Teaching with Passion: Tara Allen’s Approach to Autism Education

In this episode of Rollin' with the Dolans, Patrick and Tamekia are joined by special guest Tara Allen, an experienced educator specializing in special education and autism. Tara shares insights from her 10+ years of experience, including the challenges and rewards of teaching children with autism. She discusses the importance of treating students as individuals first, overcoming learned behaviors, and the essential role parents play in supporting their child's education. This episode highlights the need for compassion, patience, and effective communication in the classroom. 

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Transcript

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Welcome to Rollin with the Dolans. I'm Patrick Dolan. And I'm Tameka Dolan. Our podcast focuses on the joys and challenges of blending families, our interracial marriage, parents and children of multiple ages, and the journey of entrepreneurship. We share our daily life experiences with a positive but real perspective. Today's topic is focused on educating kids with autism, and we have a special guest today. Would you like to do the introduction? Welcome you can say who she is and then I'll read her bio. All right. We have with us today, Tara Allen. Okay, so Tara. Hey. Hey. So Tara and I have been friends since high school. So how many years is that? 50. Listen, okay. Not 50. But I really can't count. How many is that, Tara? Let's try over 30. Okay. All right. so I'm going to read Tara's bio. She's been an educator for over 10 years, specializing in special education across all grade levels. She recently completed a master's and specialist degree and a certification in educational leadership. Currently, she is teaching autistic children, which are from kindergarten to second grade. Did I say all that right? That sounds like a lot. Yes. All right. Okay. We got some questions. You want to start, Mr. Doehler? Sure. I'll start with a kind of basic one. Just trying to understand what inspired you to work with children with autism? Because I have taught special education for so many years, I've never had a class with all autistic children. I did back in 2010 or 11. I taught a self contained classroom, but I only had two autistic students in there and that was so long ago. And because I completed my certification in Ed Leadership, it gave me, it made me want to do education at a different level of special education. So that was my motivation for that, just to learn teach, learning, teaching from a different perspective. Okay, so since we talked about Almost every day. I know about your transition from high school to elementary school. So how was that transition? The transition wasn't hard because I went from elementary to high school and now i'm back to elementary which I Enjoy it a lot more because the kids are more engaged and it's easier to get them to do what you need them to do In the time frame that you have What are some of the challenges that you have, teaching kids with autism? The challenges that I have teaching children with autism is getting out of the mindset that they have a disability and treat them like normal children to get them to learn the way that the state and the district want them to learn. They want them to learn as normal children. So I went in. The mindset of, I'm not going to look at them as they have autism, I'm going to look at them like they are students and teach them what they need to learn to move them to the next level. And then the big challenge for me was undoing bad behaviors that they have learned over the years. What I mean by that is, when they come to you and say, open this for me, now I'm teaching them, can you open this for me, please? Undoing all those bad habits and then when they can't have what they want, they yell and scream. We're undoing a lot of that in my classroom. Do you feel like some of those behaviors are mostly learned at home or at school? I want to say both because if it's not taken care of at home and then you get these teachers, some of us, I'm not going to say all teachers, and I'm not going to point fingers, but some of us will get these kids in our classrooms and when we give in to those behaviors like we would if we were at home, and so the challenging part is undoing all of that and having them know the difference between home and school, and I feel like because they are younger starting at kindergarten, Having them to understand that early on by the time they get to the 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, they already have that mindset. This is school and this is how we act at school versus falling all out at home, falling all out at the grocery store because they can't have their way. Okay, that makes sense because, we're a big believer in it takes a village to raise kids. So with that being said, how do you involve parents and caregivers in supporting their children's education and social development? What I did at the beginning of this school year is I sent out a parent questionnaire and I asked the parents, I think it was like 25 questions. Things that their students cannot answer on their own. Especially, I have two children that are non verbal. How are they whenever they're angry? How are they whenever they're happy? How are they whenever they're hungry? How are they whenever they need to go to the bathroom? They can't articulate that for me, so I rely on the parents to give me that information. Also, what makes your kid happy? What is something that they like to do, that they enjoy doing, and something that they will work for? One thing I did learn about