TURNING STUDENTS INTO ADVOCATES 

By Dan Coulter

Do you get angry?  I get angry.  Oh, I'm pretty calm about most things.  But
when I hear about kids taking advantage of a child on the autism spectrum,
my first thoughts involve swift and terrible punishment.  Then I peel myself
off the ceiling and think in more practical terms. 

I felt a surge of anger today when I heard about a mother I know who picked
her autistic son up after school.  He's in special classes, but eats with
everyone else in the school cafeteria. As he got into the car, her son
remarked that he was really hungry. 

Why? Didn't he get to eat lunch?

No, he said.

It turns out the friend who usually ate with him had a schedule change, so
he had to eat by himself.  After he sat down, he realized he'd forgotten to
get a drink.  Leaving his tray on the table, he went to buy one.  When he
returned, someone had taken the tray.  So, he went without lunch.  Given the
circumstances, it's a pretty safe bet his food didn't disappear out of good
intentions.

As a dad of a son on the spectrum, it's easy to get angry and to want
whoever took the tray to be punished.  Of course, you'd have to find him or
them.  And have evidence they did it.  And, you'd have to be careful that
you didn't make the autistic student a bigger target in the future. 

While I think it's appropriate to pursue individual tormentors after the
fact, our broader goal should be to prevent such incidents.  For example,
suppose just one student had seen others taking the autistic student's tray
and said, "Don't do that."

Looking back to when I was in high school, I was a member of a service club.
We did things such as delivering food baskets to needy families at
Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

What a great service project it would be for any number of existing student
organizations to educate their members about autism and Asperger Syndrome
(and other special needs) and enlist them as advocates.  Most colleges look
for community service in their applications.  Being a special needs advocate
is a service that students can provide as they go about their normal school
activities. 

Of course, having peers help peers is not a new idea.  Quite a few
organizations encourage students to support each other.  One of the better
known is called, "Best Buddies." Their website describes pairing children
who have intellectual disabilities in one-to-one friendships with high
school students.

If you can tap into a specialized organization such as this, more power to
you.  But enlisting the members of your school's existing student
organizations and clubs could also have a tremendous impact. 

Perhaps a psychologist, school counselor, or member of a local autism
support group can make a brief presentation to each club.  It will help if
you can arrange for club members to be introduced to students who have
autism or Asperger Syndrome (and who wish to participate) and learn about
their strengths as well as their challenges. Then the club members' initial
role might be as simple as to say, "Hi," when they pass these students in
the hall, visit with them occasionally, and find ways to include them in
activities. And, yes, to prevent bullying.  These interactions could open
the door to additional contacts and friendships.

Some schools make understanding and accepting differences an integral part
of their programs.  I'd love it if more schools took this approach.  But I
realize we sometimes need to start with smaller steps.  Whatever you can do
to help your school encourage students to be more understanding and
compassionate is worth doing. 

I know from personal experience about classmates who, after seeing
presentations about Asperger Syndrome, apologized to students on the
spectrum for how they'd treated them.  A little education can also lead
classmates to make a special effort to include and look out for a student
they now see as a person, not just, "that weird kid."

The more students we can educate about special needs such as autism, the
more we decrease the chances that one student will consider tormenting
another.  Or, if he does, the more we increase the chances that a third
student will be ready to step up and say, "Stop."

Let's give as many students as possible the understanding to turn
potentially demeaning and damaging incidents into actions that protect our
kids and make us all proud. 

That will be a lot more satisfying than getting angry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Dan Coulter is the producer of the INTRICATE MINDS series
of DVDs that help classmates understand and accept students with Asperger
Syndrome and autism.  You can find more articles on his website:
www.coultervideo.com.

Copyright 2008 Dan Coulter      All Rights Reserved.      Used by
Permission.