Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Don't Read "Amelia Bedelia" to an Autistic Child
I learned something about autistic spectrum children because of the Tony-honored new play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. These children often have gaps in their ability to process figurative language. The play apparently beautifully illustrates and demonstrates how the world is experienced by someone autistic. For example, a woman onstage speaking of "the apple of my eye" has a piece of fruit on her face. The image is taken literally.
It made me recall the one day I was asked to try working on reading with an autistic student while I was still tutoring reading. We had a very noisy, distracting environment that day, and I used a poetry book as I recall, probably full of imagery and metaphors. My student got up and walked out of the library; I had to follow him, and our only real communication was kicking a ball back and forth before I futiley returned him to his class room. I had no training or understanding to begin to work with an autistic child and we had actually been instructed at the outset of my volunteering not to accept a special ed. student.
The Curious Incident is one of the brightest lights of the current Broadway season and won Best Play and four other awards at the Tonys last Sunday.
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I clicked on this link because I thought it was satire, as I continued reading I began to doubt that fact. Because of my own tendency to take things very literally please ignore the rest of this comment if it was truly was meant as satire and hopefully we can both laugh at the irony.
ReplyDeleteThe Amelia Bedelia books are the BEST to read to kids on the autism spectrum. There are a few ableist characters in the earlier books but the more recent books are a wonderful way to offer representation to kids. While, as far as I know, she is never blatantly stated to be on the spectrum, she is well known to be coded as such. I find these books very important because there is so little lighthearted representation of Autism, especially in children’s media.
As a special education teacher who is on the spectrum I find these books hilarious and comforting. As I teach high school, I don’t get the chance to bring out these books often. My students tend much more interested in “The Hate U Give” than Amelia Bedelia, but I joke about them constantly and my own silly misunderstandings. My students who fall on the spectrum think the books are hilarious because of their experiences, and my other students think they are hilarious because they’ve seen me do similar things!
Obviously, I’m only one person, and everyone’s experiences are different, but maybe next time before you post something like this you should ask a few people on the spectrum their thoughts first.
I clicked on this link because I thought it was satire, as I continued reading I began to doubt that fact. Because of my own tendency to take things very literally please ignore the rest of this comment if it was truly was meant as satire and hopefully we can both laugh at the irony.
ReplyDeleteThe Amelia Bedelia books are the BEST to read to kids on the autism spectrum. There are a few ableist characters in the earlier books but the more recent books are a wonderful way to offer representation to kids. While, as far as I know, she is never blatantly stated to be on the spectrum, she is well known to be coded as such. I find these books very important because there is so little lighthearted representation of Autism, especially in children’s media.
As a special education teacher who is on the spectrum I find these books hilarious and comforting. As I teach high school, I don’t get the chance to bring out these books often. My students tend much more interested in “The Hate U Give” than Amelia Bedelia, but I joke about them constantly and my own silly misunderstandings. My students who fall on the spectrum think the books are hilarious because of their experiences, and my other students think they are hilarious because they’ve seen me do similar things!
Obviously, I’m only one person, and everyone’s experiences are different, but maybe next time before you post something like this you should ask a few people on the spectrum their thoughts first.