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I'm surprised this hasn't appeared on this forum yet.
Given the prevalence of more and more autistic children in classrooms, I can't imagine how hard it must make your jobs. The link below refers to the teacher in Florida who soaked crayons in hot sauce to keep an autistic child from eating them. I'm curious to know your methods of dealing with young autistic children, especially non-verbal ones.
The article is misleading. It was not just crayons, the student was eating all the art supplies. Crayons, pencils, play-doh, paste, paper, etc. So, it would have meant removing all the art supplies from the classroom, not just removing the crayons.
The district alleges she force fed him the crayons as well as hot sauced soaked play-doh to punish him. She claims she only soaked the crayons and only as a preventative deterrent. The judge sided with her, that she did not force feed the crayons to the student as a form of punishment, but left open for the district of whether or not the deterrent was appropriate.
I have no worked with kids that severely disabled. Therefore, I am not qualified to pass such a subjective judgement on this situation. Teaching in some of these classrooms is more like a healthcare/institutional setting than teaching.
Additionally, as an alternate route teacher, I have received literally ZERO training on how to deal with students at this level.
I find the idea of putting hot sauce on crayons repugnant but I do know someone who put an incredibly bitter substance on his child's hands to keep them out of his mouth. He also expected the school to reapply the liquid. Is it really that different? I don't know.
The use of rewards for appropriate behavior and ignoring the unwanted behavior is a much better approach. First, the child should have had a Functional Behavior Analysis to determine the reason for the mouthing and eating.
The behavior may be sensory (meaning that the child needed stimulation of his mouth in some way). If so, a chewy toy or other appropriate item should be provided and every time the child attempts to mouth the art supplies, the chewy toy should be given to him as a substitute. This substitution of an appropriate object for the object being used inappropriately should be the first thing attempted.
It is possible that the child had PICA. If this is so, a doctor needs to evaluate possible physical causes like anemia, or other nutritional deficiencies. Often a lack of zinc causes PICA and supplementing with zinc can change the behavior. Another possible tactic would involve interrupting the behavior each time and prompting him to throw the object away.
It is also possible that this child was at the developmental level of a much younger child. Typical infants and toddlers mouth things as a way of exploring their world. For this reason, we keep things they might mouth out of reach. In this case, the art supplies could have been kept away from him except when he was doing a supervised art activity. This would mean that someone would have to be working with him one on one until he learned not to mouth the art supplies.
Frankly, while I think this teacher may have meant well, meaning well is not enough. Teachers need to be trained properly. Professional staff needs to conduct the proper evaluations and schools need to be held accountable for doing things in a professional manner. Unfortunately, Florida schools are very poor at doing any of this for special needs children. There are many incidents and teachers do return to classrooms and often new incidents happen with those same teachers because the retraining is inadequate *and* because there is no supervisory staff who can do proper evaluations of behaviors.
I'm surprised this hasn't appeared on this forum yet.
Given the prevalence of more and more autistic children in classrooms, I can't imagine how hard it must make your jobs. The link below refers to the teacher in Florida who soaked crayons in hot sauce to keep an autistic child from eating them. I'm curious to know your methods of dealing with young autistic children, especially non-verbal ones.
Thanks so much for the replies.
Some years ago I worked in an administrative capacity at a behavioral health agency, and while I didn't deal directly with the children, I learned a great deal from the MTs, BSCs, and TSS workers about behaviors and such.
This problem of untrained teachers only seems to be expanding in severity. Do you think the reason teachers are untrained is due to HIPAA laws? I mean, the teachers would have to be privy to what's been written in the progress notes so they would be prepared to deal with specific behaviors. Aren't the regular teachers invited to the individual education program meetings?
Will these problems deter many from becoming teachers?
I'm surprised this hasn't appeared on this forum yet.
Given the prevalence of more and more autistic children in classrooms, I can't imagine how hard it must make your jobs. The link below refers to the teacher in Florida who soaked crayons in hot sauce to keep an autistic child from eating them. I'm curious to know your methods of dealing with young autistic children, especially non-verbal ones.
Thanks so much for the replies.
Some years ago I worked in an administrative capacity at a behavioral health agency, and while I didn't deal directly with the children, I learned a great deal from the MTs, BSCs, and TSS workers about behaviors and such.
This problem of untrained teachers only seems to be expanding in severity. Do you think the reason teachers are untrained is due to HIPAA laws? I mean, the teachers would have to be privy to what's been written in the progress notes so they would be prepared to deal with specific behaviors. Aren't the regular teachers invited to the individual education program meetings?
Will these problems deter many from becoming teachers?
Usually here in Texas, the regular education teachers are part of the IEP (ARD here) team. I don't know about in Florida, but I would assume they would be included.
Note that this was actually a special education classroom or if not, the teacher was a special needs teacher according to the article. She would certainly have had access to his IEP (all the gen ed teachers have access to the IEP though they might not get it during the first week of school depending on when the meeting was held).
Aside from that our school district requires all the teachers to have training on special needs in general and often on autism *if* they have a child with autism in their class.
Thanks so much for the replies.
Some years ago I worked in an administrative capacity at a behavioral health agency, and while I didn't deal directly with the children, I learned a great deal from the MTs, BSCs, and TSS workers about behaviors and such. This problem of untrained teachers only seems to be expanding in severity. Do you think the reason teachers are untrained is due to HIPAA laws? I mean, the teachers would have to be privy to what's been written in the progress notes so they would be prepared to deal with specific behaviors. Aren't the regular teachers invited to the individual education program meetings?
Will these problems deter many from becoming teachers?
I believe it has to do with who will take the LOW paying jobs. Schools do not want to hire experience as this cuts into building budgets. Inexperienced (not necessarily untrained) are offered substantially LOWER salaries.
One cannot be trained for every situation, but experience goes a long way when it comes to making decisions.
How many of us would rather go to a first year dentist or surgeon?
I believe it has to do with who will take the LOW paying jobs. Schools do not want to hire experience as this cuts into building budgets. Inexperienced (not necessarily untrained) are offered substantially LOWER salaries.
One cannot be trained for every situation, but experience goes a long way when it comes to making decisions.
How many of us would rather go to a first year dentist or surgeon?
True. This makes a lot of sense.
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