Educators apply heads and hearts to engage students with autism 

After just a couple of years as a special education teacher, Christopher Baker already feels confident about where to go for knowledge and support in teaching students with autism, a disability being identified in growing numbers of American children.

Baker joins the ranks of AFT members reaching out to share what they've learned. The keys to success are building your knowledge and taking a proactive approach, says Baker, an Illinois Federation of Teachers member who teaches at Garden Hills Elementary School in Champaign.

What is autism? It's a brain disorder that affects communication and socialization. People with autism don't understand the give-and-take of social interactions, such as holding conversations. The majority have mental retardation, but they also can be highly intelligent. And some have special abilities.

People with autism often are visual learners, responding well to pictures of what's going to happen next. But they may not be motivated to please you, so don't take it personally if a student doesn't "give back" socially.

Autism is treatable, and students can make lots of progress, says Patricia Wright, national director of autism services for Easter Seals. She advises educating yourself about the disorder and reaching out to parents.

Here are some of Baker's pointers:

Banish fear. "First and foremost, take a deep breath," he says. "You see a lot of things about autism on TV right now," much of it true, some not so much. Instead of falling under the spell of melodramatic news accounts, contact the Council for Exceptional Children and become active in your local AFT chapter to get information you can trust.

Consult closely with parents. Every child with autism is different, but many share traits such as repetitive behavior or sensitivity to noise or touch. To illustrate the importance of communicating with parents, Baker recalls a student who would "completely lose it" every morning. It turned out that the child's desk was too close to a window, and the sound of chirping birds became agonizing for him. "A parent will know those kinds of things," he says. "It takes a lot of communication, so we talk with the child's parents at least once a day."

Use research-based tools. Baker uses highly structured routines with exactly the same prompts at least three times a day in different settings and with different topics. He advises parents to use identical routines at home.

Another process breaks out what he wants a child to accomplish, whether it's answering the phone, turning on the computer or cleaning up after an event. This analysis is then converted into simple narratives called "social stories" that children can follow to understand what they're expected to do in a given situation. Baker uses about 15 social stories a week.

Discovering what works

In Brooklyn, N.Y., Reggie Colvin also finds his work engaging. A school bus paraprofessional in addition to his classroom job at a school for students with autism, Colvin is constantly figuring out how to keep his charges "mellow," to intercede when they fly off the handle and, ultimately, to build their trust.

That's especially true when students aren't diagnosed until age 15 or 16, and "we have to start out of nowhere." The long-term goal is to teach students how to ride independently, but that's hard in the tight confines of a school bus. Some students will bang their heads on the window, yank seat belts and vent their frustration, "all in a two-seat area," says the United Federation of Teachers member. If they're prone to outbursts, which can happen every day during a 30- to 60-minute ride, he may have to ask the driver to pull over. At times, "you have to try to protect yourself." Bitten and scratched, he's had to avail himself of pro-cedures the UFT negotiated to protect against blood-borne pathogens (see related story, below right).

The first rule is to remain calm. He works up a plan with the classroom teacher, school psychologist, parents and therapist—the whole team.

You find out what works, he says, "a magazine or book, conversation. I have students who like to listen to music—it's very soothing, so I carry a Walkman." When students behave, they're treated to R&B or jazz.

A growing phenomenon

Colvin's situation is becoming more common. Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that the number of children with autism has grown to one in 150 nationwide, based on a sampling in 14 states. Between 1994 and 2004, the number of children identified as having autism leapt more than 500 percent, along with a decline in the identification rates of mental retardation and learning disabilities.
Researchers attribute the change to three things: a broader definition of autism, a wider recognition of the disorder in society, and more child psychiatrists who diagnose it. Scientists are checking to see whether the growth in autism reflects damage done by mercury or aluminum in childhood vaccines. They're trying to get a handle on whether the growing population is due to increased identification or to vaccines.

School employees may not be scientific experts, but they know why they're needed and what they can accomplish. As the number of children with autism grows, so has the number of AFT members working with them.

"We're starting to see the whole spectrum," says Dianne McArdell, a speech pathologist with the Marcellus (N.Y.) Federation of Teachers. Her job is to help fourth- through eighth-graders at Driver Middle School stay on task and take turns speaking.

McArdell urges teachers not to worry when students with autism show up in their classrooms. She advises learning about the disorder and resisting the impulse to label kids. "The biggest thing is to realize they're all different."

Life in the real world

For teacher Anne Depp and paraprofessional Sherry Dietsch, inclusion is the name of the game. The two Jefferson (La.) Federation of Teachers members point to real-world training that's part of the curriculum at Grace King High School in Metairie, where they've teamed up in a class of high-functioning students with autism.

Along with their academic lessons, classmates visit stores and job sites, and help create the school's morning announcements—all of which improve their communication and vocational skills.

The high school's students with autism "started out with a whiteboard and a funky old karaoke machine," Depp says. Now they have graduated to PowerPoint presentations. And starting this fall, these students are helping out at football games, announcing the coin toss and welcoming the teams.

"I know it's not full inclusion," Depp says, but "they're working on their communication skills, they're asking questions, they're getting out there and meeting other kids and faculty."

For their workplace training, the students sample jobs to find out what they like best. This semester, Depp's students are working at the local union office. Next semester, they might work at a restaurant or garden center.

In fact, the kids at Grace King are part of a national effort to ease high school students with autism into the workforce. At a new South Carolina distribution center designed to employ people with disabilities in regular wage-paying jobs, the Walgreens drugstore chain has converted its computer displays from lines of type to pictorial screens with icons, just like the ones schools already use.

Smoothing out transitions

A core part of progress for students with autism is coping with change.
Pat Augdahl-Boehmer works as a teacher assistant in an autism classroom at Bowman Elementary School in Anchorage, Alaska. This member of the AFT-affiliated Totem Association of Educational Support Personnel uses "countdowns." She'll announce, "Five minutes until cleanup," then count down: 4, 3, 2, 1, and say, "Playtime is finished now. It's time for cleanup."

"We help them with what's happening now and what's happening next," explains Tina Hosford, a preschool group leader at North Elementary School in Brighton, Colo. She has watched in recent years as tots with autism have come to occupy one or two seats in every regular classroom.

Hosford, a member of the AFT-affiliated Colorado Classified School Employees Association (CCSEA), agrees that repetition and consistency are the keys to success. If you know a day will be different, or the class is going on a field trip, you send home a picture book of the upcoming event a few days beforehand and review it every day leading up to the big event.

Sherry Sedlack, another CCSEA member, works with K-5 students with autism at Niwot Elementary School near Boulder. Sedlack values the variety of her students. Some are "whizzes on computers," she says. "Their minds are so fast." She also likes the intense interests that students with certain types of autism develop, whether it's trains, NASCAR or dinosaurs. One student can tell you "anything you want to know about any type of dinosaur ... and spell it!"

She notices how these students' powers of observation can be overwhelming. "If you go into a classroom, what do you see?" she asks. "If you're observant, five or 10 things. But they will have in their minds the entire classroom, down to the minutest detail. That's a lot of information to process. It can be kind of frightening. We help them build filters to categorize that information."

Her Colorado district offers a resource teacher, meetings to exchange ideas, and classes to learn the theoretical underpinnings of autism.

But mostly, Sedlack advises taking an intuitive approach to these children. "Just enjoy," she says. "Enjoy what they have to offer, and keep an open heart."