I should have written this blog immediately after we got home last week, but I think I've been processing it. Now, I've forgotten half of what happened!
Last week, Z's teacher arranged to have us and one other mother (whose son also has autism and is in Z's class) to come speak to the class. They put together a whole unit on autism.
First, Z's special ed teacher read a book on autism (can't recall which one, now, but I liked it). Then we (the parents, Mr, I and the other mom) sat down and just answered questions. The questions I remember are:
Why does Z cry in school? This was news to me and I need to ask teacher about it.
How do they communicate?
What does he do on the computer?
How does he go to bed? I thought this was a funny question.
Besides the computer, what does Z really love?
How does he play?
What does he do when he gets angry?
The other mom also did an exercise with the kids that was really cool. She wrote up a bunch of random things and told the kids to play the game-with no further instructions. It was to demonstrate how difficult it was for kids with autism who don't understand the "rules" or understand what is expected of them. To show the kids how frustrating it could be.
A kid also said something I really love, that kids like Z can't speak because they can't find their words in their mouths.
After the question and answer period, there were 4 activities.
(1) listen to instructions to do something while also listening to a story. I really liked this one because it shows how difficult it could be for our kids to focus or filter out background noise.
(2) stringing beads while wearing gloves. Another good one to show the difficulty of fine motor skills.
(3) Writing sentence while wearing goggles smeared with vaseline. While not directly applicable to autism, per se, it did demonstrate how difficult it was to write when you couldn't focus on the lines to guide you.
(4) walking forward and backwards on a tape line while looking through the wrong end of binoculars. While not obviously or directly related to autism, per se, it does demonstrate the difficult for anyone who can have difficulty with depth perception or spatial problems.
It was wrapped up with a few more questions and then the school day ended.
All-in-all, it was pretty cool and I was very appreciative of the school making an effort to help the kids get a better understanding of what autism is and the challenges our kids face. Of course, this meant I had to agree with the school revealing Z's diagnosis. I understand that can be a very difficult step for some parents, especially those parents of children who aren't overtly autistic. However, since Z already has an aide, it is pretty obvious that something is different with him, so it was an easy decision for us to give them a name and context for what that is.
I love my school. They aren't perfect, but they do try hard.
