A Few Children Were Left Behind

This is the video that finally got me to set up a blog for myself.

Chris and I love to watch Keith Olberman in the evenings and last night after watching one of my favorite parts of the show (World's Worst) I immediately turned to Chris and said, "I have to share that with people!"

Please pay particular attention to the "worser" person section of the following clip.



There has been some news lately about autistic children left out of various environments. The school system that made the "worser person" astounded me when I heard this on Keith Olberman last night. I can't believe that there would be a school system that would leave out children and teachers from a yearbook.

A yearbook is a very social thing even for second graders. Social skills are one of the main skills that teachers and administrators should be focusing on when they are teaching children with autism and special needs because decreased social and communication skills are two of the main signs of autism.

Just by being different than the other children it makes it difficult for them to try and learn socialization skills with their peers. When they are left out of a very social event it hinders the learning process even more.

Children with autism and other developmental disabilities learn through many teaching techniques. One of the most widely used techniques is the use of visuals. Yearbooks are obviously something visual. For the children with special needs in this school system they are being left out of a very useful tool that they could learn from for years to come.

The least I hope the school system does is to correct this missed opportunity for learning. These are children, it does not matter if they have needs that are different from other children. They still enjoy many of the same things all of the other children do, they may just enjoy them a little differently.

As a behaviorist who works each day with children with autism I love every picture we take of all of our children and will cherish them for a long time. It is a great joy we have to not only teach the children new skills and to love on them but to show their parents the pictures we take of their children since these children are often difficult to capture in a photograph. I know that each one of the teachers of the special needs classes and the parents would cherish the pictures in the yearbook as well.