The changing face of our classroom...

For the past two weeks I have been putting a lot of time in transitioning another student in to our classroom.  This brings my numbers back up to nine students.  At staffing/number time last spring, I had seven students (one who was half time), myself and five learning assistants in the room.  Now I have nine students (one is still just half time), myself and seven learning assistants in the room.  The number alone changes the face of the classroom.

But the changes we are seeing are not in numbers alone.  Both the student I gained in September and the one that I gained two weeks ago fall on the autism spectrum.  This means that a third of my class is now made up for students with autism (as I have had one student on the spectrum from the time I began).  We are in a small division and looking around the division I can forsee more than half of our class having autism within the next couple of years.

Its a blending of two very different worlds on some levels and a great fit on other levels.  Its another huge learning curve for me.  It has come at the same time as we are doing testing on my my 10 year old son (who has Down syndrome) to see if he also falls on the spectrum.  Life is interesting.  Although I've done some research in this area, it has been limited to what I have needed for the one student in my classroom.  Now I'm spending a lot of time learning.  I post this here as it will affect the content of my blog in the months to come.

With that, I have found a few great autism teacher blogs that I have started to follow and I wanted to share them here:

The Autism Teacher 

I Teach Autism

Linda Hodgdon's Autism Blog

If anyone out there knows of any great blogs by teachers, parents or professionals that are related to autism, I would love a link to them as I find the best way to learn is by reading and seeing what people are doing on the "front lines".

Comments

[Nicole]

Thanks for linking to my blog :-) I'm jealous of the staff you have - 9 students and 7 assistants? I have 9 students and 2 assistants ...
Good luck with your new students - feel free to email me if I can help!

[Monica]

Nicole - your blog is great and I'm sure I will be reading it for information for a long time to come :). I know that our staffing ratio is a really good one but I'm sure you can see where having so many adults in the room can also be tough as we end up with 17 people in our room as well as one graduated student and her adult support worker as she does an supported work placement in our school (doing clerical and delivery tasks) so we went up with 19 in the room at most times! Its a lot for us... but for my 3 with autism it is really providing some challenges in regards to reducing stimulation enough for them to work. I like your divider idea but need to find a way to do it and allow for the movement that our kids in wheelchairs need. Its an interesting mix to say the least... but I will figure it all out.

[Judy Valentine]

I too have Autistic students in numbers for the first time this year. Everything is new and requires extra time to think and plan.I have had some TEACCH training and I have tried to supplement it with reading and online tutorials.(What I really need is a mentor)I have found Autism Internet Modules useful http://www.autisminternetmodules.org/. I have also written a blog entry of information I found useful when I first started
http://studentswithlearningdifficulties.blogspot.com/2009/08/information-on-setting-up-autistic.html

[Diana]

My best advice to anyone teaching kids with autism is to be clear and specific with your feedback to your kids and provide it frequently--both positive and negative and follow through with consequences

[Monica]

Thanks for the responses ladies. Right now my biggest challenge is addressing all the differing needs in the classroom. I think in the long run it will work out great as so many of the approaches are the same. I'm foreseeing the issue being more related to providing the right level of sensory stimulation and at the right times for two pretty different populations in that regard.