the others on pre-scholar turn out to be more social and interactive with others in Primary school. However, I consider that is required to have a specialist giving individual support to these students in the classroom.
To end with the interview, I would like you to explain to me if there is a cooperative work between teachers, family members and other specialized professionals to deal with each case of ASD? Yes, there is always much feedback between families and teachers. Also we talk to other professionals that know and treat with the child, such as psychologists, speech therapists, etc.
Hence, to sum up, I consider that the most important ideas that have been expressed in the interview are that theachers must assure to integrate ASD kids into the general education class by adopting mostly preventive and supportive mesures, and also some corrective mesures if that is necessary.
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