I’m hoping you can help me with a situation a friend asked me about yesterday….this may be a bit long. Sorry!
My friend has a child in 3rd grade who has qualified for special ed with a diagnosis of Aspergers. He has an aide in the classroom for half of the day to help him keep focused and to give additional explainations, if needed. He spends one day each week in the gifted program, which in the past has been his very favorite day of the week.
(BTW, I’m not addressing legal rights/issues here, Mom is well aware of those!) Anyway this year, the gifted teacher does not want to have the aide in her classroom. She says she doesn’t need one as she only has 11 students on this child’s TAG day. She does, however, want the parents to medicate the child so she won’t have to focus on getting him to focus. Alternatively, she wants the child out of her classroom, her rational being that he’s not getting much out of TAG anyway.
Mom doesn’t want a confrontation. Instead, she wants help devising strategies to provide to the school to help her child learn to cope with the demands of the classroom independently. I’ve given her my thoughts, but would love to hear your input for strategies we could offer to the child and the school in order to allow him to succeed in school.
Thanks for your help,
Karyn
If the gifted teacher can give the mother, the special education teacher in the school, or the aide the topics they are going to cover in advance, perhaps someone could make structured independent worksheets on which the child can track the lesson, like an agenda or schedule. This way, the child can have order and predictability in the class, which will help him focus.
Another activity that is suited to kids with Aspergers is independent research on the computer or in books. If the child is given tasks to accomplish alone or with a single partner, it would be less stressful because the social component is eliminated or lessened.
The tried and true behavior management, stickers for on-task behavior on a timed basis (every 5 or 10 minutes) frequently works, but the teacher has to be into it. I would imagine from what you say that the teacher is not comfortable with changing her style to accommodate the child that much. Perhaps someone could make a sticker chart for the child with a space for each 10 minute interval and give the child a timer or a vibrating watch-timer. The boy could then self-monitor his attention.
The teacher could also try to give the child a specific goal-oriented task at various times during the lesson to keep him involved, such as handing out materials, listing information on the board (can he write and spell well enough?), typing notes on the computer from the teacher’s board notes to make handouts for the class, helping with set-up for any projects or hands-on activities like moving furniture or dividing the class into groups.
Just a few thoughts. Hope they help.