Perhaps you've heard about Temple Grandin.

She was one of the first people to give

a voice to or speak about what
it's like to have autism.

In 1991 was the first time that autism was

labeled or identified as its own
category in special education.

And in the last twenty or thirty years,
we have learned so much about autism.

And today each of the different

disabilities that are similar to autism

are kind of all put together in something
called Autism Spectrum Disorders.

And in Autism Spectrum Disorders,
it's a spectrum, which means that there is

a continuum of
ability levels within this spectrum.

In the autism spectrum, on one end,

you have something known as
high functioning autism.

And in the middle,

you might have something moderate autism,
and then severe or profound autism on this side.

The autism spectrum
could look something like this.

And on one side, like,
when you have high functioning autism,

there's just a little bit of weakness
with communication skills,

and then that communication, the ability
to communicate well with others gradually

gets worse as you
go down the spectrum.

So the autism spectrum could be thought
about in just a single line like this.

But autism,
the spectrum could also be thought about

more like this, where we have
all the different components of

an individual, and so their IQ,
their social-emotional interaction,

communication, motor skills,
fine motor, and sensory—

all these different components
fall on the spectrum.

And so a child could
(like as far as their IQ)

they could have a severe low IQ, or they
could be gifted and have a high IQ.

In the area of social emotional

interaction, a child with autism could be
more in the aloof category,

but they could also
on the other end of the spectrum then,

a child autism could be
active, very involved.

We just have some of those may be social
tendencies that may seem a little bit

unique or different than what
we would typically expect.

Author Lynda Young,
in her book "Hope for Families of Children on

the Autism Spectrum,"
states, "If you've met one child

on the spectrum, you've met
one child on the spectrum.

They're all different."

And I think it's important
for us to keep that in mind.

Every child with autism is different,
and there are still some general things

that in general
these individuals struggle with.

This would be things like difficulty

reading social cues and making eye contact
when they're talking with someone.

Also,
a child with autism might struggle

with repetitive behaviors, things
like hand flapping or eye twitching.

But sometimes a child with autism
doesn't have that at all.

And so, again,
there's these different things that all

fit into the autism spectrum category,
but you won't always see them.

Another thing that a child of autism can
often struggle with is sensory overload,

or they will just like something
that sounds that I don't even hear.

They will hear these tapping or these
sounds that can be very overwhelming.

And listed in the description is a link

for a video that shows what it can be like
for a child that is struggling

with sensory overload,
like just when they go out into public,

what are all these things that might be
coming at them that I would never think

about? Or in the classroom
even, if there's a little noise

of something buzzing that could sound like
an obnoxious noise to a child that's

struggling with the sensory
piece of things.

Children with autism also often have very
intense interests and something specific,

like maybe in outer space
or a specific part of math.

They can just have these intense interests
that really can be a strength of theirs.

Their ability to remember
lots of information and share it.

Those are just some general things that we

can think about when we are
working with a child with autism.

When a child has been diagnosed

with autism, one of the
methods of therapy that is

very common
(it's very accepted by professionals today)

is something called ABA or
applied behavior analysis.

And this is
like the systematic method where

the professionals would
teach skills to individuals

with autism. They kind of pick specific
behaviors or skills that they want

to learn and systematically train the
child to learn how to do these behaviors.

And there's a book that I found
really helpful.

It's called "A Parent's Guide to Autism."
So it's for parents,

but I found it very helpful
for teachers as well. By Ron Sanderson.

And this would go into a lot of details

explaining what this ABA therapy
is all about and how it works.

But I think for teachers, it's helpful
to understand how they analyze behaviors.

I think that understanding a little bit
about that is helpful for us as we're

working with these (maybe perhaps)
challenging behaviors in our classroom.

So what happens when...
Or the first step when we're looking

at these challenging behaviors is kind
of to analyze them and to ask ourselves,

"So when is this challenging
behavior happening?"

"Is there something that is setting this

child off that's making
this behavior occur?"

It's called the predictor
or an antecedent.

It's what comes right before the behavior.

So, for example,

if a student has angry outburst,
we might say, "Well, he is showing anger."

Well, the question I would ask
is, "When is this happening?"

Is it happening in a certain place,

at a certain time when he's
encountering a certain challenge?

So what they will do is they will

look at what comes right before this
behavior and then think about, well,

what is the result or what is
the consequence of this behavior?

And

there are many different reasons

that a child could be exhibiting
any kind of challenging behavior.

Maybe

they tear up their math paper when they

don't want to do it, or maybe they're
being unkind to their peers.

And so sometimes, let's just say

for example, a student tears up his
assignment and throws it on the floor.

And this happens repeatedly.

And then he is sent to the office
or sent to talk to the principal;

that's the consequence or
the result of this behavior.

And it turns out that this child

continues to do this behavior so that he

can avoid this difficult thing
that he's encountering in his work.

And so what happens is when he is

sent out of the room to become more stable
and ready to learn again,

he actually is getting what he or is
actually reinforcing his behavior.

And so what these therapists are doing is

saying, "Well, what reinforcements
could we give instead that would modify

this behavior so that it will
improve and or lessen?" A child...

There could be many different
reasons for a behavior.

So a child with autism might be doing
their repetitive emotions as a way

to calm themselves down so that you might
see it happen when they're getting really

uptight about something or
really nervous or anxious.

You might see that those
behaviors show up more often then.

Sometimes a child will exhibit a certain
behavior because they're trying to get

something, because they're
trying to get attention or

they need to stimulate themselves.

In this therapy

they're really analyzing behavior.

And I think that that's something that we
can think about as teachers too.

What's leading up to this behavior,

what's the consequence of it, and how can
we shift this to help things improve?

There are other approaches that we can

have when working
with a child with autism.

So there's many different
things we could try.

You could try teaching social stories,
using social stories to teach them.

How should we be behaving
in this particular setting?

I think we can teach students coping

methods and ways to work with their
differences, and it's who they are.

And it's not something that we have
to necessarily change or get rid of.

It's something we need to use

in a way that can work in the environment
of the classroom or in life.

Students can learn how to cope

with the challenges that they
are facing. In the classroom

I do think that it's important that
I think our task as a teacher of a child

with autism is to cultivate a classroom
environment where they can thrive.

And for a child with autism,

things like having a fixed schedule
where there's a lot of routine,

we know what's going to happen.

There are not surprises in our day. That
helps to bring stability to their lives.

Also, I think it's important that our

classroom environment
isn't too overstimulating.

And so

if you think about all the things

that they have to take in the world, it
just looks different than it might to me.

And I think we need to be careful that we

don't have too much
going on in our classrooms,

too many distractions or things that
can overstimulate.

And this is kind of in general,

with disabilities, but I really see
that students emulate their teachers.

The way the teacher acts toward a child

with a difference or
a learning disability,

they mimic that, and

the way that I talk to a child
with autism, they will do the same.

And so I really think that it's important

as teachers that we're modeling this
love and acceptance and all of these

pieces that play into how we want our
students to interact with each other.

Those that specialize in the field
of autism have many resources that can be

of help to you and the
families that you serve.

I will link below in this video some other
resources, some additional books,

some other websites that could be a good
place to start when you are thinking about

looking more into autism
spectrum disorders.