By K-C

Monday morning rolls around and I am in the classroom preparing for the day. Waylon is arriving at the same time I do.

Eric, first grade, walks in and loudly says, “Good Morning, Mrs. Kris!” He proceeds to show off his stuffed animal he brought for the day. He continues to make up a story and gets louder and louder making my ears want to block out the noise.

Sixth grader Billy comes in with his mother. His mother always shares his mood with me. His mother also carries in his backpack and sometimes a stuffed animal. Today Billy is feeling crabby and had a bad morning at home.

Alec and Bryce arrive off the bus with Ms. Linda, the teacher’s aide. Bryce immediately sits in the large swing hanging from the ceiling in our room. After two minutes Bryce starts to spin in the swing.  In unison Ms. Linda and I say, “No spinning Bryce!“ Children with autism spin to get stimulation which is not good as it will send them into “another world” and sometimes it is hard to get them back. Whenever Alec gets upset he will say, “Spin!”

Alec puts his cold lunch he brings almost every day on the microwave. His cold lunch consists of macaroni and cheese, baby carrots, and two cookies. He will get a pint of milk at lunchtime to go with his meal. Next, Alec goes over to the shelf unit and gets a hard plastic dinosaur and starts to aggressively tap it on his arm as he hums. Every day he repeats episodes from Sponge Bob Square Pants verbatim and starts to giggle. His laughter is infectious.

I call Bryce off of the swing to show him his visual schedule. He jumps off and asks me for a hug. His visual schedule is words and pictures of his day. The words/pictures are on a velvety material and put on with Velcro. (Meanwhile, Eric runs out of the room. Mrs. Linda chases after him and reminds him he must ask to leave the room.) Bryce’s morning schedule on this particular day is:

A photo of Mrs. Kris to show he is working with her

Swing

Bathroom

Phy Ed

Break

Work from Basket (which could be math, writing, reading, etc.)

Break

Group Time for calendar and Group project

Snack time

Game

Recess

Flash cards

Speech

Lunch

Recess

A picture of his third grade teacher as he goes to her room for Story time

Bryce takes my finger and points it to each icon and reads each item. He then grabs my hand and we walk to the teacher’s bathroom. I have to record all that he does in order in the bathroom to see if he remembers everything. He does, except turning on the lights. I also have to record if he read his visual schedule and understood it. He did as he always does. He may understand it, but at times he will say, “No Speech!” He will proceed to take off the speech icon and put Work from Basket or Go Home.

We are coming back to the Special Education Room when we hear piercingly loud crying and screaming. Eric is having a meltdown again. He wants to take his stuffed animal to the Learning Disability Reading Room. Eric is supposed to leave his stuffed animal in the Special Ed Room. Billy cannot take all of the loud noise and puts headphones on to block it out. Waylon starts to yell how much he hates Eric’s meltdowns.  All of the other children are taken to another room. Mrs. Linda takes a work basket with her that is prepared just for moments like this. I let Eric talk and yell it out as you cannot reason with him when he is in this state.

I turn off the lights to help calm Eric down. Five minutes passes by. We quietly discuss that his stuffed animal has to stay in the room. I tell him I will watch the animal. I make a little bed for his animal to rest while he waits for Eric to come back. He agrees. I give Eric his pink sheet (as pink is his favorite color) which tells his parents how his day goes. He gets a smile face, straight face, or sad face for each thirty minutes. If he gets three smile faces in a row he gets a five minute break of his choice. Usually he chooses to play on the computer for five minutes.

Bryce and I head to Physical Education. Mrs. Linda helps the children with writing and English skills. Bryce has to do floor exercises. His processing skills take about ten seconds to understand what is happening. By the time we get to the exercise the gym teacher is on, the class has moved to another exercise. Bryce and I just keep working and he does a great job of trying. Next the kids run around the gym on the edge of the red line so as to use as much of the floor as possible. Bryce runs around the room smiling and at times moving his head around which reminds me of Stevie Wonder. Bryce comes up to me and grabs and squeezes me. I take his hands off and ask him if he needs “pressure.”

