Ruder Elementary School recognized autism awareness month in April with a wall-sized celebration of inclusion and “nuerodiversity” at the school. The mural was a sun and each ray was created by the students in the school explaining what they thought made them unique — something they “shined” in.
Under teacher and speech pathologist Trisha Quiram the program serves 11 students on the autism spectrum as well as others with different neurological conditions.
Her class is remarkably quiet as methods for teaching autistic children have improved greatly in the past 20 years. The lights are dimmed (humming fluorescent lights are the bane of many autistic children) and students on this day were working on a big picture of a human body, learning to identify and draw various organs.
While many autistic children have deficient language and speech skills, some display remarkable acuity in other areas. One child, for example, is amazingly artistic, another can read almost any text put in front of him.
The program, called Reaching Independence through Support and Education (RISE), focuses not just on academic skills, but social and practical life skills as well. Students, for example, clean the classroom at the end of the day and take out the garbage.
Technology also helps. One application for the iPad, for example, can talk for nonverbal students, or least allow them to communicate more effectively with peers and teachers.
The program also has a high instructor to student ratio, as autistic children often need one-on-one help.
Two students have “graduated” from the program and are now integrated into regular classes since it started about four years ago, Quiram noted.
Some of the children participate in both the autism program and attend regular classes and others, while on the spectrum, are able to function in traditional classes.
Autism spectrum can run the gamut, from students who can’t speak at all and have great difficulty communicating, to those that are able to function in most instances, but have sensitivities to various environmental and social situations.
Like the mural says, “Every child brings their own special glow that makes everything brighter.”
