Everyday Teaching Autism Resources

When my child was about to turn 5 and fall was approaching, the biggest question mark in my mind was which elementary school will she attend? I confess now I have searched “Best school near me” on google so many times.

Is that a so-called, “good” school? How many students are in each class? Will the teacher be able to give adequate attention to his or her students to monitor their social-emotional and academic growth? Is it academically rigorous or stem-based school? So many questions…

If then, I can’t imagine the thought tornado in the mind when your child has some degree of delays in development or has already been diagnosed. After all, diagnosis is just a label on the paper which might help parents and people around the child understand some foundational challenges, but it’s nothing more. (It’s just my opinion after working with children with autism for the last 20 years in school settings.)

What type of school is best for children with autism?

I think “school” should be replaced with “program” to better acknowledge the fact our students with autism bring unique strengths, challenges, and skill sets. For that reason, they need individualized planning to teach and build the necessary skills for independence in their lives. Erase the size of the school or the color of the brick of the actual school building in your mind. As parents, you should look into the principles and teaching philosophy of the program.

If you are parents who try to navigate this world of the special education system, these are some of the critical information you might want to understand first. I have listed some Pros and Cons along with the school options.

Public School

When most kids in the U.S. who turned 5 and passed that summertime, they may start Kindergarten in the local public school. So do children with disability. The Section 504 regulation requires a school district to provide a “free appropriate public education” (FAPE) to each qualified person with a disability who is in the school district’s jurisdiction, regardless of the nature or severity of the person’s disability.

Pro: It’s free and it’s probably located in your community. Your child has the right to go to school for education, and the district is obligated to serve the children within the district. The district will initiate the process and make effort to better serve your child. It’s their job.

Cons: Public schools are often serving 100-200 students on campus at once. Teachers and school admins are always busy putting out fires. The bigger the district is, the harder to schedule any meeting with the district. If your child needs delicate attention and constant changes in programming, you will be in many frustrating moments.

Home School

Some parents want to keep their children with a disability at school. They may be concerned about the safety of the child in the public school and do not want to be bothered by school personnel in planning their child’s education.

Pro: While homeschooling your child, you can take her/him to private speech, OT, and PT any time you want. You don’t have to wait for the school dismissal. That’s pretty convenient. Parents are in the driving seat to set up the goals, monitor the progress, and make changes however they feel appropriate. It seems things are more in control.

Cons: It’s a lot of responsibility to plan, implement, and monitor your child’s educational progress. Parents may become highly knowledgeable in education and disability, but they are specialists or experts. It’s lonely sometimes. Every transition parent may go through challenges with unclear directions.

Private School for Children with Special Needs

There are many private schools out there to serve students with special needs. Each school might have built its unique specialties in teaching.

Pro: These schools are initially built and established to better serve the unique challenges of our children. The entire school is much more flexible and knowledgeable about the disability and ways to support them. They are smaller in size and therefore much easier to collaborate between schools and parents.

Cons: It is not cheap! Some schools specializing in the severe form of disability (autism) cost $3000-4000 a month. It’s brutal. Besides the financial burden, these schools are often very segregated from the community or typical peers. Even though children are placed in these settings for safety concerns, they would also benefit from peer modeling and mainstreaming opportunities into a large group of peers.

Special Day Class

Many public schools run and operate a special day class on their school campus. A special education teacher acts as a case manager for students with special needs in that school. Students with special needs stay in the special day class and work on reading, math, writing, and other subjects.

Pro: Small, highly staffed special day class support students with special needs by giving them a level of comfort and a safe place to be at school. It’s usually a small group. Special education teachers can give lots of attention to each student and individualize his/her IEP.

Cons: Special Day Class often brings a multi-grade level which is hard for the teacher to lesson plan in different grade levels. If there is a student with behavior challenges requiring more attention, it’s hard to distribute the same level of attention to every single child in the learning center. Lack of peer model? That’s another concern many parents complain about.

Mainstreaming and Inclusion Opportitnuintes

In order to provide appropriate peer modeling opportunities, special day classes can implement some type of mainstreaming and include opportunities in the student’s day. This is especially important for a young child who might not have many languages, but try to engage with siblings or other kids constantly. This child might need an adequate language model to imitate and jointly attend to.

Pro: While students with special needs receive small group attention and instruction for the most part of the day, they can benefit from being exposed to a large group with typically developing peers for some part of the day. Students feel the bigger community and the rest of the school also recognizes the challenges that our students exhibit and build an empathic school environment. Win-win for both students.

Cons: It’s easy to say than done. Scheduling and staff assignments are a nightmare! The district should hold this as a teaching philosophy as well in order for this to happen. They need to hire more aides and case managers, so there are rooms to accommodate the best students with disability.

AAC Users

I have seen many AAC (Alternate Augmantavie Communication System) devices and apps for many years. Getting them assessed and knocking down the device on your hand is only the first step. How much language input and exchange are required before your 1-year-old child finally spits out the first word? Being competent is another language acquisition process. It takes the child (AAC user), parents (lifelong advocate), and the rest of society (communication partner) to make this happen.

If your child is just learning how to use AAC to express his needs/wants, don’t send them to the regular public school special day class. This child needs to go to a specialized small-size private school, so their language development is the core teaching point across any subject throughout the day. I said it. Don’t waste his and her time just because you want to avoid financial burden. Many ABA services are built around verbal behavior emphasized nowadays. They will be willing to incorporate the use of AAC and expand the verbal operants(echoic, mands, tacts, and intraverbals)

Can’t do or Won’t do

The easiest route, school placement, is a neighborhood public school.

However, parents should do their best to set things up for success for their child before sending him off to school’s care.

While spending time with your little one, always look out for if “he can’t do it” or “he won’t do it”. If a child can not perform certain things, you should teach them before sending him off to school. They may go to private therapy sessions (speech, OT, ABA, PT, etc.) to work on those skills.

What if…If he knows how to do it, but he won’t do it. We should consider either strengthening the behavior to easily generalize with different people in settings or teaching alternate behavior to bring the same result. After all, know your kid and prepare them for the big sea.

What type of school is best for children with autism?

I think “school” should be replaced with “program” to better acknowledge the fact our students with autism bring unique strengths, challenges, and skill sets. For that reason, they need individualized planning to teach and build the necessary skills for independence in their lives.

Erase the size of the school or the color of the brick of the actual school building in your mind. As parents, you should look into the principles and teaching philosophy of the program. How do they engage with my child? What’s their emphasis on teaching?

For any child and parents, there are many paths to education. Instead of analyzing and asking them to change things to fit yours in, first know what you want your child to be..to learn, to become, to live like in 12 years later. Make a list….this will guide you through this journey.