When I first arrived at the YALT program, I was given a schedule for the off campus activities taking place this month. Each individual in the program was assigned to go on each outing depending on their needs, ability level, and wants. Each student also has the weekly class schedule taped to the front of their binder so they know what their schedule is for each day and what time each class starts and ends. The morning classes are normally 50 minutes long. After each class the students get a ten minute break until their next class. Normally between 12:15 – 1:15 the students have lunch. They are allowed to go to lunch anywhere they wish or stay at YALT. They are also responsible for coming back to class on time. Scheduling and instruction are far more successful if activities are planned ahead and followed through. It’s good to be “predictable” in the sense that the staff and individuals depend on you. When you don’t show up everyone, the staff and individuals in the program, is affected. Many of the individuals, such as those with autism, can be thrown off if their routine is changed.
In the afternoon, they have an elective course that they all participate in unless they have an internship scheduled for that day of the week. On Monday, they have art class. Tuesday is fitness and healthy living. Wednesday is technology and Thursday is independent living. These elective courses run until 3:00. From 3-3:15 the students fill out a log about their day, what they learned, what they enjoyed, what they didn’t enjoy and any other comments they feel are necessary. At 3:30 the program ends and the students go home. Each student has different classes and different teachers. The program is built around each individual’s needs, wants, and is very proactive. All of the students are not doing the same activities in the same place at all times, making the program very accommodating to all types of students with varied needs.
For the first class, I sat in on the students doing budgeting, more specifically counting money. They were all given a worksheet to complete. There were about twenty problems on the sheet. Each problem was the same type of problem with different numbers. The teacher went over an example for the students and then let them work on the problems on their own. An example problem would be: Find the next amount of money in the series: $2.25, $2.30, _. The students took almost the entire time to complete the problems, with some of them not finishing before they were stopped to go over the problems. The teacher first picked a random question to go over. Then she asked which of the problems they had trouble with and those problems were explained. She went through each problem, guiding them step by step, but not giving the students the answer. With each question they also discussed which type of coin was being added in each problem.

The next class I was able to participate in was careers, with two students who have a goal of getting their GED. The students were given a four page packet which included a reading passage and questions to follow up on the reading. The packet was U.S history related, talking about the discovery of America and the thirteen colonies. It was meant to give them practice on reading, answering comprehensive questions on that reading and to have them commit the information to memory. Both comprehension skills and this topic might appear on the GED. Each student read out loud. Afterward, they were asked questions by their teacher on what they had just read to test their understanding of the reading. This included vocabulary and understanding each individual sentence. In terms of vocabulary, the students were asked to circle words they didn’t understand and then were prompted to use the context of the sentence to try to understand the meaning of the word. The teacher also asked the students to flip over the reading to see if they could recall what the paragraphs were about that they just read, attempting to try to get them to focus on committing the information to memory. After going through all of the reading with the students, quizzing them on various topics along the way, they read and answered the questions at the end of the reading. These questions were examples of the types of questions that would appear on the GED.
At the beginning of the exercise, the students seemed to struggle with remembering the information when they were asked to turn their packet over so they couldn’t read for the answers. The two students were able to read all the words correctly, but when it came to trying to figure out the meaning of the word based on the context of the sentence, they were not able to without prompting. They had no problem answering the questions in the packet for GED practice which shows that the discussion they had beforehand helped their comprehension.
For their art elective in the afternoon, the students had to pick a cartoon and draw it. Most of the students followed step by step directions in order to do this. One student was able to draw the cartoon she picked in proportion by just looking at the end result. Other students chose to trace the cartoon. After all the students were done, they colored in the pictures and added other cartoon characters and a background. This activity was to get them to use their cerebrum and fine motor skills to complete the task. Part of setting up a positive environment is providing activities that the individuals can be successful in and interested in. Although it seems that drawing cartoons would be inappropriate for college age students, they enjoyed picking out their favorite cartoons to draw and this activity was at their level of artistic ability. Drawing the cartoons was a challenge for most, and relaxing for those who didn’t struggle. Designing the background gave them all a venue to use their imagination as well.

