Barb Reflection

I loved watching Barb. She showed people exactly what autism is. Autism is not a deficit, and people with autism are not incapable of doing things. Working with kids with autism has taught me so much. These people just have a different way of thinking and interpreting the world around them. There is nothing wrong with that at all. I love that Barb was able to talk about her autism in a very positive manner. I feel like sometimes people look down upon people with autism, and Barb was a great example of how people can be highly intelligent, and just not have a way to communicate her intelligence. Sometimes autism is just a silent intelligence. One of the kids I work with is in the second grade, and has pretty severe autism. He uses sign as his main mode of communication, and if the teacher does not know how to communicate with him, or manage his tantrums; she will send him to the resource room and let him just play in the computer all day. Because of this, the school system is wanting to hold him back because he is "not up to par" to go on to the third grade. I believe this attitude in the school systems needs to stop. I believe, as teachers, we need to believe that every student is intelligent and has opportunities to succeed. I think that most of the times when we think about autism, we tend to think about those who have autism and a learning disability; just as Barb was thought to have severe mental retardation as a student. We now know that a lot of these children and adults are capable of high intelligence, but we have to figure out a way to communicate with them in the most effective manner. Just like the boy I work with who uses sign language, we must have a way that they understand. I think this goes not only with people with autism, but also typically developing individuals as well. All semester we have been discussing the ways for students to do their own assessments. Such as, having kids write a book report, act it out in a play, draw a picture of the story, etc. Finding a way for kids with autism to communicate is just another example of this.

Group Differences

I enjoyed the group differences discussion today. I feel like I learned a lot with everyone's various opinions, views, and experiences. I feel like all of the articles and topics were really informative and important to discuss. It seemed like we covered a lot of the problems that we might see in the classroom. I really liked learning about the Critical Race Theory. Since this was my group, I was able to delve deeper in the topic and really learn different viewpoints. I was really interested in the disabilities topic as well. I feel like people had very different experiences with their internships and interacting people with disabilities, which led to a great discussion. Since I will be working with children with disabilities, I found some of these discussions somewhat disturbing, however, I am glad that we were able to talk about how that is not the correct way to handle children with disabilities. I think we will all be better prepared to handle these situations in the classroom in the "real world". I also liked how we were able to discuss the material more and bring personal and relatable experiences in to the discussion.

PLE 10 - Interpreting

Children who are deaf and are born to hearing parents will more than likely have a delay in the receptive and expressive language skills. The article at the bottom discusses the milestones of hearing, speech, and ASL. This was given to us in our Language Development of Deaf and Hard of Hearing class. This has helped significantly when looking at the differences in hearing children and deaf children. When deaf children are born to deaf parents, they are given a language from day 1, just like when hearing children are born to hearing parents. Parents continually talk to their babies from the time they are born, through the rest of developmental stages. When a deaf child is born to a hearing couple, they are usually so stunned that their son/daughter is deaf, that they do not give them a language. Even if the parents decided to give the child a cochlear implant, the baby cannot get implanted until 6 months of age. By this time, the child is already delayed in language development. Therefore, a deaf child will most likely be delayed through the school years. If the child has a hearing aid or cochlear implant, they still do not hear like the average person. Since they do not hear the world around them, they usually do not pick up the necessary vocabulary needed to succeed. Not only the vocabulary and syntax, but the child will probably be delayed in the pragmatics of communication as well. Usually deaf children have a hard time grasping the idea of turn taking in a conversation. The pragmatics that hearing children usually pick up in naturally will usually have to be explicitly taught to the deaf student.

https://blackboard.utk.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-6501035-dt-content-rid-6259801_1/courses/EducofDeafHardofHearing41625268SP2013/ASL%20Milestones.PDF