Blog 2: What Can We Do to Promote the Social Integration of Students with ELN?

Connection to Course Reading and Materials:

While watching the YouTube video about Jason McElwain, I had the same reaction as most people:  tears, goose bumps and an overall fuzzy feeling.  But then, the teacher in me comes out and says “Why do we wait so long to see someone’s potential?  What is it that holds us back from digging deep to find what EVERY child is good at and giving him/her opportunities to excel in that?”  I think this shows us that while we have passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, Public Law 94-142, and IDEA and its 6 principles (pgs. 9-25) which were presented in Education For All edited by Terese C. Jimenez and Victoria L. Graf, and other laws to make sure children with disabilities are included in the regular education classroom, we have far to go in changing our preconceptions of children with special needs.  We can create all the laws we want, but that doesn't address the issue of our character.  We need to produce character in our students (and ourselves) so that we can tear down the preconceptions, judgments, low expectations, rejection, and isolation that our special needs students’ experience. We have not yet arrived in understanding that though we are all created differently and have made the classroom equal, we are still not all treated fairly. 

Connection to Professional Experiences:

One of the most effective methods that I have seen help students successfully socialize with their peers in the classroom, develop more successful relationships at home, and blend into society better is the Social Thinking program by Michelle Garcia Winner.  She takes on a different approach, where many push just social skills in isolation, she understands the special needs child and that helping a child to “think” differently will impact the way in which he/she will socialize with others.   According to Winner, “social thinking is what we do when we interact with people: we think about them. And how we think about people affects how we behave, which in turn affects how others respond to us, which in turn affects our own emotions.”

The speech therapist at our school has been trained in social thinking and leads this class with our students.  (She also offers her services in outpatient therapy at her office.) She has small social groups in which she helps students learn a specific social skill and gives them opportunities to practice these skills.  These students are grouped according to what they need to work on. 

Many of our students come to our school lacking the social skills required to have quality relationships with family members and peers.  For instance, I had a student (first grade at the time) who used to run to the coat rack and hide every time his peers laughed.  He perceived that they were laughing at him when really they thought things were funny and it was actually a very positive situation.  Through the Social Thinking Curriculum called SuperFlex he learned how to identify his problem referencing cartoon characters such as BrainEater, Glassman, etc.  As his teacher, I could quickly refer him to a character (privately) when he would run and hide.  Over time he began making the connection to his own behavior and slowly the behavior began to go away.  He battled with this for over a year.   It was not a quick fix.  Now, in fourth grade, he can look back at those moments and laugh because he has overcome it!  His thinking was changed and now he can respond to situations much more acceptable by his peers. 

Last Thoughts:

Though while developing programs to help our special needs students be accepted by their peers and a contributing member of society is an integral part of what we do, it doesn't end there.  I think we need to remember that acceptance is a choice.  We sometimes focus on how to help the special needs child change and adapt when sometimes I feel that it is we “typical” people that need to change and adapt to the special needs child.  We need to start looking deeper into why our typical students and teachers don’t accept the special needs children as they are.