Does the teacher know?

Ofcourse parents inform the school about the autism of their child.
It's the only way to realise the best support possible for their own child.

But it's a pity that in some school relevant information disappears in the files, which are often burried in a dark corner behind a closed door.

During meetings teachers are told about the child and the treatment plan/IEP, but my experience is that most teachers are willing to stick to the all the individual steps of the plans, but they tend to forget most of them during their busy days.

Some teachers even forget the child needs special care in- and outside the classroom, is my experience.

Ofcourse you can call for a new meeting with all people involved, but it costs a lot of time and some people don't like that at all.

So I began writing a leaflet for the teachers, mentioning the fact that autism is a neuro-biological disease.

After that I mentioned the special characteristics of my son, not forgetting that he has trouble reading faces, often forgets that he's put his homework in his bag and overlooks it, and that he needs a silent classroom to be able to take in relevant information.

The leaflet closes with advice to prevent problems,
like writing homework on the blackboard,
enabling him to leave the classroom first so he can walk alone to the next classroom without the crowds pushing him aside, etc etc.

At the back there was always a list of phonenumbers of people who were good in dealing with him, like his favorite teacher, the pedagogue and his brother in another group, and I'd put my email at a visible place so I could be reached for questions at all times.

Every year at the beginning of the schoolyear and after christmas all the teachers got a leaflet, and my son had one glued in his agenda.

No teacher was able to look me in the eyes and tell me he didn't know after that.

Worked well!

sending a reminder

Some organisations, we parents of autistic children need, come to a standstill during the vacation.

Ofcourse no one can take over important work, as all those people are so very important.

So our letters, applications and other written materials pile up and up, until there's a layback of weeks or even months.

When I saw the deadline nearing of the response to the application for daycare for my autistic son I got the strange feeling that nothing would happen at all.

More than 2 months had passed after I threw the letter in the mail, and more than 4 after the decision was reached we would apply for daycare.
We all thought that he would go there at the beginning of the vacation, for two days a week.
Giving us 2 days of free breathing and maybe even time to take the other children on a few daytrips.

But all we got was a confirmation that the letter had been received and that the deadline was 40 workingdays later.

Now 36 days had past and I had such an intense urge to send them a reminder, that I looked up the email and wrote a nice mail.

The same day I got an answer.
They needed a special identification number and a letter from the council, stating they agree with him not going to school anymore.

The letter finished with the promis that we would get the permission for daycare as soon as the councilletter would be on their desk.

So we've been waiting for two whole months for something that could have been organised within an hour before the summervacation started.

Now we have to wait until the people at the council start working again.

Oh.... this makes me so mad!!

I wonder how long we would have been waiting when I hadn't send the reminder!

autism and a job

Whereas the American and English media spend a lot of attention on autism awarenss month, the attention in the Dutch media was short lived. At the end of the month the Mexican Flu completely pushed the whole subject aside.

Thanks to the enormous amount of tweets and blogposts, mainly in the english language, we got a lot of questions during autism awareness month.
It can be seen that basic knowledge is more available to a broader public, because we got a large diversity of questions.

One cluster of questions was about autism at work and autism among grown-ups.

We use the word "autism", but in fact we mean the light forms of autism spectrum disorders we can find among people who are participating in the workforce. Most of them are not diagnosed.

Because knowledge about the characteristics of autism has become wider available, people with an autism spectrum disorder or autistiform behaviour are spotted more easily.

During email and other conversations irritations about having to instruct certain people over and over again, changed into the wish to assist the employee and to describe the task adjusted to the person.

Irritation changed into self-relfection and adjustments.

We gave advices which were completely focussed on individual circumstances, but a few general guidelines can be given. (You'll recognise them from those used in schools.)

• Use clear language. (Many autists take language literally)
• Use pictures, schemes, etc.
• Split complex tasks into simple ones
• Describe the final product.
• Provide clear time-schedules
• Provide time for exercise. (A well exercised skill is never lost and the investment will be earned back.)
• Ask your employee whether he's found his own way of dealing with the task. Different is not always worse.
• It should be clear when initiative is expected and to whom the employee should turn to.
• Some people night a fixed routine. They need time to adjust to breaks, to working again after a vacation.
• Not all people are able to recognize faces. Uniforms can prevent recognition of fellow employees. (Use a visible and readable badge)
• Write down appointments and other information.
• Maybe the employee needs some extra attention during breaks.
• Stay positive. That's best for everyone.