On Schools' training for autism

I decided to ask a friend of mine who is a teacher what her experience is of training for autism awareness in schools. An email she sent me is pasted below.

"I actually have an autistic boy in my class this year and have a training course booked for a couple of weeks. As these children are on the special needs register, which can be accessed by the local education authority, the teachers concerned with these children get a personal invitation to a free course on meeting their needs. These courses are repeated annually so that each new class teacher can go. There are other courses that run during the year for support staff etc., but there is an expectation that we will come back into school, after our training, and cascade the information down the chain to anybody else who will be working with the child."

I'm glad to see the issue being addressed but concerned over the 'cascading'. Perhaps some organised talks would be a good idea across the UK?

Thanks for that Rachel. Now that the school has Alex's confirmation from the health authority I am eager to see what they will do next.

The health authority are going to organise some motor coordination skills shortly, whether this will be integrated into the classroom I am not sure but Alex needs help when it comes to holding pens, paint brushes and cutlery.

We do what we can at home to encourage this but it is quite hard to snap him out of something that feels so natural to himself.

Hi people:

I would like to tell you something about Argentine education.
First of all, here in Bs As, there are just a few private schools for kids with autism. Unfortunately, they are so expensive, that parents can't afford them. [img]https://2img.net/i/fa/i/smiles/icon_sad.gif[/img]
For that reason, those kids have to be sent to another school, but they have to go with a special teacher (MAESTRA INTEGRADORA) who take care of them and also help them to integrate into the classroom. Moreover, school teachers are not able to deal with all the kids and, as they say, they don't know anything about autism. [img]https://2img.net/i/fa/i/smiles/icon_neutral.gif[/img]
So, as you can see, kids with autism have, at least, 2 teachers at the same time.
In spite of that, I TRY to be optimistic...and I hope this situation will get better soon!!!


Vale..