Notes from An Autistic Support Teacher: “Not Ideas About The Thing, But The Thing Itself”
by Delcita Johnson-Gore
When I took on the task of being an autistic support teacher, I quickly realized that although autism seems to be the new focus in special education, there is no blueprint for teaching students with autism. In an effort to gain some of the knowledge that I needed to enhance my practice as a special education teacher, I went to the National Conference on Autism. At one of the workshops on teaching children with autism, a clip of Temple Grandin speaking about how she thinks in pictures was shown. In explaining how her mind works, Grandin said, “To understand the autistic mind, you have to get away from verbal language. I see movies in my imagination.” Reflecting on Grandin’s quote took me back to my own inquiries during my first year as an autistic support teacher. I thought, “People with autism think in pictures. I think in pictures. Providing lots of visual stimulation helps my students construct their learning experiences. I have high functioning students with autism, we’ll be fine.”
Every day at the beginning of the language arts period, I would give the students a writing prompt. Initially some students would only draw pictures and I accepted that, but eventually there came a time when I ended the assignment with these instructions,“Please answer using complete sentences.” One of my students regardless of the instructions would hand his paper in with a series of words rather than a complete sentence. I would always respond, “Dan, I need to you answer in complete sentences.” I asked him over and over, “How are people supposed to know what you are trying to say if you don’t communicate in complete sentences?”
One day I gave the class the writing prompt, “If you could go on vacation anywhere in the world where would you go and why?” Dan began diligently writing. “Would he write sentences today?” I wondered. I peeked over his shoulder to see what he had written-- Castle, fireworks, Mickey, Minnie, Mom, Dad. Suddenly, Dan was communicating what he visualized and associated with my question. Since the thoughts that he was visualizing were complete pictures, he thought his responses were complete. All of those weeks when I thought he seemed to be writing random unassociated words, he was actually using his own shorthand to tell me exactly what was on his mind. That insight finally helped me to understand what Temple Grandin had been talking about in that video. The series of words that Dan wrote provided me with a ticket to the movie that was playing in his imagination. I saw Disney World too. He was thinking in pictures the way people with autism often do. He wasn’t thinking about the single words that he had written on the page, rather he was thinking the full action feature his mind created in association with those words. When asked to pick a perfect vacation spot, Dan’s mind went to Disney World, his parents, and some of the things he associated with the trip.
Having come to this understanding, I was then able to formulate a series of follow-up questions that elicited full sentence responses from Dan. Some of the questions were, “Are you talking about Disney World or Disneyland?” “Is this a vacation you have already taken or a vacation that you want to take?” Moving forward, I knew that in order for Dan to construct sentences in response to questions, he first needed the instructional support to deconstruct the images that came to him when he thought about the questions. I finally had a special insight into autism and a new knowledge of Dan’s reality.
Delcita Johnson-Gore is an Autistic Support teacher at Hill-Freedman Middle School. Delcita joined the Philadelphia Writing Project in 2009 as a teacher consultant.