Autism - Are The Schools Prepared For The Autism Epidemic?

The number of Autistic children are growing. Currently there is 1 in 150 children this year who will be
diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum.

What is being done to prepare for this onslaught of Autistic children who will be entering the school
system?

The Autism Spectrum encompasses a large scale. There are literally thousands of Autistic children with
varying degrees of Autism joining the school system yearly. Some of the schools would never have seen
a child with autism school and are ill prepared to deal with it.

Each Autistic child is an individual and the Individualized Education Plan cannot be mass produced and
needs to be geared solely towards the needs of that child.

No two Autistic children are the same so you can't have a one size fits all IEP.
In the new age no child left behind school regime, what is being done to prepare the teachers for the
new evolution of students that they are going to be teaching?

Children with Autism come with multiple challenges that the teachers are going to have to face, one of
the main ones being communication. Approximately 50% of Autistic children never speak.

Effective methods of communication between the teachers, Aspergers boarding school and the Autistic
student will need to be developed. Some include picture boards, where the student can pick the item
that he wants, the pecs system, which basically works the same with an expansion of objects and
sometimes just gesturing.

Some unfortunately display their Autistic symptoms more than others. The stimming, usually displayed
as flapping and the child with Autism's sometimes inappropriate obsessive fixation on certain objects
may be misunderstood by teachers and other students who may never have seen this before.

Some of these Autistic signs and symptoms are used by the child with Autism to regulate themselves
and a place may need to be provided where the child can do this in order to cope with the
overwhelming changes being in a different environment with a larger number of strangers will bring.

Also another factor which will need to be addressed is the privacy of the Autistic child. Obviously
sometimes, these children behave in manners that a regular child does not and a stricter policy for
privacy should be maintained to stop teachers, autism boarding school and staff discussing this outside
of school. The Autistic child is not always in control of their mannerisms or behaviours and they deserve
the same dignity that a regular student has.

Are our Autistic children going to be lost in the shuffle?

Doomed to spend their days in a classroom where they are being babysat at best by teachers who quite
frankly have no idea how to help them?

More emphasis needs to be placed now on recruiting and training Special Education teachers who want
to make a change in the Autistic child's life.

Those that have been doing Special Ed for a long time need classes updating their skills and introducing
them to the challenges they are going to face with the children with Autism.
A lot has changed since the first days when Autism was first diagnosed and treated with electric shock
therapy.

There are many documented cases now where children who have received effective early intervention
lose some of their Autistic signs and symptoms and go on to live productive lives e.g. Temple Grandin.

Children with Autism flourish with one on one instruction. Schools need to be aware that they may need
to hire more auxiliary staff to help with the Autistic children.

They also need to be aware that burn out is a high risk for teachers with children with Autism, autism
program for teens and time needs to be allowed during the day when they can switch out with another
teacher thereby refreshing themselves.

Regular class teachers need to be educated as the higher functioning Autistic children will be in their
classes. The teaching format can and should be adjusted to assist the child with Autism in their learning
process. This is not to say that time for the other students should be taken away, merely that this is
where other staff can be incorporated to assist the Autistic student.