Extractions: permission to reproduce articles from the Journal will normally be granted but must be obtained in advance from the editor. Views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of he British Council If a letter arrives addressed to my wife and me, and if I happen to be the one that opens it, I often start reading it aloud to her. Typically she will say, "Read it to yourself and I'll read it later." This is partly because she does not like my inevitable editorialising but much more because she really wants to SEE the person on the page through their handwriting. For her the handwriting is as important as the voice of a person is to me. This article invites you to do some activities with your students which involve them finding out about their own and their classmates' handwriting. Choosing the appropriate handwriting Give your students the following lines to copy out in their own handwriting: "If I raise an iron bar, I shall not feel the difference if a fly either lights on it or leaves it. If, on the other hand, I am holding a feather, I shall feel a distinct difference if the fly were to settle on it. The same applies to all the senses: hearing, sight, smell, taste, hot and cold." (M. Feldenkrais: Awareness through Movement, Arkana, 1990) Ask you students to work in groups of four and to read each other's copied texts. Their task is to decide, as a group, which of the four handwriting styles best expresses the Feldenkrais lines. Tell them that they will be asked to justify their choice.
Center For The Study Of Autism I had the worst handwriting in my class. Many autistic children have problems with Teaching generalization is often a problem for children with autism. http://www.autism.org/temple/tips.html
Extractions: (Revised: December 2002) Good teachers helped me to achieve success. I was able to overcome autism because I had good teachers. At age 2 1/2 I was placed in a structured nursery school with experienced teachers. From an early age I was taught to have good manners and to behave at the dinner table. Children with autism need to have a structured day, and teachers who know how to be firm but gentle. Between the ages of 2 1/4 and 5 my day was structured, and I was not allowed to tune out. I had 45 minutes of one-to-one speech therapy five days a week, and my mother hired a nanny who spent three to four hours a day playing games with me and my sister. She taught 'turn taking' during play activities. When we made a snowman, she had me roll the bottom ball; and then my sister had to make the next part. At mealtimes, every-body ate together; and I was not allowed to do any "stims." The only time I was allowed to revert back to autistic behavior was during a one-hour rest period after lunch. The combination of the nursery school, speech therapy, play activities, and "miss manners" meals added up to 40 hours a week, where my brain was kept connected to the world. 1.) Many people with autism are visual thinkers. I think in pictures. I do not think in language. All my thoughts are like videotapes running in my imagination. Pictures are my first language, and words are my second language. Nouns were the easiest words to learn because I could make a picture in my mind of the word. To learn words like "up" or "down," the teacher should demonstrate them to the child. For example, take a toy airplane and say "up" as you make the airplane takeoff from a desk. Some children will learn better if cards with the words "up" and "down" are attached to the toy airplane. The "up" card is attached when the plane takes off. The "down" card is attached when it lands.