On Wednesday, I sat in on the budgeting class again. Today, they had to decide which item was the better deal in each problem. To do this they had to find the unit price for each item. Which ever item had the smallest unit price was the better deal. They began the budget problems by doing a question together and were then told to try them on their own. Several of the students struggled with these problems. I began to work with one of the newer students to the program. He had tried to start the first problem on his own but appeared stuck. I asked if he needed help and he willingly accepted my offer. As we started the problem, I tried to refer him back to the example we had previously completed, but that just made him have trouble separating the two problems. He performed the correct calculations but with mixed numbers from both problems. To get him to concentrate on the problem at hand, I covered the other problems on the paper. Now the numbers within the problem were being mixed up. So I began to cover up the opposite half of the problem that we were doing. We then went through all the steps and finished the problem. I always let him try to complete the next one on his own, but he seemed to have the same problems over and over again. Working on the problems was as repetitious as I had been taught. These math problems were ones they might use in their everyday life. In this case, when shopping for groceries you would buy the item that gives you more food for a lower cost. They discussed how if they wanted to bring a calculator into the store and figure out which item had the lowest unit price they could, but it would be more likely that they estimated the prices by doing math in their head.
In the afternoon, the students went to lunch and I had already eaten lunch. I stayed back in the YALT office and read the students’ files. I was surprised at how detailed they were. There is a full outline of the abilities they can perform from everyday living to academics. The chart outlines their disability thoroughly. It gives their developmental diagnosis, their fine motor skills (such as ability to draw a circle), and their ability to bathe themselves, for an example. The staff keeps daily logs of all the students that outline their academic, motor, social and adaptive performance each day. At the end of the month, they write up a summary on their development, giving activities that were overall performed well, and those that they need to improve upon.
It was interesting to interact with some of the people and then to see the disabilities they struggle with. The program really serves a wide variety of students at all different social and academic levels. I have not met all of the students yet, but once I know all the students and their disabilities it will be interesting to see all of their pathology in real life outside of the textbooks.
In the afternoon they had technology/computer skills. The students were asked to find a recent news article that was interesting to share with the other students. They were also asked to find a fun video and post it onto their homepage to share with the other students. Searching for more academic based news articles, finding vides on online, and posting those videos onto their homepages were their goals for the day. When they posted the videos they also learned how to write comments to each other. It’s a rarity for a younger generation individual to succeed academically and socially without the use of a computer. This exercise gives them another fun venue to socialize with their classmates outside of the program hours and also gives them important computer skills. Although it is hard to generalize the ability levels of the students, the students with Down syndrome seem to have adequate searching skills and were able to post comments. They did, however, have trouble remembering the steps to post the videos on their homepage.

In the morning, the students had a disability advocacy meeting. They meet once a month with people from the community, of all ages, who have disabilities. Each year they plan an event to promote the idea that people with disabilities are capable members of the community. This month they discussed ideas on a theme or slogan for the advocacy event and talked about activities they could do at the event.
After the meeting, the students had budgeting class. At this class they had to use the advertisement papers to find out how much a certain amount of food would cost them to buy. The foods they had to buy were for a Super Bowl party. They had no trouble finding the foods they needed in the adds. The trouble came when calculating the price it would be to buy the amount of items the sheet asked them to buy. Here is where the teacher had to use the three different teaching methods that I spoke about earlier (visual, auditory and kinesthetic). Each intern then repeated the method to the students once she showed her example. She used calculators as the items to be bought. For example, if the add said two bags of chips cost $5.00 and we need to buy three bags. We need one more bag. The students were shown the two “bags of chips”, which were really calculators, and asked how many more “bags of chips” they needed according to the problem. Once they figured out that they needed one more, which was half of the amount of the two bags for $5.00, they were able to decide (with help) that they needed to divide 5 by 2 to get 2.5. The next step was to add that number to the cost of the other two bags. Therefore, three bags cost $7.50. This method seemed to help the students more than just verbally expressing the problem.
In the afternoon, the students broke up into three groups depending on their skill level and cooked three different foods. One group made chicken wing dip, one group made cookies, and the other made English muffin pizzas. I watched the group who made the cookies. They seemed to be able to perform all the tasks for making the cookies. The balls of dough they made ranged in size, and therefore, they did not make 35 cookies, which were what the recipe called for. What was important was that they were able to correctly follow the directions and make the cookies. The only thing they did not do was plan ahead while going through the directions. We had to prompt them to begin to prepare for the next steps while one step was being performed. They, however, work well in a group by taking turns and sharing the work load.
The students who worked with the chicken wing dip received a lesson on how to cook chicken. This is an important life skill that many people would assume that college age people would have acquired, but these students rarely ever cook for themselves. They were told about salmonella and the importance of cooking the chicken completely. A few of the students are looking to move out of their parents home, and this healthy living cooking seminar will help the students to better adapt to that situation and allow them to be more independent whether they live at home with their parents or not. After the students shared their food with each other, we discussed what was hard for each student, what part was easy, and if they thought they could do this at their houses without supervision. Most of the students expressed fear in using the stove or oven with out help.

