11 Myths of Autism

People with autism don’t want friends. If someone in your class has autism, she probably struggles with social skills, which may make it difficult to interact with peers.

1. She might seem shy or unfriendly, but that’s just because she is unable communicate her desire for relationships the same way you do.

2. People with autism can’t feel or express any emotion— happy or sad. Autism doesn’t make an individual unable to feel the emotions you feel, it just makes the person communicate emotions (and perceive your expressions) in different ways.

3. People with autism can’t understand the emotions of others. Autism often affects an individual’s ability to understand unspoken interpersonal communication, so someone with autism might not detect sadness based solely on one’s body language or sarcasm in one’s tone of voice.

But, when emotions are communicated more directly, people with autism are much more likely to feel empathy and compassion for others.

4. People with autism are intellectually disabled. Often times, autism brings with it just as many exceptional abilities as limitations. Many people with autism have normal to high IQs and some may excel at math, music or another pursuit.

5. People with autism are just like Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rain Man. Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning its characteristics vary significantly from
person to person. Knowing one person with autism means just that—knowing one person with autism.

His or her capabilities and limitations are no indication of the capabilities and limitations of another person with autism.

6. People who display qualities that may be typical of a person with autism are just odd and will grow out of it. Autism stems from biological conditions that affect brain development and, for many individuals, is a life long condition.

7. People with autism will have autism forever. Recent research has shown that children with autism can make enough improvement after intensive early intervention to “test out” of the autism diagnosis. This is more evidence for the importance of addressing autism when the first signs appear.

8. Autism is just a brain disorder. Research has shown that many people with autism also have gastro- intestinal disorders, food sensitivities, and many allergies.

9. Autism is caused by bad parenting. In the 1950s, a theory called the “refrigerator mother hypothesis” arose suggesting that autism was caused by mothers who lacked emotional warmth. This has long been disproved.

10. The prevalence of autism has been steadily increasing for the last 40 years. The rate of autism has increased by 600% in the last 20 years. In 1975, an estimated 1 in 1,500 had autism. In 2009, an estimated 1 in 110 had an autism spectrum disorder.

11. Therapies for people with autism are covered by insurance. Most insurance companies exclude autism from the coverage plan and only half of the 50 states currently require coverage for treatments of autism
spectrum disorders.

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An Heart of Gratitude

Would you like to improve the culture in your classroom and your life? Try gratitude. Based on my ten years of teaching experience, this is the most powerful tool that I know.

Gratitude has empowered me to teach more effectively, appreciate my individual students, grow in my profession, and enjoy life. Utilizing gratitude, I am able to model one of the most important lessons in life, having a positive attitude, especially about the aspects of life that challenge me.

Gratitude Journal:

To get started in your classroom with gratitude, I recommend actually writing your own gratitude list for a few weeks and feeling its power. Then you can
share your example and start the activity with your students. You might start your gratitude journal with being thankful for being alive, for having food to eat and clothes to wear. If you can think about something related to teaching that you're grateful for, that's even more powerful.

My students use a composition book and start every day by writing five gratitudes. If you have computers or iPads, you might have the students start a file to save their daily gratitude journal. By the end of the year, we each have almost 1,000 gratitudes.

I show the students an example or let them see this form:

1. Thanks for ___________________________.
2. Thanks for ___________________________.
3. Thanks for ___________________________.

Once a week, we go around the class and share our favorite gratitude. I am always encouraged and pleasantly surprised by what my students share. I get to learn about things going on in their lives that I might not hear about otherwise. This helps build a positive culture in our classroom.

In addition, I suggest that the students should be specific. For example, instead of writing, "Thank you for lunch," I would write, "Thank you for the tomatoes
and lettuce in my salad and for the cool, sweet iced tea with friends," or "Thank you for the nutritious lunch made by loving hands."

Exercising the Muscle

Gratitude seems to work like a muscle, and the physical action of writing a gratitude list helps develop "gratitude muscles." A recent study by Professor Philip Watkins from Eastern Washington
University, published in School Psychology Review , showed that those who are the least grateful seem to gain the most from making this effort .

That is good news to those us who may find it hard to start a gratitude list.
Sometimes I really challenge the students by asking if they can be thankful for homework or chores. This
challenge enables them to see what is good about homework -- that it helps them learn and prepares them for school and life.

In her article "Gratitude Activities for the Classroom," Vicki Zakrzewski of the Greater Good Science Center lists many more gratitude activities to try in your
classroom. This year, a new activity that I started in my classroom is writing down gratitudes on sticky notes and putting them on our classroom door, so that we have a positive reminder every time we enter and leave the room.

Students will even take this idea home and post gratitudes on sticky notes around their homes, reminding them to stay grateful.

Visible Change

Recent research by two leaders in the field of gratitude and education, Dr. Robert Emmons and Dr. Jeffrey Froh, supports the idea that gratitude improves the lives of students and adults. It illustrates how:

Keeping a gratitude journal on a daily basis helps students achieve the following:

1. Higher grades
2. Higher goals
3. More satisfaction with relationships, life, and school
4. Less materialism
5. More willingness to give back.

For adults, keeping a gratitude journal enables people to:

1. Be more optimistic
2. Experience more social satisfaction
3. Exercise more often
4. Have less envy and depression
5. Have fewer physical complaints
6. Sleep better.

I see these positive changes in my students. One of them saved her allowance and bought gratitude journals for her family. Her mom was in nursing
school and very stressed. At the dinner table, they would share their gratitudes for the day and grow as a family.

The mom came to me and thanked me for teaching gratitude to her daughter and helping her family. She said it helped her get through nursing school.

Tapping the Potential:

Dr. Kerry Howells, a leading researcher into gratitude and education, actually trains teachers to utilize gratitude in the classroom.

I challenge you to try it yourself and see how it works. My friends who have written a daily gratitude journal for at least two weeks speak positively of the
experience. Gratitude has transformed many lives.

It is true that our focus can stimulate growth. If I focus on the good and I am grateful, more comes into my life.

Conversely, if I complain and focus on the negative, more of that is drawn into my life. For me, the fruit of the focus on gratitude is happiness.

Finally, check out Gratefulness.org for extra gratitude resources.

Courtesy : http://www.edutopia.org