REG: Helping a typical kid understand autism

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Sound off: What do you think of the situation?
The The Kid Definitely Needs This Training, but I'd Hate to Be The One To Give It 67%  67%  [ 2 ]
The Kid's Just Curious and EVERYONE (The school, The Mom, and You) Are Blowing This Way Out Of Proportion 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
The Kid Doesn't Need A Kind "Meet & Greet" He Needs Bootcamp 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Why Did You Agree To Do This Again? 33%  33%  [ 1 ]
I don't Know/ I Have No Opinion 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Some Other Opinion Listed In The Comments Below 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 3

cfleischmann
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 28 Aug 2017
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Posts: 274
Location: California, USA

01 Oct 2017, 11:13 am

Hi All:

Here's where the story's from. I have a colleague who's son is in the third grade in the public school system and is neurotypical according to everything this colleague knows and has been told by doctors or school staff. The one problem is that after switching schools to a school with a very noticeable number of children on the autism spectrum and this kid just isn't getting along with them at all. Mom has received 2 reports within the last 60 days from school that nothing they've said or done is changing the behavior and the school has suspended the child for this most recent incident for one week. Mom's tried every trick she's aware of for getting the information to this kid but it's not helping. So after a recent incident that happened while I was at work where I was talking to our receptionist and this kid was waiting for his mom, and he runs up to our head of Security and says quite loudly while pointing at me "Ms. Jennette what's wrong with her?! Why doesn't she talk? Why is she using her iPad so much?" I quickly retreated back behind the secured door where he did not physically have access to me nor could he see or hear me as I called our CEO in tears. and this was before he got suspended from school for a week starting this upcoming Monday. Well, mom came to me asking if I could have a talk with her son one to one since he seems to "learn by doing and interacting" rather than just being told. Another piece of info my colleague gave me is that while she was watching some of our training videos he seemed to pick up on things like what CARE stands for (Connect. Appreciate. Respect. Everyone) and the "6 core service behaviors" since he proclaims to all his family he "wants to be "just like mom"" and do call center work. So I thought I would use his strengths and prior knowledge of our training to my advantage. The thing is the module "Special CARE for Customers on the Autism Spectrum" runs three days of PowerPoint presentations, videos, quizzes, and interactions with colleagues who are on the autism spectrum. I only have 45 minutes this Friday to do this. How do I use this kid's existing knowledge of some of our core principles and trainings, individual learning style, and the limited time frame to deliver an engaging interaction without seeming like I'm coming down on him or trying to "yell at him for doing something wrong"? Other colleagues on the autism spectrum are either booked during the time or are absolutely refusing to do it because they don't want to open themselves up to saying the wrong thing or such. Plus mom thought it might be a good Idea that I do this since I have first-hand experience with her son's comments and this would be a good opportunity for him to not only learn a valuable lesson, but for him to make amends to a person he directly hurt and for me to get some degree of closure to the incident.

I have a plan on how I am going to start this off and I have sent this tentatively to the mom for review and final approval:

1. Have mom and child sit in our cafeteria or even our training lab, the mom will explain that she has someone she'd like the son to meet and ask if he remembers the comments he made about a person while he was waiting for her. if yes, the mom will tell him that she'd like him to meet that person and get to know them a bit more that he's not in trouble for it but that this would bring closure to the situation. I would then come up and say hi to the mom, hi to the son, and the mom would do a brief overview of me like "this is Carly, Carly works in the customer service division and she is very special and unique as Carly has a condition called Autism...." I'd then sit down and ask about the son's interests, hobbies, etc. Then I'd ask about school "Can you describe three of your classmates? Do they all look the same? Do they all like all the same things you do? etc" hopefully the answer will clearly be "no" and I will then come back with "See, everyone's different." after we establish that, I will go into the nuts and bolts of the training module on "Special CARE for Customers on the Autism Spectrum"

but here's the thing... how to take three days worth of content and turn it into 45 minutes...

I have until Friday to get this all planned out. Should I link in other training modules (or pieces of such modules) (such as "CARE Basics", "Special CARE for Special Customers", etc.) to help establish some core knowledge and understanding?

I definitely need some help getting the content side ready.

Any help would be greatly appreciated


_________________
Thanks:
Ashley B.:
- feel free to send a PM
- more than likely on a mobile device