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Do you think that your school has offered you adequate training specific to autism to be able to effectively teach an autistic child in your classroom? This is if you teach in a gen. ed. classroom.
If you answered Yes to the above, how often have you gone to training sessions? Was the training mandatory or voluntary?
Would you be offended if you were asked to attend more training?
If you would welcome more training does your district not offer training beyond what you received or do you not find the training useful and helpful?
Overall, do you feel that you are able to effectively instruct hfa or aspergers kids in your classroom so as not to be offended by their behaviors or mis-interpret their actions? Appreciate you input.
No, I have had no training of any sort in autism. I depend on the counseling and special ed staff at my school to identify any kids with special learning issues and send me a folder of modifications/accommodations to use in my classroom.
But then I teach 11th and 12th grade science with class sizes of around 25 and it is unlikely that a kid would have gotten all the way to 11th grade with some completely undiagnosed learning issue.
If I do have concerns about a particular kid I'll contact my counseling office to make sure there isn't some file I was supposed to have that got missed, and I might contact the parents for information/assistance.
No training, but I have taught them with success in the classroom. We have a wonderful Learning Support staff who keeps us up to date on each individual student. By 11th or 12th grade, many of them have developed the coping skills or the self advocacy skills to function in my elective programs.
I have had three kids in the autism spectrum in my class over the last seven years. All have been highly functioning and did not need specialized instruction except for one child who needed to be distracted occasionally when he would obsess a bit.
One child I would have never known he was autistic if he hadn't told me.
I got zero training in autism in undergrad, mainly because it wasn't nearly as pervasive a diagnosis when I did my training. However, I work at an ABA school that specifically and particularly serves students with ASDs (a huge array of functionality levels and verbal ability), and my training for that, in addition to my ed training, has been on the job, via an in-house staff of BCBAs. I also am preparing to start my M.Ed in Special Education.
Eh, a working knowledge of various disorders and disabilities isn't bad background to have, but in a practical sense, yes, of course you learn as you go...just like with any job.
What ed coursework focuses on tends to go in trends...when I was in undergrad, it was all about dyslexia, in terms of accommodations and mild-to-moderate cross-categorical learning disabilities. Autism wasn't really on the radar then the way that it is, now. Asperger's in particular.
I have had some training in hfa and aspergers, but not a ton. I would be open to receiving more. I am an elementary music teacher, so I see all the students in the school. I've had several hfa students come through my room.
I didn't get specific training before starting to teach, but asperger's wasn't really recognized at that time, and special education students were not mainstreamed at that time either. So I had to learn on the job. Honestly, I think it would be hard to train pre-service teachers. It's been my experience that just about the only thing kids with asperger's have in common is that they have nothing in common. There's such a range of abilities and behaviors that you really just need to take it one kid at a time. The thing that has worked best for me is just really good open communication with parents. One of my hfa kids would get so upset by disruptions to his routines that when I got sick, I called his mom before I called for a sub. I got on a first name basis with his mom really fast and probably emailed her once a day that entire school year - and I was a general ed teacher in a middle school.
Do you think that your school has offered you adequate training specific to autism to be able to effectively teach an autistic child in your classroom? This is if you teach in a gen. ed. classroom.
If you answered Yes to the above, how often have you gone to training sessions? Was the training mandatory or voluntary?
Would you be offended if you were asked to attend more training?
If you would welcome more training does your district not offer training beyond what you received or do you not find the training useful and helpful?
Overall, do you feel that you are able to effectively instruct hfa or aspergers kids in your classroom so as not to be offended by their behaviors or mis-interpret their actions? Appreciate you input.
Nope. After 8 years of teaching Biology, I have received zero autism training. AND I've had two Asperburgers (sp?) students in my class over the years. Hmmm.
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