ASD - a "Taboo" topic?

Last week's presentation on Autism was very informative for me.

I'm a bit ashamed to admit it, but before that day, I really didn't know much about autism at all. I've never really had to deal with it before, and none of my family or close friends have been affected by it. I have a few friends with siblings who are classified somewhere along the autism spectrum, but I never felt comfortable enough to ask the questions that really needed asking.

When I say that I didn't  know much about autism, I mean that I really didn't know anything about it.  I think the reason I was afraid to ask questions was because I didn't know anything about it, and I didn't want to offend anyone by asking a misinformed question. That's why I was so glad that Susan and Greg did their presentation in Q&A format.  It's been a long time since we did the question box (maybe as far back as elementary school), but it's a great way to get the class involved. I was able to ask a fundamental question without having to feel embarrassed for not knowing much about it. 

I think what struck me right off the bat was that Autism covers such a wide range of functionality.  There were really only a few characteristics that categorizes a person as being autistic: that is, difficulties with social interactions (ie lack of eye contact, little interest in making friends), communication (deficiency or lack of speech) and repetitive behaviours (ie shaking wrists a lot, etc). The rest of it is very personalized and largely variable.  I began to think of one of my favourite shows right now, Community, in which one of the main characters has Asperger's.  It's very clear that he is high-functioning, as he notices nuances and is very educated about very specific things. He often has trouble knowing how to act appropriately in social situations and has difficultly making lots of friends. I brought this fact up to my housemate, who was surprised when I told her that the character had Asperger's. She must have missed the episode where his Autism was discussed, and had been assuming this whole time that he was just a "bit of an odd character", as she put it. 

                                          Abed, from the show Community

The main character  in Adam, a recent film about a man with Asperger's.

I thought that was actually a really interesting reaction! In our classrooms, a lot of students won't see other students with exceptionalities as being exceptional.  My question is, would it be better or worse for them to have the label stuck onto them? Is it important for peers to know about the exceptionalities of their classmates so they can act appropriately with them? Or is the assignment of the exceptionality only going to alienate the student? At first, my reaction was to say that definitely, it's important that all students be aware of their classmates, so that they can understand each other and work together in the best way possible. But then I realized that perhaps I am being a bit naive.  As much as I hate to admit it, students aren't always looking out for the betterment of each other. Sometimes, students can be really mean. And by an autistic student having that label so well known by the rest of the class, could mean that they are an easy target for bullies.

How should we get around this problem in our classrooms? As stated before, I have never been educated at all about autism, and I'm SURE I must have been in classes with some autistic peers (whether they were high or low functioning). Why did my teachers never talk to us about it? Is this a confidentiality issue? I think that if a student is high-functioning enough to understand their condition and to be willing to talk about it, it'd be a great discussion to have with the class. Inclusion, equity and exceptionalities are all issues that occur in every classroom, and what better way to understand your classmates (and students, for us as teachers) than for them to explain it to us?

I think it's great that autism is slowly working its way into media, so that people are becoming more aware of it. I realize that above I only targeted 2 examples, and both Abed and Adam are characters with Asperger's, only one type of Autism (and a very high-functioning type, at at that). But I say, we'll take what we can get. Hopefully with the slow integration of characters with exceptionalities into the media, sooner or later all students with exceptionalities will have someone to represent them on the big screen!

The thing that's the most difficult about learning about all of these exceptionalities is that I feel like I was so shaded from them during my elementary and high school career.  I never experienced special treatment myself, so it's often hard for me to imagine now what that high school experience would have been like. 

For this reason, I really liked the taboo activity that we did in class.  Because each group thought up the best descriptors for each word possible, it was extremely difficult to think of a new way to describe those words. I contributed 2 out of the 4 words to describe our keyword, 'transition', and agreed strongly with the other 2 contributions. Since that was the way my mind worked, when I was asked to describe 'transition' without using those 4 words, it was really tough. I know it was just a game, but I made special note of my emotions afterwards, and was really surprised at how I felt. As I was giving clues, I was hesitating and struggling quite obviously. A player on the guessing team was being quite competitive, saying things like "come on, give us something else!" and "Honestly, I just don't know what you're saying. Say something else!" After we lost the point (time ran out), I found myself getting quite angry at the critical person on the other team.  I was legitimately really trying hard to think of a good description word, and it was frustrating to be yelled at for trying. I knew what transition meant, but I just couldn't think of a proper way to describe it given the limitations. I think it's imperative that we put ourselves into these kinds of situations so that we are able to experience first hand, even just a taste of what our students experience every day. It's so easy (and so damaging) to forget this.

So how can we incorporate autistic students into our classrooms then? I do realize that oftentimes, autistic students will be placed in separate classes or change locations to participate in activities such as spending time in a Snoezelen room or learning life skills. But when they are able to be in the classroom, integrated with the other students (which I believe is very important to the development of any student), there are a few things I learned that a teacher can do to help that student feel more comfortable:

-Assign groups, so that they don't have to worry about being chosen last

-Assign roles within the group clearly so that each student has a particular role and is contributing to the group

-Assign visual, repetitive work

-Have a clock nearby

I'm sure there's many other small acts that a teacher can do to accommodate autistic students. I'm very interested in this field and am looking forward to learning even more about this in the future. It's truly fascinating to me to know about how everyone works differently, and I see it as a challenge; even better: a puzzle, to ensure that each student has the best learning environment possible, whatever that is.