Shannon Creedon

SE535 Understanding Autism

Susan Redditt
2 October 2019

Community Experience

The Williams Elementary School is a small elementary school in the town of Newton,

Massachusetts. I was given the opportunity to work with the wonderful individuals and students

that are part of this small school community for the 2019-2020 school year. From being

immersed in the school for over two weeks now, I have found that this community brings

positive messages and delightful creativity into the classroom for their students to revel in which

has made my experience here positive and thoughtful so far. I have enjoyed watching lessons and

activities done in my co-taught 4th grade classroom that I was placed in this year. A co-taught

classroom in this school district includes one elementary education teacher and one special

education teacher that join together to teach students who are both on IEP’s and students who are

not on IEP’s. This type of classroom usually also includes an intern, which is my role this year.

This type of inclusive classroom gives each of the students in it a chance to have many different

types of teaching instruction as well as individual help when they need it. Although I have only

been part of the Williams school for a few weeks now, I have been captivated by the accepting

community and laid back but thorough and thought provoking teaching style.

When starting a new school year, I was feeling both nervous and eager to join my

classroom, meet both my supervising teachers and students, and start to get into the swing of a

school year again. Once I met my teachers, they decided it would be best for me to read all of the

IEP’s of the students that are in our classroom for this school year. Although it took me quite a

while to get through all of them, I was intrigued by all of the students in my class and could not
wait to put a face to their names. One of the students I was most intrigued by was a student who I

will call Nick for the protection of this student’s identity.

Nick’s IEP showed that he was diagnosed with autism. Prior to 4th grade, Nick was with a

one on one paraprofessional that worked with him throughout each school year. This year is the

first year he would be going through his daily school life without a one on one. One of his IEP

goals was to work on his social skills in the classroom and outside of the classroom. This is a

detail that I remember because as someone who has studied autism in prior courses, I remember

distinctly that students with autism struggle socially and tend to have a tough time making

friends. I decided I would observe this student informally to see how his social skills really were.

When I finally met Nick, he surprised me in every way. He immediately made friends in

the class. He sat next to a friend who was in his class last year and they discussed their summers

and all the fun they had. He was social and talking to his friend rather than just listening or not

engaging in conversation at all. After the first few days, I found out that when he grew up he

wanted to be an architect. He mentioned this to me when we were working on a prompt in class.

After he said this, I prompted him to tell me more by asking why he wanted to be an architect.

He tends to talk in short sentences but they always seem to have enough information to answer

the question. When I asked him why he wanted to be an architect, he promptly said that he loved

math. I then asked him what about math he likes. He took a second to think about my question

and said that he likes solving problems and he likes that he is good at it. After that answer it was

time to clean up from math and move on to our next subject.

I decided that I would collect information from Nick when I could because we are in an

inclusion classroom and a lot of the subjects and free time are push in time according to his IEP.

I could have taken him aside during some of our breaks, but after discussing with the special
education teacher, we decided it would be best for him to stay in the classroom so he could

socialize with his peers. This information clarifies why our conversation about becoming an

architect and math was cut short. Although the conversation was cut short, it felt like I got some

good information about Nick. He mentioned to me how he wanted to be an architect which lead

us to talking about how he loves math. After this conversation, I took notice of Nick when it was

time for math and something that I saw was that he cheered silently every time it was mentioned

that math was up next. He did a little fist pump and said yes quietly. He does this action every

day when it is time for math to start.

One of the questions that I asked Nick was who his best friends were. He said a few

people in the class that I knew were his friends, but one of the students he mentioned was

someone I would not have imagined Nick to think that they were best friends. According to

Petrina (2014), considering someone a best friend who may not feel the same way is a common

occurrence with people with autism. When discussing the concept of a person with autism

thinking that they were best friends with a person who did not feel the same way I had no prior

experience with a situation like this before. Since I had no experience with this, I decided I

would include a question about friends in my interview to see if Nick was experiencing things

that I was learning about. When he discussed this person as being his friend, I asked him why he

was his friend and he talked about one time during math that student helped him. I asked him if

he had any other times that the person proved to be his friend and he had a hard time answering

that question. In Petrina’s study (2014), they discussed that only 6 out of 23 studies reported

reciprocity in the terms of who the person with autism nominated as their friend. Essentially, this

is stating in scientific terms that students with autism tend to say someone is their friend and that

person does not feel the same way towards them, which is what happened with my student Nick.
I did quickly ask the student Nick was nominating as one of his friends if he considered Nick to

be a friend, and all he said was “he is my classmate”. This felt like validation for my claims.

Nicks interview came over many different days since it is the beginning of the school

year and schedules are still being figured out. I felt that the questions I asked Nick helped me

write this paper and made me feel closer to him as a student. They helped me understand his

needs and his struggles in a way his IEP could not.

 Interview Questions

Why do you want to be an architect?

What about math do you like?

When did you start to like math?

Who are your close friends in fourth grade?

Why do you consider those people good friends?

 Works Cited

Petrina, N., Carter, M., & Stephenson, J. (2014). The nature of friendship in children with autism
spectrum disorders: A systematic review. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 8(2),
111–126. doi: 10.1016/j.rasd.2013.10.016