Role of Teacher in Developing Autistic Child

Role of teacher in the development of autistic children is multifarious. The teacher of an autistic child often carry the roles of a surrogate parent, mentor, counselor, role model, planner, and many other related roles. It needs great patience, high dedication, and strong perseverance to develop a child with autism. So, it is, indeed a daunting task for anyone to nurture and develop an autistic child as a teacher. Everybody cannot provide so much service to a disabled child in all respect.

“Good teachers helped me to achieve success. I was able to overcome autism because I had good teachers. At age 2 1/2 I was placed in a structured nursery school with experienced teachers. From an early age I was taught to have good manners and to behave at the dinner table. Children with autism need to have a structured day, and teachers who know how to be firm but gentle.”— Temple Grandin, Ph.D.

Here, we can find a letter written by a mother to a caregiver of an autistic child in recognition of her dedication. She certainly deserves lots of appreciation for her outstanding contribution to the development of a child with autism.

I have an autistic boy of 22 years old. I know, autism is a lifelong disability and until today there is no treatment for curing autism. But the teachers can play a great role to make him self-dependent as far as possible.

Role of a Parent as Teacher

The parent is to perform the role of a teacher for the normal children at their initial life till they are grown up in the home condition. But the parents of the special needs children are the lifelong teacher to teach and guide their special needs children in every step of their livelihood. Their job starts in the morning after the child gets up from the bed and ends after the child sleeps.

If the parents truly want to develop their child, they are to work full time behind the autistic child and perform the role of a teacher when the child is inside the home.

• The autistic children generally very lazy to get up from the bed in the morning as they go to the bed late. So it is a very difficult task to get him/her up from the bed.
• Brushing teeth is another difficult task for the autistic babies. Here we can use Vibrator Massage Toothbrush to clean their teeth. It will help to clean their teeth as well as have a massage of their teeth to mitigate some sensory issues.
• Most of the autistic children do not like to have breakfast in the morning. It is a very difficult task for the parents to feed them breakfast.
• Preparing for school is another difficult task for the parents as a teacher in the morning. The parents need to teach them how to dress up they are not capable of wearing their own clothes.
• If the child stays at home after coming back from the school, the second session of teaching starts for the parents. The child needs to be given some occupational therapies as a part of the therapy session.
• Besides the therapies, management of different autistic behaviors like tantrum is a giant task for the parents as a teacher.

Role of a School Teacher

There is a big difference between the role of the teacher of normal school and that of an autism school. The role of a teacher starts when the child arrives at the school. The teacher should never think it as a job, it should be taken as service to the disabled persons. They should do it by heart, otherwise, there will not be any significant improvement in the life of a child.

The first and foremost thing for a teacher of an autistic child is to read the mind of the student and understand him/her properly. S/he has to have in-depth knowledge about autism and the different behavioral problem of a child with autism. S/he is to take care of all the disabilities of the child and work hard for the development of the child in conjunction with the therapists.

“If they can’t learn the way we teach, we teach the way they learn.” —Dr. O. Ivar Lovaas

Learning disability is one of the main problems of a child with autism. The prime concern of the teachers would be teaching the social skills and the self-help skills to the autistic children.  Then they can try for teaching the academic skills.

The teacher may find different odd behavior in the autistic student like throwing tantrum, meltdown, unnecessarily jumping, shouting, babbling, repetitive activities, self-injurious activities, throwing something or himself/herself on the ground, taking off clothing and many more odd activities. While in the school, the teacher is to assess the condition of triggering these odd activities and to take preventive measures well in advance as far as possible.

The teacher must know the causes and early signs of sensory overloads of the child, and take precaution according to prevent any meltdown, tantrum etc.

The teacher must have an idea about the strengths of the child and utilize those properly for his/her development. The teacher also needs to understand how the child can learn better. The teacher must understand the individual student’s disabilities and special needs.

The teacher needs to know the strategies of teaching social skills, promoting positive behaviors and dealing with challenging behaviors like anger, aggression anxiety etc. They should have an enormous amount of patience.

The teacher must maintain a comfortable classroom environment for each autistic children of the class. All necessary teaching materials must be available in the classroom to expedite their learning.

The teacher must be ideal to the child as s/he is learning everything of his/her livelihood from the teacher. S/he must be acceptable to the child.

The teacher should keep regular contact with the parents (especially mother) to exchange views and ideas about the progress of the child.

The teachers must be a good communicator to the children, parents, doctors, administrators, therapists and all others who all are directly or indirectly concerned with the life of the autistic children.

The teacher should not have any bad habit which can influence the students in learning. Otherwise, they will learn bad things.

The teacher is to engage himself/herself in every step of life in this noble profession. If any teacher can not dedicate himself/herself to that service and they do not have that much patience to handle the odds of an autistic child, s/he should quit the job.

Role of a Teacher in Mahi’s Life

My son, Mahi had been looked after by a teacher named Mrs. Farjana in his school, PROYASH for last 12 years since 2006. She has been trying hard to take care of my son, Mahi when he was only 10 years old. She has protected him like a mother and taught him everything like a dedicated teacher and tried to develop him in all respect. Mrs. Farjana became essential in the life of my son. If any day he did not go to school, the teacher phoned my wife thinking that Mahi might be sick.

With her utmost effort, Mahi has passed Junior School Certificate (JSC) examination and attained some distinguished achievement in his life. This year from January 2018, Mahi has been detached from Mrs. Farjana’s class as he is not interested to continue his academic study. He has been transferred to the vocational class. Now, we are observing some changes in Mahi’s mind as a result of the detachment from his beloved teacher Farjana after 12 years.

Like all other children with autism, Mahi does not like any change in his life. So the detachment of the 12 year’s old teacher has a great impact on the mind of him. I do not know, how can we help him to overcome this crisis.

Conclusion

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is a lifelong learning disability. So the role of a teacher in the life of an autistic child is always and everywhere. Most of the autistic individuals have to learn their activities of daily living (ADL) and social living skills from their teachers. So the teachers have to be engaged with them in every step of their life.

The development of the autistic children depends upon the capability of the teacher. The teachers should provide their all-out effort to make the autistic children self-dependent. This will be the success of a teacher of the autistic child.