Autism Awareness Month: Benicia Students

April is National Autism Awareness Month. It is estimated there are more than 500,000 children with autism in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in every 110 or .9 percent of children have autism. For parents, that is a scary statistic.

Linda Cole, director of special services of the , estimates that the special-education program serves 510 students between the ages of 3 and 22. About 7 percent are eligible under the autism criteria, so that's 35 children. Because not all Benicia students with autism receive special education, that number may be closer to 45.

Although the diagnosis of autism in children is on the rise, many people don't know what autism is or what it looks like.

First off, the term is children with autism versus autistic children, because a person is not defined by his or her disability. Instead they are a person who happens to have a disability.

There is a wide spectrum of autism, from severe to Asperger's syndrome at the high-functioning level. No two people with autism look alike. It's called a variable disorder, meaning it can improve and worsen.

People with autism often have impaired communication skills, including difficulty initiating and sustaining social interactions. Many have restricted, repetitive behaviors and/or interests.

Teens who are mildly affected by autism or Asperger's syndrome, communicate in a manner unlike their peers. Often, they don't realize that they have spent too much time on a subject. They may enjoy one thing, such as a cartoon, video game or book, so much that they want to tell everyone about it. They are unable to sense that it's time to move on to another subject.

At the other end of the spectrum, a person severely impacted by autism has great difficulty communicating.

Louise Garrison is the special autism class teacher at . The goal is to teach students to communicate better and express themselves.

“The challenges are sometimes people don't understand our methods, which are  based on positive behavioral interventions, the recommended form of dealing with this population of children,” she said.

Garrison finds the job rewarding. “It is absolutely wonderful to work with students with autism. I come home at the end of every day completely filled up with joie de vivre.”

“These kids do not have a manipulative bone in their body and only know how to be honest," she said. “Every interaction I have with them is authentic and real. When we laugh in class, we really laugh. When we're sad, we're really sad. They teach me so much. I feel so lucky I get to go work and get to have all these real human interactions all day long.”

Special education has changed drastically over the past 30 years, the most noticeable change being the idea of inclusion.

“My students are profoundly impacted by autism, but they still go to some classes with general-education students,” Garrison said.

Federal law states that, when appropriate, students with disabilities will be educated in settings with children without disabilities. “I think it is good for my students and good for the general-education students because they learn a little bit about autism and they learn that it is OK to be different,” she said. 

Watch for more stories about autism awareness this month.