Teachable Moments for Accepting and Connecting

Published on 28 March 2024 at 20:38

April is National Autism Acceptance Month and Tuesday, April 2nd, is World Autism Awareness Day. Here are a few ways to celebrate and to promote more understanding for Autism Awareness and Acceptance.

The puzzle piece was replaced in 1999 with the rainbow infinity symbol. The infinity symbol represents a vast and complex spectrum that includes individuals with a wide range of strengths and challenges. It is also used to represent neurodiversity. Many people felt that the former puzzle piece implies being “incomplete” or that something is “missing” or needs to be “solved”. For more information go to Columbusspeech.org.

At School

Read a book to students about Autistic people and create discussion questions for students so they can talk about what they’ve learned.

Create a discussion for your students about what it means to have sensory sensitivities.
Give examples by talking about the 5 senses. Share how people may react differently to these senses.
Ask students to share if they have ever felt sensitive to a loud noise, smelled something unpleasant, wore clothing that felt uncomfortable to them, etc.
Next, talk to students about what it means to self regulate. Ask them to share ways they may self regulate.
Give an example:some people may wear earplugs or noise canceling headphones when watching a firework show.
Encourage students to share what they’ve learned with their families.

Create a sensory experience for your class. Fill bowls with items that have different textures: soft cotton balls, slime, rice, beads, etc. Have students take turns touching the items and discuss how they felt.
Share sensory regulating tools to show how these may help people to self-regulate.
On a larger scale get the entire school involved by creating a sensory experience for every grade level to attend. Our school allowed us to use our multipurpose room.

Parents

Create your own local support group by reaching out to other parents in your child’s classroom. It can be such a comfort to know that someone else may be experiencing something similar to what you are with your child. Also connecting with other parents can be a great resource for activities and services that are available.

One of the most important things we encourage you to focus on, is talking to your children about accepting differences and finding similarities. Encourage friendliness and not avoidance. Let's teach our children to include and accept at an early age, so that someday there will be no need for us to set aside a day to raise awareness.

Let’s celebrate neurodiversity every day! What a wonderful world that would be!