Advancing Autism Education, Near and Far

Any veteran special education teacher will tell you: There’s no way to predict how a student with autism will fare in the classroom. Jason could have an aversion to loud noises, making recess his daily hell. If Kate doesn’t eat lunch—a plain bologna sandwich and three Oreo cookies—at precisely noon, she could launch into a screaming fit. Christopher might be fairly even-tempered, with a rich vocabulary and mild obsession with the solar system, but he can’t sit through a lesson without flapping his hands. Autism—defined by the triad of social anxiety, communication impairments, and repetitive behaviors—is notoriously diverse, which is intimidating to teachers, according to Danielle Liso, assistant professor of special education at the School of Education. “You could put a dozen students in a lineup, all of whom have autism, and you wouldn’t necessarily know why they’re all standing in the same line,” she says. “It’s a huge challenge.” And a growing one: Today in the United States about one in 100 children are diagnosed with autism—up from one in 150 just three years ago.Before advising parents and teachers on how best to teach these children to learn and communicate, Liso says, it’s imperative to raise awareness of what autism is—an incurable disease of early brain development—and to dispel myths about what causes it and how best to treat it.Read more at...Johns Hopkins Magazine, September 2010.