They’re stuffed into a drawer upstairs. Bundles of small lined notebooks, filled with dates and page after page of handwriting. I can’t throw them out, because they’re such a perfect encapsulation of a time in our lives that was intense and difficult and overwhelming. But I can’t bear to look through them either–because they’re such a perfect encapsulation of a time in our lives that was intense and difficult and overwhelming.
When my oldest son went off to elementary school, he was assigned a one-on-one aide. He had autism and, while we wanted him fully included in a regular classroom, we knew he’d need some extra support, mostly with social skills—in preschool, he’d ignore the other kids and dart around the yard during recess, chanting to himself and making hand puppets.
The principal of our small local public school informed us that she’d just hired an aide for our son who had never done this kind of work before. We were wary. We had been hoping for someone experienced. But we got something much better: we got someone who was naturally gifted and also willing to learn.
From the very beginning, Dawn got that the best thing she could do for our socially withdrawn son was to attract other kids to come play during recess, so she made sure he always found himself in a circle of happy, chattering peers. She was pitch perfect in the classroom too, moving back to let him work unimpeded and take instructions from the teacher, until and unless he seemed confused, in which case she would materialize at his side and get him on track, fading back again as soon as possible.
But every once in a while, something would come up that she wasn’t sure how she should handle—a voice modulation issue, say, or a worrisome interaction with a peer.
And that’s where those little notebooks came in.
At the end of the each school day, Dawn would take the notebook out of our son’s backpack and quickly jot down a note or two, then put it back. When he got home, I’d check to see if she’d written anything. If she had a question I could answer, I’d answer it. But if I didn’t know how to address that particular new challenge, well, that’s where our amazing support system came in.
Our son was working regularly at that point with a speech therapist, a behavioral therapist, and a clinician. Depending on the issue at hand, I’d immediately consult one of our pros. Then I’d relay their advice back to our aide via our trusty notebook and she’d set to work implementing the intervention. Since we knew that consistency across all environments is the quickest path to improvement, we’d also work on the problem at home if we could.
By the time my son went off to middle school, he no longer needed a one-on-one aide, but we knew there would still be plenty of challenges ahead of him. We altered our strategy to meet the new situation, letting his teachers know that if they contacted us with any problems or questions that arose, we would do our best to work on its solution at home, once again drawing on our support system for advice and intervention.
We know how busy classroom teachers are: they don’t have the luxury of focusing on a single student for any length of time. But most are able and willing to shoot an email off to a parent now and then, especially if they know that the email will lead to helpful and supportive action. Around that time we added a tutor to our “stable” of support help, which meant that now academic problems could be addressed at home as well as behavioral and social ones.
We found over and over again that teachers wanted to help and were pleased that all we needed from them was information, and then we’d do our best to take it from there, to work with him at home on the skills he’d need at school.
They say it takes a village. I’d say it definitely takes a team–and a lot of communication among those team members. And sometimes a notebook or two.
Image credit: http://www.futuregirl.com/craft_blog/images/2010/01/notebook02_03_o.jpg
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Claire LaZebnik is the co-author of Overcoming Autism: Finding the Answers, Strategies and Hope That Can Transform a Child’s Life and the author of four novels, including the recently published If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now. Contact her on Facebook.
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Tags: autism and schools
I am a pathological minimalist, put on this earth to balance out the packracks among us. Yet even still, I cannot part with a few of those old spiral notebooks that my kids had in school. It’s like reading their diaries, only you don’t have to sneak it.
The Cost of a Notebook: 99c; Information: Priceless http://bit.ly/heV2wd via @parentella
The Cost of a Notebook: 99c; Information: Priceless http://bit.ly/dKVvM0 via @parentella
RT @ShellTerrell: The Cost of a Notebook: 99c; Information: Priceless http://bit.ly/heV2wd via @parentella
Wrote another post . . . http://fb.me/vya0eFX9
What an interesting and thoughtful piece. The support system you developed was wonderful. And I think you were the center of it all, pulling all these wonderful people to you. And how amazing the way Dawn pulled the other kids to your son and helped create the village at school while you created it at home.
In 4th grade, my middle son struggled to sit still and his teachers and I decided they would write at the end of the week whether he had been working on sitting quietly (he’d been flipping pencils in the air during lessons and calling out joke responses during circle meetings and not seeming to pay attention). One teacher said, “Let’s TELL your son we’re doing this and let HIM read the comments also.” I wondered about that. He was nine and I was kind of worried about his sense of himself, as we were all wondering where the fine line was between exuberant and hyperactive. Each Friday, I’d pull up and he’d be reading what the teachers had written, sometimes with tears, sometimes with a smile. Just knowing that his actions had not been seen as funny or cute by his teachers but instead were seen as worrisome and troubling and that his teachers were genuinely wondering if he needed to be on medication made him make a giant effort that has paid off deeply over the years. Even more than my knowing what was going on, HE needed to know. I’ll always be grateful the teachers decided to write to not only me, but decided to let him see, also, what they were writing. He, and his father, still flip pencils in the air at home when studying, but at least my SON doesn’t do it in public.
RT @SymbalooEDU: The Cost of a Notebook: 99c; Information: Priceless http://bit.ly/dKVvM0 via @parentella
Hi Ann:
I love notebooks!! I bought a bunch on sale at Target at the end of the Back to School Period. In fact, my favorite gift (and my family knows this) is a notebook or a fountain pen or both.
Aparna
Hi Claudia:
Thank you for stopping by and your wonderful comment. Taking in criticism even constructive criticism is tough for adults let alone a 9 year old. I am glad that your son took it well.
[...] Claire also shared about how she used notebooks to communicate with the school regarding her autistic son. [...]