Thursday, February 7, 2013

S'wonderful....S'school!

Twice this week I've had wonderful experiences with our area's public schools.  Those who know me know that I can be, er, um, critical, so I thought it appropriate to note these great encounters:

I had a conference with a school and parents who are concerned about their student and child who has autism.  The specifics are much less important than was the openness of the school to create and implement a behavioral plan that would motivate the child in a positive way towards the goals that we had all agreed upon as important.  The school was well represented by the special educators and special ed administration as well by the principal.  They actively enlisted the help of other staff, confident that all the staff would be available to help.  It was a joy.

The other experience was regarding a pre-school child with autism and ADHD who can have a lot of oppositionality with adults, as these kids often do.  Mom showed me the daily schedule which could have been taken from a textbook on how to keep these guys on task.  It had activities and academics that were clear, timed and varied throughout the day.  No task lasted more than 20 minutes and transitions were a part of the curriculum.  Mom said the teacher was implementing it well and that her son was doing great in the classroom, unlike the previous public school placement he was in which was much less structured and resulted in a much greater amount of his disruption.  I haven't been this impressed with a pre-school intervention in 25 years.  Literally. 

My hats off to the schools and staff that put themselves out for the kids like this.  As to the other experiences I've had....well....we'll save that for another time.