Is montessori education suitable for children with autism
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Transcript of Is montessori education suitable for children with autism
Is Montessori Education Suitable for Children
with Autism?
www.fridayschildmontessori.com
The big question for those reading this is whether
Montessori education is suitable for children with autism.
I can just about hear Maria Montessori shouting “Of course it is!” While children with autism will
need a bit of extra support no matter where they go for their early childhood education, the
Montessori method is particularly suitable.
In fact, many of the children who Maria Montessori originally
worked with as she developed her teaching methods could very well
have been autistic, as she first worked with children with severe
learning difficulties.
There are a number of features of Montessori education that
make it particularly suitable for a child with autism (or for any child, as Maria Montessori
proved).
Montessori education allows children to work and develop at
their own pace rather than expecting them to fit into a set
developmental timetable.
Children in a Montessori classroom can work on their own if they wish but they will still interact to some
degree with others, although autistic children may need a bit of
help with this.
The use of sensory materials and hands-on activities are also very suitable for children with autism, as they are very sensitive to non-
language sensory stimuli.
The order of the classroom, with everything having a “right” place also helps maintain the regularity
and predictability that children with autism need to feel secure
and safe.
It has to be acknowledged that if your child has autism, he or she will need extra help and support
compared to the other children in a Montessori classroom.
However, Montessori learning and teaching
blend extremely well with the methods used by behavioural
specialists.
On the home front, one thing that you can do to help a child with autism learn to interact with
others is to get a pet.
Pet therapy is often used to help these children learn how to
interact with others, as playing with animals doesn’t demand the same level of language and eye
contact as interacting with humans does.
Many people with autism end up working with animals later in life,
including farm work, pet grooming and veterinary assistants.
And what else can children with autism do when they
grow up?
There are plenty of jobs where their detachment, obsessive
tendencies and insistence on strict routine can be assets, although
they will need some help overcoming the hurdle of the job
interview.
Work in a factory on an assembly line is a very common career
choice for people with autism, but other people have done well as
computer programmers and technicians,
as journalists (reporting the bare facts in a detached and unbiased manner comes naturally for those
with autism) and as laboratory assistants – and even leading
research scientists.
This is brought to you by
Fridays Child Montessori