I would like to learn more about working with autistic children. I did not complete any courses helping me to work with children on the autism spectrum, so I need this kind of training.
Why are you interested in the ETTECEC project?
My preschool Pod Gradom from Ljubljana was invited to participate in the ETTECEC project and my group took part, because there are autistic children in my group. I would like to learn more about working with autistic children.
Tell us about your experience and needs working with autistic children and dealing with school issues.
The autistic child of the group can be quite loud when he plays and makes a lot of noise with the toys (dropping them hard on the floor), but he is never violent against others. He has trouble with food, he only eats certain things. The texture is very disturbing for him and he only touches certain kind of food with his hands. His thoughts are somewhere else and, sometimes, I don’t know if he is listening to me. When he is in a group and when he is moving, it gets even harder to reach him. He is just looking where his friends are. If he is too loud, I offer him a safe/quiet place, where he can play and relax. We see progress with the use of picture materials.
We cooperate with parents well. We arrange meetings when needed. Also, together with the special pedagogue, we decide how to deal with certain things, how to adjust and implement activities to the boy. We are mostly focused on the speech problems. We also exchange his notebook, in it he puts sticks about what he was doing in the kindergarten.
Why do you think that it is necessary to develop a training for pre-school teachers?
I did not complete any courses helping me to work with children on the autism spectrum, so we need this kind of training.
What would be the project’s most valuable information/tool/result for you?
I would need some courses/education, on how to plan activities, how to adjust them to children that have special needs. How to adjust the activities, without changing the goals.
ETTECEC project 