“Yes.” Bryce cutely says looking up at me with his gorgeous big blue eyes.

I have to stand behind Bryce and take his arms and fold them over. I squeeze. Sometimes children with autism feel like things are too much and they need pressure on their body. His head needs pressure, too. I squeeze his forehead and back of his head. He grabs my hands and puts them on his jaw. I gently squeeze his cheeks. He feels better. We walk over to listen to the gym teacher explain what we will be doing for game time. While sitting there I am called out of the room. Billy is having a meltdown. Another teacher stays in the gym with Bryce.

I arrive in the Special Education Room and Billy is in the cave (corner of the room with a piece of material on, soft carpet on the floor, pillows and a weighted blanket).  He is crying and saying, “My class hates me.” I ask him what happened. Billy may be in sixth grade but is at the mental level of a second grader. We work it out.

Everyone is back in the room and we all head to the group table and start to do calendar. Each child takes a turn putting the date, month, and weather up on the board. We sing Days of the Week and the months. All of the children know the days and months due to these songs.

Group project is a fun book about zoo animals. The kids, Mrs. Linda and I read through it and then the kids have to write a sentence and color the animal on each page.

Snack time is social time. Alec will only eat round crackers, no chips. Alec will eat Cheetos if they are the Cheetos brand, not the generic. He will cry. We have even put the cheap Cheetos in the real Cheetos bag. He knows something is up. He will examine each one of the Cheetos and only eat it if there is a lot of cheese on it.

Bryce only gets air popped popcorn or fruit as he is on a special diet. He does not eat sugar, corn syrup or dairy. Since he has been on this diet he thinks and speaks clearer and more often.

Billy brings in junk food and his mom lets him eat whatever he wants.

Waylon always has a caffeine loaded soda as he has ADHD along with symptoms of autism. Caffeine works on ADHD kids as a calming effect, not hyperactive. Waylon brought a bag of BBQ chips for his snack.

Eric gets chocolate milk and asks for some of Bryce’s popcorn. There is a lot of popcorn and Eric is given a bowl.

For game time I choose to play the game “You Tell Me.” A dice and board game. The kids land on a spot and have to answer a question such as “What street do you live on?”  or “What is your telephone number?” All learning questions. At first Bryce does not know. Once we go around the board three times he has it down pat. Only one fight breaks out and this is an improvement. The children need to play these games to learn how to share and gain sportsmanship.

The boys clean up their own mess. We head to recess by getting ready in the hallway by the coat rack. Bryce spins around in circles. Eric starts to copy him in the hallway. I tell them to stop spinning and get their coats on. Bryce starts to jump and clap his hands. I say, “No jumping.” I take Bryce and stop him from jumping by softly placing my hands on his shoulders. I rub Bryce’s hands together to get him to stop clapping and say, “Rub hands.” The less words you use, the better, or it gets all jumbled in his brain.

Waylon is upset. He should be going with his fourth grade class to art but wants to come to recess like he usually does. We choose our battles and let him come to recess for fifteen minutes as art is one hour long.

Recess is great for sensory which autistic children need. Bryce heads for the sandbox and builds a mountain as he sifts sand through his fingers, Alec grabs a small stick and bangs it on his arm, Waylon and Billy swing and Eric is arguing with another child out at recess. Mrs. Linda and I take deep breaths to inhale the fresh air.

The bell rings, Alec rushes to the door, Bryce is clapping in the sandbox, Billy is telling Waylon it is time to come in, Waylon is refusing, Eric yells he is not going in yet. Two more minutes of playtime….and we all go back to the room to work.

I love these kids and we feel like one big family. When the kids learn something new and you know you taught it to them, you have a wonderful feeling of accomplishment and joy. I would not trade this job for the world.

1 Comment

1. You certainly deserve a round of applause for your post and more specifically, your blog in general. Very high quality material

   Comment by what's better than ebay — November 3, 2010 @ 1:42 pm

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