I have been teaching already for more than ten years.

Majority of those
ten years are special day classes and study skills, class. Being an education
specialist with mild to moderate focus, I thought I have evolved into a better
educator and case manager, until, recently, when two of my students have
autism spectrum disorder (ASD). I am not saying that I have not been with any
students with ASD. I always have one or two categorized then as with
Asperger's syndrome. However, the one that has walked into my class
challenged my professional status as a teacher. I cannot seem to understand and
know what to do with him. He does not look any different from other students.
Fashion-wise he appeared better dressed, and he even has the latest phone with
the newest game boys their age prefers. He did look thinner and seemed shy
than most of them, but no physical look told me he has ASD.
The start of school seemed like any other typical first day of my 7th
grade world history class until I asked them to take a seat. He chose the farthest
from everybody. He does not want anybody sitting at his circle table. He
uttered a scream when I asked two students to move to his circle table. On top
of that, he was facing the wall and not me when I asked if he was alright. First, I
thought he is hurt, so I went over and asked what happened. He screamed even
more. Believe it or not, at that time, I panicked thinking he was in pain with
something that I must attend right away, so I called the nurse to come over. I
was so focus with what I need to do with my class that I was not at all focus
about him. He was new to the school, so the two students let him be, and when
the nurse came she just said, "He is fine for now where he is, let him be, alone,
in that table. I will talk to you later after your class." During class, he kept to
himself. He did not talk to anyone even when I had them do a scavenger hunt
and a paper dodge game. He did not seem to mind that he is alone. I was
getting worried, still, up to this time, I was not identifying him as a student with
ASD. He did not do the work I gave him, instead he was drawing something
on the spiral notebook I handed to them. Occasionally, he just sat there with his
head bent down facing the wall playing with his pencil. He has a box of the
pen. He eventually got some brand-new pencil to small tiny pieces by the end
of the class. When the bell rung, he waited for everybody to leave before
stepping out. Even without looking, he seemed to know that he was the only
one left in the class. He just walked out leaving the tiny pieces of the what used
to be a pencil. My class was an everyday period, so I see him every day, and it
always ends with some brand-new pen into tiny small pieces. That was the start
of my journey with my student with ASD.
I eventually got hold of his IEP and psychological report. He likes to
draw. I was able to discern that before I read his IEP. He breaks the pencil
when he gets frustrated. According to his records, he used to throw things or
will get up and break anything he can grab and lift. Occupational Therapist
(OT) was able to manage it to breaking pencils. They are not working on
lowering the number of pens that he breaks. He has a twin brother whom we
suspect has ASD too but in a different part of the spectrum. Academically he is
doing well, only that socially he prefers to play with his brother during lunch, in
between periods and during PE. The mother does not believe he has ASD and
has not agreed to have an educational assessment at the same time as my
student. My student also l likes history. His report says he watches history
channel at home and only reads history books.
I do not know all the Evidence-Based Practices, but when I found out he
likes history, I capitalized on his interest in history and art to get him to do
classwork. I tried to associate all his work with an account: essays, grammar
practice, math calculation, and some artwork. It worked. He even participates
in class but only in history class. He does not talk much just direct answer yes
and no clue, but I got him to speak. His paper and pencil assessment, if it is
multiple choice, is complete not all of them are right though. The questions
about evaluation, analysis, or making the prediction, is difficult for him. He
does better when there are pictures of them. Socially, he allowed one student to
be on his circle table. It was the only student he allowed in his circle, but he
now talks to other students only because they played the same video game. The
conversation revolves around the video game and its history. I had him going
until he just stops. When the second semester started, that is when I noticed his
absence went up and when he comes in it was like he was the old student I had
again. He prefers being alone, he broke more pencils, and he does not
participate or do work at all even if it was his favorite subject, history. In his
other classes, not only was he not participating but he showed behavior that I
have not seen before. He screams a lot more; he pushed any paper or things put
in front of him with force of disgust or madness. I have not seen it in the two
classes that I have him, but I just cannot get any work from him as I did before.
Mother shared that nothing has changed at home; he just matured. The OT nor
the Speech and Language Pathologist (SLP) have any answers either. All his
other teachers seemed to notice that he is regressing. All the set behaviors that
OT and SLP worked with him looked to just banished. Why? My strategy did
not work anymore. One time I told him, I will add more play time to his video
game if he does the class activity. He responded well for two days (my classes
only though) then he stopped again. We ended up the school year with nothing
much done or any improvement of where we started.
According to CDC autism spectrum disorder is a developmental
disability that can cause significant communicating, social interaction and
behavior challenges. What has happened to him? Could it be maturity creating
havoc in him physiologically that it changes his thinking and the way he does
things? What happened? I am much disappointed that at the end I did not feel I
have done something for him to access his learning better. There must be away.
In the meantime, I need to learn more about what I can do. I want to support
him; please help.