Winnie White, an elementary teacher, shares how she includes three autistic students in daily school life. She prioritizes communication first, noting each student uses a different mode: an AAC device, echolalia, and selective mutism. She expands communication opportunities across the classroom, playground, lunchroom, and PE to help them connect with peers and teachers.
My name is Winnie White, and I teach in a self-contained elementary classroom where I have a variety of students in my classroom with different disabilities. I have 3 students in my classroom with autism. How do I include them in our day-to-day classroom goings and comings? Well, the first thing is communication. All 3 of them have different ways that they communicate. I have one student who uses an AAC device, one student with echolalia, and one student with selective mutism. So it's important that I know exactly where they are in their communication journey. I honor all different forms of communication, but I also take time to foster more ways that they can build communication, whether it's here in the classroom, on the playground, in the lunchroom, in PE, wherever they may be. I'm always helping to help them develop more ways to communicate to their community, to their peers, to their teachers, to their families. That's an important part of including them in our school community.
