Tag: autismservices

This week we want to celebrate the amazing impact teachers (including paraprofessionals, school speech pathologists, and school occupational therapists) can make on our kiddos lives, especially those who work with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Children with Autism have varying characteristics that, as parents and therapists, can transform us, challenge us, and teach us. We understand the often unrealized desire to put our own needs on the back-burner to dive head first in caring for those with atypical needs. We hope that as you do one of the most important professions, teaching and preparing our youth for social settings and their futures, that you read our thank you list to re-boost your end of the year energy. And hopefully, you will understand a little bit more the incalculable gratitude we have for you that is oh-so-difficult to show on an everyday basis.

• We want to thank the teachers who come in early, leave late, and often have to spend their own money to have adequate supplies, therapeutic/sensory materials, and even allergy friendly foods for their students.

• We want to thank the teachers in our kiddos lives who take the extra five minutes at the end of an exhausting workday to give our children that extra interaction.

• We want to thank the teachers who redirect our children with ASD in the classroom with loving grace instead of frustration.

• We want to thank the teachers who look at our children with ASD and feel an outpouring of empathy that is visible and palpable in your daily interactions with them.

• We want to thank the teachers that find something in common with our children with ASD and capitalize on it by generating discussions, activities, or feelings of belonging to those that don’t always fit in.

• We want to thank the teachers who create lessons plans with our differentiated learners in mind, and do so with excitement to help them learn in a way not typical to the traditional classroom.

• We want to thank the teachers who make it a vital importance to implement IEP accommodations, and do so out of a heartfelt desire to make an often uncomfortable child that much more comfortable in a social setting.

• We want to thank the teachers that take our children with ASD out of a stressful situation and into a hallway or place of safety while a meltdown occurs, so that our child will not be taunted by peers for an uncontrollable event.

• We want to thank the teachers who treat the parents of children with ASD with amicable fellowship, and are not irritated by our sometimes fretful emails, but instead take the time to reassure us of situations.

• We want to thank the teachers of those with ASD for making an impact on our child’s lives in a way we sometimes cannot. It is said that it takes a village to raise a child, and the truth in that is some days you have as much affect on the lives of our children as we do.

• We want to thank the teachers who remove our children from harmful situations, both social and towards themselves, with the care of a loving guardian.

• We want to thank the teachers who show up, day in day out, tired or well rested, stressed or relaxed, happy or emotional, and STILL find a way to have an uplifting, impactful, and compassionate school day. Your effort will never go unnoticed, even if our thanks some days goes unsaid.

From the bottom of our hearts and the depths of our souls, we thank you.