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I am a new teacher working with students who have been diagnose on the ASD scale (K-6). What thoughts and advice would you offer on how to help me to understand my students needs? Please keep in mind many of my students are between 6 and 11 years old. What (if anything) do you wish a teacher would have known about your needs in your elementary years that you feel would have been beneficial to you?
Thanks for your input and openness?
lvg

I wonder why you need to ask this here.

What kind of training did you go through in school that gave you your qualification to get a job working with autistic students?

Hello Oren,
I am working on a Masters Degree with a specialty in ASD. This is an assignment to help our class better understand our students. Several of my classmates have already posted questions-I realize my question is a little more vague but I wanted to leave the door open to people to express thoughts freely.
Thanks,
Lauren

These are personal ones that I can share from my own experience.

If I am staring into space or out the window it does not mean that I am not paying attention.

Sometimes when you ask a question or speak of a concept I might not be processing it or understanding it in the same terms that you are asking or speaking about it. You may need to rephrase it a couple of times for me to register what you are talking about.

Sometimes I have difficulty formulating words to express what I am thinking of feeling because sometimes my thoughts come to me in colors and patterns of color rather than in clear words or even pictures. Sometimes it takes time for me to get the words.

Sometimes I make weird associations so you might not understand how I am relating or associating one concept to another but it all makes perfect sense to me and sometimes those weird associations make what you are saying more clear to me.

I might develop what might seem like an unnatural attachment to you but to me it is because I feel safe and I trust you and that makes it easier for me to learn from you. Sometimes teachers can be intimidated by this sort of thing especially since they are taught to distance themselves from students. There are ways to keep a "safe" distance but to not let the student feel pushed away or rejected. When I am allowed to feel this kind of security with a teacher my ability to learn and excel goes through the roof.

I might have emotional triggers that are not linear in time so you or someone else might say or do something that could trigger ten different emotions that will all hit me at once and when they hit they hit full force so I could go "off" at any time.

My parents don't get me and I am not emotionally close to them. When I was little sometimes teachers would talk to my parents rather than to me if I was having a hard time with schoolwork. This always just caused me much more anxiety and just made it worse.

I also have Misophonia and this is something you will want to study as well since sometimes it is found in kids as young as 8 or 10. I developed it at 10 and it was very detrimental to me at school.

Willard, thank you, You always do a great job at explaining how things work with us. I love that because I learn more about myself when you do that. I really appreciate that very very much.

What Willard explained about the non sequitur seeming responses is really super important. I might have responses that come even hours or days later. You need to always be super patient about this and really pay attention so that you can help link the associations your students might be making. I know that when I do this sometimes it confuses my husband and sometimes can drive him up the wall a bit. He feels like it is often very difficult to carry on a cohesive conversation with me. I do much better in written format because I am able to express my thoughts more clearly. But some things are more difficult for me to write about as well.

But I can't stress enough how huge this topic is because it can make the difference in whether your students succeed or fail in the classroom. I have had people get frustrated and angry at me about this and I do my best to keep up with the conversation but sometimes it is very difficult.

I learn well when the teacher is patient and when calm and speaks a little slowly so that I can keep up better with processing what is being said. And if too many concepts are introduced at once I can get carried away trying to super analyze each little thing and get bogged down with every detail of everything and start hyper associating and then get totally lost in the base concept of what is trying to be taught. So I like it when the main point gets pulled back in often and tied in with the details often. This helps draw me back to "center". Sorry for using a ski term! Oh, and if a student is struggling with a concept and you can relate it to his or her special interest, it might help her get it. Like for me, if you find a way to relate it to skiing I will understand it better.

And don't ever make that horrific chalk on the chalkboard scraping noise if you have a chalkboard. Your students might end up running out of the classroom and fleeing for their lives. I say this with humor but always remember how overly developed our senses are and now easy it is to overload them. I have had many teachers who never learned the proper way of writing on a chalkboard or who had students come up and write on the board and it is absolute torture.

