Training Sessions Equip Participants With Skills to Support Students With Autism
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, reviews morning routine questions with students
as trainees observe.
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October 12, 2010
Heartland AEA's challenging behavior and autism consultants were quite busy in September as they conducted two full weeks of training sessions for educators to build their skills in support of students on the autism spectrum.
Thirty trainees, including district special education teachers and paraprofessionals and Heartland AEA special education practitioners, attended each five-day training session held at East Elementary School in Ankeny. Heartland AEA staff facilitated the training in conjunction with the Des Moines Public Schools' autism resource team.
The training sessions focused on strategies to use with students with autism or characteristics of an autism spectrum disorder who need a more significant level of support to succeed in the classroom. The training covered characteristics of autism, classroom supports/visual structure, direct instruction, communication, behavior and social skills.
The training was a mix of observation, lecture and hands-on learning. Each morning five students were in a classroom setting, and trainees had a chance to observe the trainers providing instruction. They then had the opportunity to have hands-on experience working with the students.
Megan Wick, lead preschool teacher at Ankeny's Crocker Elementary School, Chris Novak, teacher at West Des Moines' Valley Southwoods Freshman High School, and Candice Gravett, early childhood special education consultant at Heartland AEA, all participated in the training sessions and feel that the information they learned can be directly applied to impacting the lives of their students.
"I felt Heartland's autism training was absolutely wonderful," Wick said. "It was very well organized and provided much hands-on learning for the teachers. They (trainers) used real-life experiences that made it easier to transfer the skills we learned to our own classrooms. The training will help me to effectively teach other students in my classroom who will benefit from a structured teaching approach, including those disagnosed with, and without, autism."
"I thought the training was great," Novak said. "The autism team provided us with tons of beneficial information that we will easily be able to transfer to our own classrooms. The best part of the training was actually working with the students. It was amazing watching the students grow right before our eyes."
"The early childhood autism training I attended was hands down one of the best trainings I have attended in a long time," Gravett said. "It provided a great balance between theory, application and real hands-on work with young students. The week was well worth my time way from my assignment. I have already used some of the hands-on practice with my own students."
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Heartland AEA is an intermediate education agency serving 11 counties and 136,000 students in Central Iowa. The Agency is committed every day to helping people grow, develop and learn.
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