Three weeks ago I took the day off to take care of a few things. One of the things I did was to visit the classroom that Maya will be in next year. I arranged it all ahead of time with the lady who is in charge of the autism programs for Mesa. Fortunately, we already know what school she is going to go to, and who her teacher for next year is going to be.
The program she will be in is a self-contained classroom for kindergartners with autism. There will be no more than 9 students in the class and usually three adults in the room. Services such as speech and occupational therapy will be provided in the classroom by teachers who specialize in those areas. There are a lot of benefits to this set-up. I really like that only kindergartners will be in there, instead of K-2 or K-3 for instance. I also like that the speech and OT teachers work with them in the classroom. Maya never got OT in preschool, but she got speech, and it was great to have her teacher come right in the room to work with her.
I have taught as a special education inclusion teacher in a 4th grade room for 4 of the years I taught 4th grade and love that set-up. In that case, it meant that the small group of students I had in my class that had learning disablilities, were in the regular classroom all the time, but recieved extra support from the resource teacher at certain times, in the room. The teacher would help other kids from time to time also so that the kids recieving services didn't feel weird about it. The kids loved not having to go out. It was a great set-up and the students did really well with it.
So that day I met the teacher who is in charge, Kim, in the office. We headed down to the classroom to meet the lady who will be Maya's kindergarten teacher. She seemed great and so did all the classroom aids. The same is true for everyone who works at Maya's preschool. I guess you don't go in to that line of work without having a certain personality type. The room was full of all kinds of things that I am sure Maya will like: books, pictures, art supplies, lincoln logs, tinker toys, a big dollhouse. There were paper foot prints taped to the floor for the kids to put their feet on when it is time to line up. They were all different colors with the kid's names on them and the ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc. ) There were all of the early math and literacy helpers on the wall like the calendar, a word wall, etc. It looked like a welcoming learning environment.
The teacher talked to me for awhile and one thing I could tell from speaking with her is that she truly takes the time to get to know each of her students' unique personalities and individual strengths. No two kindergarteners are ever alike, but I think this is especially true for this program. Although many kids with autism share some similar traits, they are as different as snowflakes. I was glad to see that she felt the same way. She also described the process of mainstreaming the kids into a regular kindergarten, which is one of the goals. She said she has a book she reads to the mainstream students that helps them to understand autism. She said the teachers are wonderful and that the other students at the school are great with the kids in the program. I stayed about 40 minutes, and left feeling more comfortable about next year.
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