I love my job although there are some challenges within it, I work with students diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) so every day is a new adventure. One of the concerns that I have experienced with my job is that there are quite a few staff that are stuck in their ways and it becomes challenging to advocate for the children they are supporting. I work with a variety of teaching staff, support staff and administrators that work with some challenging students and families. Another concern is that ASD is a disorder that can be extremely difficult sometimes and some of our students also have duel diagnosis that can make their lives and family lives tricky. Supporting the families and students is difficult when there are not enough …show more content…
Social skills are sometimes difficult to teach because neuro-typical children pick up the skills with very little intervention although students with Autism need to be explicitly taught these skills. For example: How to make a friend, there is no instructions on how to do this, it needs to be taught in multiple steps and with multiple different scenarios to go along with it. One main reason is a large number of the students that I work with require constant teaching with social situations and this can become a concern when time constraints as well as multiple individuals teaching the skill. Also generalization of the skills in multiple different locations is not something that can always occur in a school system, unless the family is willing to support the skills at home as well. In some of the schools that I support there are social skills groups which provides a safe haven for students to learn and acquire these skills, I have been attempting to get more schools involved in this type of groups in the hopes of supporting multiple of students needs at one time. Education is another key part to social skills, assisting in supporting the staff with the understanding of the deficit some of the students have with social skills and social situations. Providing professional development in regards to the needs of a student with an ASD Diagnosis and how they require additional guidance in social situations. For example: I worked with a student that did not like working in groups, she was just not understanding the purpose of it. I explained why we work in groups, the benefits, how it can help her. It took several weeks and me providing additional support within the group she was assigned to. After approximately three weeks of guidance and support this particular student does extremely well working in a group and asks the teacher regularly