Today for their budgeting class the students had to plan a Super Bowl party for 30 of their friends and stay within a budget for food and decorations. They were asked to use a certain website to buy their decorations and then decide if they met their budget or not. Thirty minutes into the class they went into a study room in the library to discuss if they stayed in their budget and strategies they would use in real life to stay within their budget.

To start off the Monday, all of the students were gathered together to discuss the contract of their internships. Each student is either working or participating in an internship. For example, some of the students will do maintenance at Canisius College or work at the SPCA. At their internships each student has a staff member to guide them through their responsibilities and make sure the job is done completely. A staff member and the students verbally went through the contract which explained and outlined their responsibilities at their internship or place of employment. For example, they are required to wear proper attire, be on time to their work/internship, and act respectfully. They all verbally agreed and signed the contract.
Afterward, the students took part in a relationship seminar. It was interesting to see their views on relationships. Their ideas about the difference between friends and those who are dating were very infantile at first. With prompting from their teacher, the students were more open and discussed personal experiences.
I believe that this is a topic that is often over looked when talking about developmental disabilities in many classes at Canisius College as well as other colleges. Many people over look the idea that individuals with a disability have the same sexual drives as those who do not have a developmental disability. It’s ironic to imagine, for example, a person who has a room full of stuffed animals thinking about, and often times, acting on their sexuality, but it does occur. Many of these students have dated or are currently dating someone. It’s important for them to know the distinction between friendship and a person you date, as well as the implications that arise from dating.
Currently, in the program, there is a situation where one of the female students wants to date another male student. He, however, does not want to date her. She persistently asks him to be her boyfriend and when he declines or just ignores her totally, she calls him her boyfriend anyway. The staff, as well as other students, has continually told her that she cannot make the other student be her boyfriend. The desire for a relationship has to be reciprocated in order for it to be a relationship. One of the staff members decided to ask the person teaching the seminar using a hypothetical, if it was ok for his friend to try to change someone’s mind about being in a relationship in order to maybe address the situation without calling the females student out in front of a group. The discussion then moved into talking about relationships and how reciprocity was required for relationships, friendship or dating. We hoped that this would get through to the student because she had already had many one-on-one discussions with different staff members about this topic without a change in her behavior.

The students had their normal community awareness class in the morning. They looked for activities going on around campus by reading posters and flyers in the school tunnels. This class allows the students to get out into the school community and to pick activities that they might participate in as a class and with the rest of the student body and community.
At lunch time, I sit with the students. It’s always interesting because I get to see their social interactions which are not unlike normal college students. As I discussed before, the topic of sexuality is often over looked when teaching about developmental disabilities. These students experience the same situations and feelings as we do in our relationships, friendly or/and sexually. The feelings and drives of those with developmental disabilities are the same as ours but they can, however, manifest in a less mature form. For example, today we had two female volunteers working with the students and sitting in on classes. They sat with us at lunch as well and the boys wasted no time until they started flirting. They told secrets to each other and giggled back and forth. They also waved and said hello to the girls every time they could. It was interesting to see the boys so interested in girls, since this was the first time they expressed themselves in this way. I also heard a few “hubba, hubbas” being said, as the girls walked over or gave them any sort of attention. I believe the boys thought they were talking in more of a whisper than they really were.
In the afternoon, the students had book club where they did a book search on the Buffalo Library website. It was unmistakable that the website was very user friendly. The students had no trouble using their directions to find the books that were an option for mass order. If they could agree on a book that they all wanted to read, the YALT program would order the books to rent so they all could read together and have more interactive discussion about their reading. They may also be able to help each other understand what they are reading.
The next activity in their schedule was a scavenger hunt where they had to travel around campus to find the information that answered the questions. Each question was directed toward community awareness with intent to make the students aware of their surroundings and the resources available to them at Canisius.

