Did you know that Aspergers and AD/HD are both considered to be part of the family of Autism Spectrum disorders?
Did you know that instances and diagnoses of these conditions are on the rise -- at what some experts would catagorize as an unprecedented rate?
Even at Seven Arrows, we are beginning to see more and more children in our classrooms that are facing the unique challenges of ADHD and Aspergers. As I reflected on our students, I realized that in nearly each and every class, there is at least one student who either has been diagnosed with ADHD, or Aspergers, or is a child that we suspect may have either condition.
Children with these conditions present us with special teaching challenges. While typically incredibly smart and high functioning, they also present with gaps in significant areas. Socially they are challenged. They miss social cues that for other students are painfully obvious. In language arts they struggle with inferential reasoning and abstractions. In math, they excel when the instruction is logical and linear, but are often lost in the circular/spiral instruction of programs like Every Day Math.
So then, what to do?
Well, I've been looking for resources for some time. I came across a resource today that I found quite helpful, and I'd like to get your opinion. Please click on the link below, and print a copy of the PDF that it opens:
On Aspergers...
http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/specialneeds/autism/autism5b.pdf
Once you have read through the article, I'd like for you to document some of your thoughts here on the blog. Basically my questions are:
**What value do you see in using these strategies in your classroom (regardless of who is/isn't diagnosed)?
**In what ways might other students benefit from the use of these strategies?
**How easy/practical are the implementation of the strateiges/ideas suggested in the article?
**Which of the strategies might you implement and why?
To post your comments, all you need to do is look near the bottom of this post, and click the "comment" tool. A little box will pop up, and you will be able to type your comments directly into that box.
When you are done, it will ask you for your identity. Please click "other" and then you can just type your name (that way you do not have to be a registered user to leave a comment). Don't worry if you don't see your post right away. It takes a bit of time. Thanks and I look forward to your thoughts!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I think the strategies presented would benefit all students in our classes. The strategies all strive to create successful students in meaningful ways. By using the strategies, we're providing tools to our students to be better learners. Other students would benefit because they, too, would become better learners and have a little 'bag of tricks' from which to pull from when tackling things. I think it would be easy to implement these strategies-particularly since it's still early in the year. I'm not sure how some of them would go over later in the year. I can't narrow down which strategies I'd use because there are so many that would be beneficial to the Kindergarten class. I'd use a lot of the sameness, social interaction, emotional vulnerability and academic difficulties strategies.
As I was reading this article and going over the lists of strategies to use, I keep saying to myself...hmmm don't we do most of this anyway. Then I began questioning how often do I use these strategies, with whom, and are all my students benefiting. Well, I use them everyday maybe I should make note of them, and point out these skills specifically to those students with these needs. Yes, of course all of my students can benefit from practically applying these strategies. It definitely doesn't hurt!
So, the value I see in using these strategies are infinite. These are natural things most teachers do with their students no matter if they have Aspergers or not. It's so valuable to use these strategies because we want our students, all of them to be highly successful. If it means supplying them with useful strategies to accomplish these goals then so be it. Also, I feel that these strategies aren't just useful for the classroom but are providing students (all of them) with important life skills.
All students can benefit from these strategies because they are natural tactics that we use to learn and ultimately accomplish our goals, whereas, an Aspergers student must be taught how and when to use them. An example of how all benefit is with the use of comic strips, particularly with conflict resolution. This is an area where older students could possibly find alternative ways to solve social issues. It would work for our Aspergers student too because it would provide them a way to relate to specific problems and solve them along with their peers or independently.
Also, interruptions are not just happening with an Aspergers student. Most students are often impatient with their peers and teachers, especially when they are in discussion and they have something they feel is important to share. Therefore, the strategy presented would work for everyone.
Lastly, I feel that I could use many of these strategies (more often too) but those that I would focus on in my classroom deals with comprehension and organization. It seems as though once students arrive to sixth grade they need more focus in these areas (critical thinking too) the most. The strategies of making lists of assignments and creating to-do-lists would be incredibly helpful to students struggling with organizing. As for comprehension, I could see implementing the strategy of given more direct instruction rather than relying on modeling. Breaking the information into chunks would be beneficial as well.
I'm with Rhoda, I think that these strategies could, for the most part, be applied to more than just students with Aspergers. Many students (and many of us) have difficulties at least similar to those outlined in the article and need certain skills to be more explicitly taught to us. It seems like it would be helpful to any teacher to think about how they would teach a child, and also to try to empathize with children who have severe problems interacting with others, or with language, or with organization- so that the strategies that might help students with severe problems could be adapted to the much larger number of students who might have minor difficulties in the same areas. I can see the organizational strategies, especially, working in 4th grade, as the students become more responsible for keeping track of their own supplies, homework, and just their own learning in general. Organization doesn't seem to come naturally to a lot of students, so sometimes pointing out strategies that might seem obvious to me are necessary.
Obviously, the challenge in this article is to be able to observe the struggles that an Aspergers (or any) student is having, come up with an effective strategy, teach the child that strategy, observe the student to see if they are becoming more successful, and repeat. That is the biggest struggle I am having as a relatively new teacher- to try to think about and respond to individual student issues- all while keeping the rest of the class from descending into chaos. :) But I guess that is probably something that comes with more experience.
Anne-- I think trying to attend to individual needs while keeping the class from "descending into chaos" is something that all teachers, both new and experienced are constantly struggling with! :) It never seems to get any easier -- but I guess that's what keeps things interesting.
Thanks for the resource. Does anyone happen to know what "Comic Strip Conversations" are? They were offered up as a strategy for teaching conversational skills. I have at least one student this year who really struggles with language, in the sense that he interrupts and makes irrelevant comments. I don't want to simply go over and over the classroom rules we have for conversation -- I think that will ultimately hake him feel bad about himself -- and I think it's clear that he's in need of some kind of INSTRUCTION.
I also ecountered -- JUST YESTERDAY -- a case of retricted range of interests. The class was assigned the job of creating a classroom map. Really clear expectations were communicated. One student hastily finished his classroom map. It was done entierly in pencil. When he was encouraged to add color to his map -- color makes maps more readable -- he was resistant. I took the case to Anastasia and she had GREAT suggestions as to how I could provide this student with a related opportuity to pursue his own interests.
Today, while the rest of the class is finishing work on their classroom maps, I'm going to offer said student the chance to either draw an artistic rendering of the classroom or -- and this is really cool -- draw a picture of what the classroom would look like if you were standing BELOW it, looking up.
I'm curious to see how it goes today!
I appreciated the listing of strategies and the deficits they face. I would like to see the strategies selected by the student who is struggling to attempt to see the match between strategy and individual. Since the social continum is the their context disorder and intelligence is not necessarily a factor, inclusion in planning may aleviate some distress and they may gain some insight into their own processes
I think that there is tremendous value in the strategies listed in the article. The strategies are very pragmatic and focus on clear, non-invasive, and simple ways to cater to the needs and conditions of all the students in our classes. While I don't think that all the strategies would pertain to all the students, I think most of them would benefit from most of the strategies listed. I'm familiar with many of the strategies listed, but there are a few I would also add to my repetoire, including less reading for a certain child or children who is/are intimidated or have probelems reading, different relaxation techniques, and demonstrating polite and appropriate social interactions and conversations along with demonstrating and modeling presicely and carefully the steps in any projects or group activities our class may be partaking in.
Post a Comment