The Autism Teacher
Nicole Mays, the author of a blog named, The Autism Teacher, presents easy and
practical ways to teach children with Autism. Mrs. Mays is in the process of completing a Special
Education PhD degree with a concentration in Autism at Georgia State University
in Atlanta, Georgia. She is currently a
special education teacher with a classroom consisting of mainly students with
severe autism. The purpose of The Autism
Teacher blog is to communicate Mrs. Mays’ personal experiences in the
classroom through expounding upon day to day classroom routines, crafty ways to
teach Autistic children, and furniture ideas that help her students become more
focused on the school lesson and not on their sensory sensitivities. The following are examples of these teaching
strategies.
An example of Mrs. Mays’ creative teaching methodologies is
demonstrated in the October 22, 2009 post entitled, “File Folders Activities”. In this post Mrs. Mays provides several ideas
on how to create visual file folder activities which can be used to “provide
visual structure and allow repeated practice on skills and recognition”. Mrs. May precludes her ideas by stating that “people
with autism tend to be very visual thinkers”.
She provides additional links for the file folder activities but also
incorporates her own unique techniques as seen through photographs taken of her
final products. Also, the January 15,
2010 post, “Video Modeling” demonstrates ways to instruct Autistic children on
life skills that are not teachable in the classroom, i.e. bathing, shopping at
the grocery store and eating at a restaurant.
One of the benefits of video modeling according to Mrs. Mays is it “allows
parents, teachers and other therapist to collaborate and use the same method,
terminology, etc. when working with a student”.
An example of Mrs. Mays’ furniture modifications can be seen
in her October 13, 2009 post “Adapting Furniture”. To combat students who like to rock in their
chairs and tip over as well as students who are prone to push themselves away
from her during instruction time, Mrs. Mays had several footstools attached to
the front legs of each student’s chair. This simple renovation grounds the chair to
the floor; therefore, students are unable to move or tip their chairs. In addition, a soft mat was added to the top
of the footstool to control foot noise.
Chairs that are across the table from each other are also connected to
prevent students from pushing backwards.
Other devices she shows in her post are core disks which fit in the seat
of a student’s chair and curtail “wiggly” movements.
In her October 20, 2009 post, “Schedule”, Mrs. May provides
the reader a complete daily schedule of her classroom – from breakfast at 7:15 am
to loading the buses at 2:10 pm. She
describes each time slot in great detail such as Circle Time/Math at 8:45
am. “We first count to 100, then go over
the calendar, make a ‘graph of the day’ as a group,…..then we use the
Intellitools Math (Oshie Otter) program on the interactive whiteboard – each student
gets two turns.”
Mrs. Mays provides many different links to alternative
websites for her audience’s disposal; however these links are not properly
cited. Also, Mrs. Mays does not cite any
research resources to back up her posts. Overall, the quality and quantity of her posts
has waned over time. Her later posts,
specifically 2009 and 2010 are especially written well in regards to the details
given on these posts’ subjects. Her writing
style is easy to follow and she incorporates her enthusiasm and love of her
students in her posts. However, her most
current posts have steered away from the focus of her blog and leave the reader
wondering if her commitment to the blog has ended. Personally, I believe that Mrs. Mays’ blog is
a reasonable resource for other teachers of Autistic children. She clearly has a certain level of expertise
that Autistic teachers can benefit from, especially teachers who have recently
graduated with their Special Education degree.
Reference:
Nicole Mays. (2009).The
Autism Teacher. Retrieved from http://theautismteacher.blogspot.com/
Brought to you by:
- Elizabeth Holt
Good evaluation
ReplyDeleteCheryl