In the morning, the students worked on making change and budgeting depending on their ability level. After lunch, the students had book club where they all told about the books they were reading. It’s awesome to see the students’ progress to different reading levels and to hear how they started out with easy reads and now some are able to read astronomy books. Right now they all are reading different books, but if the Buffalo Library search they did earlier in the week works out, they may be able to read the same books and improve their book club experiences.

Today the students who have a goal of moving out, and those who need to learn to be more independent, learned how to do laundry. They learned the steps, how to separate the clothing, and how to remove stains. They will be practicing each week on their classes’ gym clothes (t-shirts and shorts). The students were asked to devise their own plan to wash the clothes. They had to decide what time to leave, how long it will take, how much money it will cost, transportation, etc. Part of being independent is being able to plan ahead in simple daily situations. This seems obvious but a lot of these students don’t have to do this for their self at home. Doing your own laundry is an important skill that they aren’t always taught at home because a lot of the time it may be easier and more time efficient to just do the laundry for them, rather than teach them to do it for their self.

Today I was present for careers class where one of the students is working on getting his GED. He read a few current event articles to work on his reading comprehension and was asked to explain the articles to us the best he could.
Looking back on the week, it was very apparent how autism can cause social isolation for some of those who have it. One of the students has autism and is very friendly, greeting all the students and staff, but he talks very loudly at inappropriate times often interrupting his classmates and sometimes about inappropriate topics. His classmates get very annoyed with him because he does not change his habits even when they ask him to or tell them that they don’t like something. For example, he often calls his peers by their full names when they prefer a nickname. They end up getting frustrated and believe he is calling them their full name to annoy them. As a result, he often sits by himself at lunch in an entirely different food place. The students also describe him as annoying and they don’t like him. He also does not like change. When the routine that he expected from the day is changed, which it is often is, he asks many questions about the change and often seems to need to take time to adjust. The students don’t seem to understand why the change even if it is quite small, “It throws him off” and again become frustrated because they cannot get things done as a group.
I have also experienced him avoiding social situations. This is a behavior that we learned about in class as well. In his case, his social avoidance is that he often doesn’t let anyone sit next to him. Normally he stops them verbally before they do, but if he by chance doesn’t, he simple gets up and moves to the seat over. He will sit next to people when they are doing things in a large group though. This is an interesting observation. Perhaps he feels less stress or pressure in a larger group compared to a one on one social situation.

In the morning, the students did their counting and adding money class. This time the students didn’t have to just draw the bills they would use to pay for the item. They were given a few bills to pretend they had in their pocket to pay for the item. Since they won’t have exact change to pay for the item, they have to round up and figure out which would be the best bills to use to pay for their item. Unfortunately, the students really struggled with this idea. There seemed to be a disconnect with going from the worksheet to real bills. The students did not understand that they couldn’t pay for something that was $11.50 with only $11. They also did not understand that paying for something that is $15.00 by giving us $30 instead of $20 didn’t make sense. It was good that this way of counting and adding money was used so we could see what the students needed to work on, but we needed to come up with something that would help then translate the concepts from paper into a real life situation.

On Tuesday, I came back to YALT with an idea to help the students translate the paper concept to real life situation. I told the staff the idea and she tried it since I wouldn’t be present for the class today. She told me she would let me know how it worked.

The students had their regular classes in the morning\ followed by art in the afternoon. Their art project in the afternoon was to make a poster/flyer for their advocacy group activity in October of this year. They could come up with their own theme or use the “follow your dreams” theme that the committee came up with earlier that month. The students seem to enjoy drawing, but it was difficult for them to transmit the theme into simple pictures that others could understand the theme just by looking at the poster.