And if you have Misophonic students in your classes, they may not even know they are, be extremely mindful and familiarize yourself with some of the most common triggers such as gum noises, pen clicking, lip smacking, teeth sucking, tapping, certain breathing patterns, and noises that might be outside the classroom like loud stereos in cars driving by or if there is any kind of construction going on. These noises have made me skip classes and sit outside of classrooms on the floor curled up in tears. And the Misophonic child will have the urge to rip your face off and gouge your eyes out if the noises are coming from you. I am dead serious. I have had that urge too many times. So if you find a student going nuts over a seemingly small sound or holding her fingers tightly in her ears or even trying to imitate the sound as a coping mechanism, do not take that lightly. Definitely educate yourself on Misophonia so that you can help the child instead of possibly worsening the situation.

I was ten when I developed this and it is a brutal condition that very few people have even heard of. But there are a number of people on this forum who have it as well as being on the Autism Spectrum so you may encounter it in the classroom. And some sounds even make me physically ill. I get nauseous with certain sounds. Here is the link to one of the threads on Misophonia.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf143684-0-45.html

Another thing too. Sometimes when I am very anxious or stressed my speech deteriorates. I can also regress and become increasingly childlike in my ability to process and express things. This happens now rather than when I was little because when I was little I would just retreat and hide in quiet or solitude. Now that I know that I am Aspie I don't hide so much so these traits come out where they did not before.

Another thing too is that I used to always think that the teachers were angry at me or that I did something wrong if they had a more aggressive way of speaking. It is very easy for us to misinterpret how someone comes across especially when that person is taller and bigger and in a role of authority.

I also got disciplined sometimes and had absolutely no idea why or even that anything had happened. I most likely did or said something that might not have been entirely appropriate or I may have put my head down on the desk because sometimes my head would feel so exhausted and heavy that I could physically no longer hold it upright without holding it in my hands. But I remember having to go to the principal's office or having to write lines and never understanding what happened or why I was having to do that.

Teachers can be really intimidating when you are little. And the classroom looked really big to me and I felt lost it in it. I remember in the first grade wetting myself more than once or twice because I was too afraid to ask if I could go to the bathroom.

I agree with Wozeree. With Mishophonia it's super tough though. If you are dealing with just Asperger's or Autism it might be easier to teach these coping mechanisms but Mishophonia adds a complication which is so overwhelmingly monumental that it is extremely difficult and, for me, impossible to overcome especially when you are that young. And because it is such a newly discovered disorder people who are qualified in therapies for this are still pretty few and far between and sometimes the therapies don't work. With me I just have to tell people that if I have to put my fingers in my ears and seal them shut, you just have to let me do that until the sound stops and then if I miss something you are trying to say, just tell me later.

Even though my brain can process at a snail's pace, sometimes if I am excited about something I can have the opposite happen as is happening right now in this thread. My brain can take off a mile a minute and come up with thoughts and ideas at a rate that I can't even keep up with them. And then I might blurt out and interrupt and not even realize I am speaking out of turn or that the subject may have changed.

Also another thing, sometimes people's voices blend in with background noises and I can't distinguish what is being said.

Sometimes a common everyday work used in a different context will make it so that I no longer understand what the word means.

Sometimes new compound words will not make any sense to me. For example the first time I heard the word "cichlid" as in genre of fish, the person who said it had to repeat it 5 times and then do a charade for me to be able to register the word in my brain. My brain could not out what sick and lid had in common and thus could not put the two together and I essentially could not hear the word. I heard him saying it but I had no ability to process it and register it and retain it until he did the charade and I saw visual clues.

There are things that no matter how many times you tell me, explain to me or show me, I will simply not get it and every time it comes up will be like the first time.

I am really grateful to you for wanting to know and asking these questions to be able to help your students. If I had had teachers like you my life might be very different now. I hope these ideas help you.

Wozeree, the chalk sound that helps you is it regular soft chalk and proper chalk on a board soft sounds because I find those soothing and very comforting. What I was referring to was that screech like nails on a board. I can't even write it without feeling that cringe.

You are really excited about this subject!

I have no idea what you mean about soft and hard chalk, I only know I love that sound.

I also like dishes klanking together and drinks being poured, pencil on paper, but walking around on concrete or wood are my favorites. I have no idea why, but they really give me physical sensations. It's the opposite of bad noises you were talking about when you want to hit someone, but I assume it's the same symptom (or brain process) causing both.

Actually, if the teacher could get the kids to find sounds that tingle them, they could use those as coping mechanisms also.