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Paraprofessional
I am a paraprofessional at an elementary school, for those of you that may not know what that is, I work one on one, with a special needs child throughout the entire school year. Unless there is an improvement or the goal that was set, was surpassed, then I would get a new child.
My last child broke one of my fingers so he got sent to another school, but that's aside from the point. I have a new child now, though, I just completed my first week with him. He is very good, he is so bright and he gets his work done very quick. Essentially my only job is to just refocus him and redirect him if he gets off topic.
The problem is, he is autistic and he is afraid to be in the classroom. He stays in the office all day long. His teachers drop his work off for the day in the morning and he drops it off at the end of the day when he is finished. The child's case manager, teacher, guidance counselor, principal and I are all kind of at odds about how we can get him back in the room and thus far, the counselor and the principal's ideas are the only ones being implemented and have not really been working.
So, I'm not here to complain that the people that are with him the most are not being heard, I'm just here to see if anyone has any ideas on what I can do throughout the day that would maybe give that little shove or at least put the thought in his mind of trying to go back to the room. Like I said, I've only been with him for a week so far, all I've got out of him was that it is loud. He doesn't ride the bus, his parents drop him off and pick him up, because the bus is loud. He doesn't like being in the room because it is loud. He was in his classroom all year last year, so I don't know if something happened over the summer or what but he had also recently just got back from Disney World so I'm so confused that he can be at a theme park with 1000s of people but he can't sit in his classroom with 20 kids.
His teacher told me that before I was assigned to this child, he didn't have anyone so the principal was popping in and out of the room he was given in the office to ensure that he was completing his work. One day, she thought it would be cool to make a "mission" for him to go on, he had to find the red balloon and obviously she put the red balloon in his homeroom class and his teacher said the day that happened, he was smart enough to put two and two together that he was tricked. So things like that wouldn't help. But I'm just asking for any kind of brainstorm so I was told that my only goal with him for the end of the year is to get him back in the room so he doesn't continue doing this into fifth grade.
Thank you!!
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Maybe give some free advice about: Mental health?
Consult the experts--his parents. They not ill equipped though well meaning educators will know or have right ideas for getting him in the classroom. In fact what these other people have done makes it worse. I would ask them and then I would talk to him and the other kids about how to accommodate him. The person with the balloon idea is an idiot or more accurately acted like one and needs to be reassigned.
Also, why don't these people lay off if they don't know a fucking thing about autism to begin with? In one week you know more about it than they do. If the kid is secure in working the way he has been let him. Let him show them when he's ready or what he needs to try. Tricking or prodding him will make him even worse with trusting people and his parents irate. If it continues I would ask his parents to talk to admin over it.
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Working with an Autistic child is tough because they can't or won't tell you why. I believe the first thing you need to do is talk to the parents and find out if he is seeing a therapist out side of the school. If he is seeing a therapist then the therapists ideas and not the counselor and the principal's ideas should be the ones ones being implemented for no other reason then continuity with what is being done at home. This is just plain commonsense to me.
One thing you might also consider trying is using an empty class room during the day for him to work in. While there may not be an unused classroom there will be an room empty at some point when the class goes to physical education, music or art. An extra desk he can call his own can be placed in that he can use for that time.
If he will do this for you it is possible that he will learn the classroom is not loud. Then you move on to bringing him to the class room for a few minutes each day to experience the room with other kids in it. If he says it is too loud you leave. Hopefully there is on class that he would have a friend in that you might be able to have the friend ask him to sit next to.
Of course if he is seeing a therapist outside of school you will want to run this by the therapist first.
As his paraprofessional in school I believe you have every right to contact the parent and even meet with them in school or in there home if you are so inclined. It is only right that you know of any plan in place to help this child that you can enforce in school.
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