Author Archives: readers1

Asperger Syndrome rolled into new Autism Spectrum Disorder

For those like me curious about the actual proposed wording of the new section of the DSM-V (and I’ll admit I’m a wonk and want to see these things verbatim, not just interpreted for me by someone who thinks I can’t read well enough to understand it), here it is:

What were they thinking? Teach vocabulary!

Those of us attempting to help struggling readers on the spectrum to comprehend what they read in narrative, in text, are limited by the breadth of the child’s working vocabulary. Anything we can do to expand that working vocabulary pushes us closer to a grade-appropriate level of reading comprehension.

Hope for Haiti Telethon, Jan. 22; Need, today

It has nothing directly to do with reading or autism but everything to do with being a caring human being.

At 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, January 22, a voluntary collection of cable networks will simulcast the Hope for Haiti telethon to raise money for earthquake relief.
Actor George Clooney, Musician/singer Wyclef Jean (himself a Haitian) [...]

But then we already knew Sara was edgy…

We Teach We Learn (www.weteachwelearn.org) hosts a monthly blog carnival they call “The Edge of Education.”  We submitted Sara’s post Say what? Asking questions as one reads to the sponsors of the carnival, and they recently published the results, announcing that if they had an award, they’d call it an Edgy and declare Sara to be January’s winner! 
Chris [...]

Happy New Year!

 
Our New Years Eve was hectic.  We got hacked and had to restore both our websites, this one and The Demanding Classroom.  Readers With Autism is now back up and running and we’ve added security measures that should make us less vulnerable to a repeat performance.
Sorry if anyone was inconvenienced during the time we were offline.  Everyone [...]

Why I object to the term shadow

You may call me a paraeducator, a paraprofessional, a one-on-one aide, a special education technician, even a teacher’s aide…but please don’t call me a shadow or describe what I do as shadowing. The term shadow suggests that the aide never leaves the side of the child. That describes a bodyguard, not a paraeducator.