TITLE: A Teacher’s Guide to Managing Autism in the Classroom: Teaching Success From Kindergarten Through High School (Kindle Edition)
AUTHOR: Bass, Richard
SUBJECT AREA: Autism-Education
PUBLISHER: Independently Published
PUBLICATION DATE: 2024
NUMBER OF PAGES: 203
I have seen many guides for teachers on how best to work with their students on the autism spectrum, but Richard Bass’ A Teacher’s Guide to Managing Autism in the Classroom is by far one of the best.
The author starts out with an introduction about following one’s intuition about a student that could be autistic. A teacher, Miss Wright, felt that something was “off” and she suspected that the student had autism. An assessment did find that the boy in question had autism; following her intuition was an important step in the right direction!
The book is divided into several parts with Part I being an introduction to autism and the reader’s role as an educator of a student with ASD in the classroom; Part II covers ways to manage ASD-related behaviors including addressing learning challenges; Part III is devoted to ASD-friendly communication in class and Part IV covers supportive strategies for students at every level. The author gives a very thorough introduction to autism and how it might affect a child’s behavior in the classroom so that the teacher knows what to look for and what might be going on with a certain child and the different variations of autism are described.
The watchword here is inclusiveness which is the heart of this book, and there are some practical suggestions for a flexible teaching environment so that everyone can learn successfully in an inclusive classroom. In addition, the author helps the reader to foster positive relationships with the students with ASD and collaborating with parents and support professionals to further help autistic students.
There is also a section on Differential Instruction and writing an IEP with thorough step-by-step instructions on the IEP process. Subsequent chapters cover creating a sensory friendly environment and dealing with challenging behaviors. The author describes a stop light approach, with green being proactive strategies, amber being early warning signs of challenging behavior and red being reactive strategies to deal with a challenging behavior that has already occurred. Blue is devoted to recovery and support strategies.
Other chapters cover effective communication with ASD students, anxiety and executive function difficulties, social skills, and nonverbal communication. One of the best parts of this book is the section devoted to different grades levels with a chapter devoted to elementary school, middle school and high school. Each chapter presents concrete strategies that teachers can use to help their students in each grade level. There is just so much material to absorb that the reader may need to go over one or more chapters more than once! That being said, we have a real winner here!