Episode 13: Autism and Special Education

Chris welcomes Lauren Franklin, a 15-year veteran teacher. Lauren has taught Resource Special Education in middle and elementary schools and is currently teaching a self-contained classroom to students with disabilities ranging from Autism to Down Syndrome to Cerebral Palsy. Together, Lauren and Chris discuss classrooms, including accommodations, special education classrooms, IEPs, 504s, and more. If you’re just beginning to navigate school with your ASD child or you’re halfway through and wondering what support is available to you, make sure you save this one.Quotes:[2:22 - 3:14] Lauren: Some students with Autism have these sensory challenges. On an IEP, accommodations could be lowering the lighting, providing noise-cancelling headphones, frequent breaks built throughout the day…Autism challenges with behaviors, we accommodate a lot with like, a token reward system where a student meets 5 prompts and then immediately is given praise or that tangible reward or a break that they prefer. Work is highly modified, assignments are shortened, the curriculum can also be completely modified and completely different. Some students may need a different math curriculum while others can still work from the gen ed curriculum with the modifications made.[3:32 - 4:26] Lauren: So, an IEP is an Individualized Education Plan. So, when you have a student that is diagnosed with a disability, there’s testing that goes on and eligibility is determined in a certain area, and that IEP is then written by a team; teacher, special education teacher, sometimes a process coordinator or someone who represents the district, and then your related services like OT and PT, speech and language - so, all these people come together at the table and they discuss the students present levels of how they’re functioning currently and then they develop goals based on what the evaluations kind of, the data from the evaluations, based on teacher and team recommendations as well - so the IEP is very goal driven and extremely data-driven. [18:43 - 19:30] Lauren: I think teachers are really special people. At the end of the day, teachers want nothing but student success. Some of us get a bad reputation but ultimately, everything we do and every decision we make is for students and what’s in their best interest. And what I think is helpful is if parents can assume positive intent and make the relationship with their child’s case manager, special education teacher, gen ed teacher, whoever it may be - assume positive intent and really work to strengthen that relationship because when we can work together in support of one another, that is the most beneficial for students.