I am a Special Education Tech in a large Southern California school district where I have worked for several years, usually assigned in general education classrooms working one-on-one with students on the autism spectrum. My assignments have included one elementary, two middle, and two high schools and even the school to which they remove students for zero-tolerance violations.
I have a degree in journalism, a law degree, and am only a few hours short of being certified as a mild-moderate special education teacher. So why am I working as a para-educator/classroom aide?
Because I like being able to focus on the students. Only on the students. Not grading 150 of yesterday’s five-paragraph essays, or preparing tomorrow’s lessons, and especially not tolerating all that frustrating, annoying administrative stuff that teachers are expected to deal with. (As an hourly classified employee, I rarely even have to attend staff meetings!)
The role of paraeducator
Helping the teachers, of course, is part of our job description but we are not there for the teacher’s benefit (to make copies, or grade homework, or mop the floor, though I’ve done all those things). We are there only because one or more of the kids in that class has an IEP that says they need extra classroom support.
Don’t be shy about telling the teacher when and why you can’t do something they ask you to do if you truly feel it intereferes with something one of your students needs from you.
So what is the role of the special education classroom aide in a general education classroom?
To help the child with an IEP become more independent.
When a child no longer needs me, I have succeeded. When a child continues to depend on me for something other children do without assistance, I have failed. I have asked in the past not to continue with a particular student because I thought they had progressed as far as they needed to go with me.
Tip: I rarely sit next to “my” student. Though I may be in a particular class only because Brandon, or Susie, or Juan is there, I do not want the other kids to know that unless it seems necessary that they know that. I watch my student from a distance, take notes, move in with advice or assistance and move back out again. Meanwhile, I’m helping other students all around the classroom. No student in the classes where I am assigned feels any stigma because I step over and talk to or assist them. Most of them couldn’t tell you why I’m there.
Children on the autism spectrum can be great to work with as an aide.
I worked with a sixth grader who was fascinated by Alfred Hitchcock (they often have intense interests) and wrote an essay about the filmmaker discussing several of his movies. An eighth-grade student on the spectrum was a math whiz who read ahead in his algebra book for fun (and also composed on the piano). A ninth-grader who rarely spoke required almost no help in completing earth science worksheets, finding answers from the textbook.
Yet all of these students, capable as they were in certain areas, had difficulty following even simple plots when reading fiction. I don’t know that they had hyperlexia, but I would think it highly likely. Often this particular reading deficit is not specifically identified.
What can you do to help a child who understands the vocabulary but still can’t follow the story?
Well, you can read Sara’s two posts on this blog about Autism and Hyperlexia. And whether or not your teachers know about or focus on anaphoric cuing, you can use what you learn about it to help any student comprehend narratives, particularly fiction.
Simply put, anaphora are words that refer to other words. Most of us know almost instinctively who “his” refers to when we read:
“Bob slung the backpack over his shoulder and followed Julio.”
A child with autism will often be unsure who is carrying the backpack.
So first, we have to identify the anaphora that may confuse a child. These include more than just the obvious pronouns :
- I
- we
- us
- ours
- you
- yours
- he
- his
- she
- hers
- they
- theirs
- them
- it
- its
but also such words as:
- there
- then
- can
- do
When the child encounters these words in reading, we can ask (and teach them to ask themselves)
- Where is “there”?
- When was “then”?
- What is “it”?
- Who is “he”?
- Whose is “theirs”?
- “Can” what?
- “Do” what?
Reading connections that most of us make almost automatically the child with autism may need coaching and repeated practice to learn how to make accurately and regularly.
If you, the paraeducator, can help a struggling reader learn this seemingly simple reading strategy, you may just open the door to a lifetime of reading enjoyment. It is worth the effort.
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