Based on a lot research, social impairment is a common feature of ASD. A common misperception is that those with autism lack interest in relating to others, but, this is untrue. Autistic Individuals do not choose to isolate themselves. They just lack the skills essential for developing peer relationships and socializing with others. Some common social deficits are:

These are not easy concepts to master if these skills have not been learned through exposure to real-life scenarios. It is difficult for those with autism to acquire social skills that come to many of us naturally. In order to acquire social skills, those with ASD must be taught and then have the chance to practice them over and over again. It is so important to not decide that a certain number of trials are enough for them to learn, and if they don’t, they won’t ever. There is often still hope after many trials and effort is often given up too soon. For this reason, a social skills class is enacted at YALT for those who need it. The last point is one that was worked on a few weeks ago, when the students were given a situation and were asked to predict the outcome. At the time it was described, one might ask how this is beneficial. It’s beneficial because it targets a skill that those with autism normally lack.
It’s critical that the staff at YALT make an effort to teach social skills despite the challenges. Otherwise, the students will lack the ability to interact with peers one-on-one, or in an informal group, which is an important skill for the work force and being an active part of a community. These are goals that most of the students hope to achieve by the end of their time in the program.
The students were split up into many different groups for their classes this morning. One of the students had to look at many different scenarios and decide weather it would be safe. For example, a cleaning product was given along with its usage and warning description and the student had to decide whether of not they could use the cleaner on a certain surface or not. Another group of students were in social skills. Their task today was simply to socialized with each other, converse, ask questions and hold conversations amongst themselves for the entire class. The students were unhappy about having to do this as expected. The students in this class are the students who have markedly low social skills. They feel uncomfortable in social situations, often don’t know how to start a conversation, and do not work well with others. Many of the students in this class are in fact, autistic, but once the conversations started they soon became more open, and talkative, even though they were still not relaxed and rigidly carrying out the task given to them. It was interesting to see the dynamics of the group conversation and compare what was expected from the group within their disability. The social impairment manifested in each student uniquely, and it goes to show that we can define these developmental disabilities, but each person is unique, and diagnosis of disabilities and mental illness is certainly a challenge that takes experience and practice.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Today, I lead the social skills class. The class was based on discussion. My job was to lead the students into certain topics for discussion, keep them on task and direct their conversations to appropriate resolutions. The topics of discussion were relationships, conflicts within relationships and earning independence. The students mostly discussed relationships with their parents, which allowed for a good transition into earning independence. Most of the relationship conflicts consisted of their parents treating them like they are younger than they are, lecturing them on hygiene, and not allowing them the freedoms they believe they deserve. For example, one of the students wants to ride the metro to the YALT program but his mother doesn’t believe he can handle it. We discussed how he can approach the situation. First, he should start off small and tell her that he wants to ride the metro. Then ride the metro with his mother and show her that he has the ability to ride the metro, be responsible, courteous to others, arrive on time, and is able to use the metro system successfully. Finally, when his mother is comfortable, he will take the metro to Y.A.L.T. and arrive on time and prepared. The students came up with plans to resolve each of their individual conflicts by discussing them with each other. They also found that many of them are in similar situations. Hopefully, knowing that they aren’t the only people experiences these conflicts will allow them to not only discuss these types of conflicts and overcome them in social skills class, but outside of class, with friends, like most people their age do.

In counting and adding money, we have been working on paying an appropriate amount for an item with the bills the students have in their pocket. The exercise attempts to teach the students how to use the skills they learn in class in real life situations. The students haven’t had trouble with most situations, but only certain situations. The students were given a five dollar bill, 2 one dollar bills, a ten dollar bill and a twenty dollar bill as the bills in their pocket. If the item they are buying is $7.25, for example, they want to give the “cashier” the five dollar bill and the two one dollar bills to pay, forgetting the change. This week, the students were able to correctly round up in these situations, for this same example, the students gave the $10 bill to pay for the items, instead of the seven dollars. It was a nice improvement after several weeks of working on the same concept.

In alliance with the special education majors, the students at YALT participated in a campaign to end the “R-word”. The education majors made a huge sign saying “End the R-word” and had students pledge to stop using the word “retard” in derogatory social contexts and to describe intellectually disabled people. The special education majors stood near the sign and tried to get students, teachers, and other members of the Canisius College community to pledge. The YALT students did the same by giving pencils, candy and stickers to those who did pledge. There was a lot of traffic going by and many people pledged to stop using the R-word, so many that the students had to make another sign for people to continue to pledge. The campaign worked out very well. The education majors were able to interact with the YALT students and vice versa. The YALT students were also able to get out onto the college campus and see how the other students at Canisius change classes, interact on breaks, etc. It was a good experience for the students to develop community awareness and work toward a cause that is close to their own hearts, because they experiences the after effects of the use of the R-word everyday.