To celebrate Autism Awareness Day, Walpole Island Elementary School is holding some special presentations on Friday to commemorate the occasion and to raise awareness about autism within their own school community.
Creating autism awareness
Jessica McCallum, an education assistant (EA) at Walpole Island Elementary School, told the Sydenham Current the school has five students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and each has a one-on-one EA who works with them individually.
“These kids are with our kids all the time,” she said. “They’ll hang out with them and want to say ‘hi’ and give high fives. They know them, but they don’t understand it. That’s why we want to celebrate autism awareness and bring that awareness to the whole school.”
McCallum said presentations will be starting at 11 a.m. on Friday, with the hope of giving awareness to the students about what autism is.
More events are in the works for the rest of April, which is Autism Awareness Month, McCallum said.
“We really would like the community to see what our school is doing for our students and celebrate autism awareness with us,” she said.
To help them celebrate, the school created an autism awareness flag, which was designed by one of their students with ASD, Jay-lyn Myers-Williams, a nine-year-old Grade 4 student.
“When we were discussing about celebrating autism awareness we knew we wanted to do a t-shirt and a flag because it is getting the community involved too,” McCallum said.
“Someone suggested, why don’t we get Jay-lyn to draw it… she’s an amazing drawer. We did show her some ideas, and this is what she came up with. We’ll have this flag forever. I’m really excited.”
McCallum said the flag includes elements of autism awareness, plus the logos and colours of the Walpole Island community and school.
“Support, educate and advocate,” McCallum said, describing the words written in Ojibwe on the flag.
“We really wanted to represent the community with our autism awareness.”
Unique approach at Walpole school
McCallum said the EA’s at Walpole Island Elementary School use unique approaches to teach their students.
One of the methods is called “table teaching.”
“The students have their own table and we will create tasks specifically for them,” she said.
“They’re typically not learning at the level of their peers. So we’ve created tasks in a way so they’re going to learn, but you have to repeat it. I’m doing the same sort of learning everyday. In math, I’ll photocopy the pages… and everyday we’ll do the same sheet. You can see, over time, them learning the skill, but you have to repeat. It can’t just be taught once or twice.”
McCallum said they will create some structured learning tasks for the students, which are geared towards getting the children to work independently.
“It’s geared to their learning,” said McCallum, who did her school placement at the Autism Transitional Classroom (ATC) in Chatham.
“When we have kids in Chatham-Kent that are not transitioning into the younger grades so well, or they know they’re going to need help to be able to integrate into a classroom, they get referred to the ATC. It’s a classroom with just five kids who have autism and it’s about getting them ready to go into an integrated classroom.”
McCallum said everything they do at the ATC, they are doing at Walpole Island Elementary School.
“It is amazing,” she said. “The teaching table, the structures learning, the visuals, the reinforcements. It is proven to work and we’re doing it. I haven’t seen anyone else do it in another public school. It;s why I love working here. You see how it works, what is going to work and you see the students improvements.”
McCallum said this is the first year her student has been integrated into a classroom and he is in Grade 3.
“That’s a lot of expectations to go into,” she said. “That’s sitting down in your desk, being quiet, don’t interrupt. There are a lot of rules that are socially known to us… but with autism, sometimes social things are hard to come by. For him when he first started, he was pacing around, jumping on desks, screaming, he was not happy, to him now sitting at his desk and listening… we’re doing big things here.”
‘Snoezelen room’ an added feature
McCallum said Walpole Island Elementary School is one of two elementary schools in the Lambton-Kent area to have a special ‘snoezelen room.’
“There is a lot of anxiety and tension and stress that comes with learning for any child, with children with autism there is more so,” she said. “It’s harder for them to learn. This is a space we take them into that they’ve either done something really stressful or demanding or they are overstimulated or understimulated. They can come in here and relax.”
Some of the items in the room include fibre optic lights, bubble lamp, music, pillows, mats, trampolines and a pressure roller.
“15 minutes in here after doing 40 minutes of work, we can go back and do more work no problem. My student… I don’t think he could get through the day without having this room. It’s needed and the school has invested in this for a reason. They’ve seen what it can do to help our students. I’m very happy that we have it.”
After creating the room in the spring of 2015, McCallum said every year with the budget, they are trying to add something new to it.
Great support from autism consultant
McCallum said Walpole Island has gotten some great insight and advice from Denise Emery, who is now a consultant after retiring as the special education coordinator with the Lambton-Kent District School Board.
Emery referred to a quote by Claire Scovell LaZebnik, author of Growing Up on the Spectrum:
“Don’t think that there’s a different, better child ‘hiding’ behind the autism. This is your child. Love the child in front of you. Encourage his strengths, celebrate his quirks, and improve his weaknesses, the way you would with any child.”
“This is exactly what the parents and staff at Walpole Island Elementary School believe on a daily basis,” Emery said.
“Staff and students continue to learn new strategies that support social growth, while increasing academic performance within an inclusive environment.”
More details and information
The eighth annual World Autism Awareness Day is April 2, 2016.
Every year, autism organizations around the world celebrate the day with unique fundraising and awareness-raising events.
Learn more about it here: autismspeaks.org
To learn more about Walpole Island Elementery School, visit them online: walpoleislandeducation.org
– Photo: From left, Jessica McCallum, Jay-lyn Myers-Williams and Desi Wrightman.