autistic children is that if you give them an incentive, something that they want to do, They will work towards that. And then another thing that I learned about them, over the course of the month that we've been in school is that they will work for a task and their extension, their attention span is very short. So you'll have them do a task and then they go do a desired task. And then you have them come back, do something different. And then they go back to a desired task. So asking the parents daily. Even in the mornings, I have asked parents, How were they last night? How are they this morning? If they're having a rough morning, that determines how we receive them in the morning. If they're having a good morning, that also determines how we receive them in the morning. Having that communication with the parents daily is key in an autistic classroom. So you mentioned the nonverbal, how do you deal with them on a daily basis? How do you communicate with them? Because they're so young and the parents haven't introduced them to what is called a communication board So what I'm doing for them is introducing them to the communication board So what a communication board is it'll have one word I want or to say more or whatever Just teach them to point to the things that they want. But because I have four children You of my own, you pick up on their mannerisms. You pick up on what they say, what they point, they come and get you. It's the same thing at home when you're teaching your own children, how to communicate. So that's what I'm working with them on in the classroom. And it's going to take a minute to get them to understand how to use the communication board because it's overwhelming. And so it doesn't have everything on it that you use on a daily basis. So figuring that out and then trying to figure out what to add to it. And then refer back to the communication board every time that you communicate with them. I think I need to learn more about this communication board. See if we can use it ourselves. Laughter. Wait, so an abort will. What would you want to say on the communication board? What would you say? I think it's more for you to be able to say Mr. Dolan, what are you supposed to be doing today? Okay, that makes sense. All right. So like I said, again, we talk a lot and at the end of the day, I'm like, okay, how was your day? And most days are challenging, but you always find the good and updated to me seems like a lot. Like I, would you be able to do her job, Mr. Dolan? No. That was a dry no. Okay can you share an example of a breakthrough moment or significant progress you've seen in a student? Now be, let's be mindful, so school has only been in for how many months? One, actually. Oh, only one? You might not have seen a significant breakthrough, which I know you'll see those throughout the year, but maybe an example of something small where you've seen that child go from the parent or the other teachers assuming that they can't do a certain thing, and within a month, you've made a difference. Can you give us an example of that? I do have one student that comes to mind and I love him dearly. He's so sweet. But His issue is he's the youngest in his family and he's not used to hearing the word no he's not used to People saying if you don't do this, then you're not gonna be able to do this So he's used to if he yell and scream and cry he gets what he wants we've gone from August 1st to September 30th. So it's almost like Month almost two months of school now he's not yelling and screaming as much as he did at the beginning of the year yelling screaming kicking and trying to elope Now what he's doing is he will take a deep breath and say Okay, or yes, ma'am. And then once he stopped yelling and screaming sometimes at the beginning, then I would ask him, did you get what you want? And he would say no, and then I would communicate to him, then that's not working in here. So what can you do? To show that this is something that you really want without the yelling and screaming So I am teaching him instead of yelling scream to communicate. So now that's what he's doing. He's using his words Can I have I would like please and so within the time frame that I have been with them. That is huge, right? Mr. Dole. Yeah, definitely A little bit harder we're sharing one mic today our pauses there. There's obviously a lot more we can talk about. But, for the sake of today's segment, I just want to have one, final, or at least we may have a little bit of follow up, but what advice would you give other educators that are beginning to work with autistic children? What have you learned that you think that, is important for anybody who's beginning their new journey? Thank you. One thing I would want new educators and educators alike is that children are children, no matter if they are EBD, no matter if they're gifted, no matter if they are autistic. It doesn't matter if they have an IEP 504, the labels are like ADD. Children are children and they want to know that there are boundaries. They want to be within that boundary. Whether they are autistic or not, what I have noticed is I have given my students boundaries, and they are adhering to those boundaries, and so they are growing, and I thought at the beginning of the year, can I take practical school? strategies and use them in an autistic classroom. Is there a difference? And my answer is yes, because I'm seeing the difference in my classroom. So I would tell a new teacher, don't go in a classroom with the mindset that they are autistic, go in a classroom with the mindset that is a child first, and then we need to teach the child, not the autism. So then that way. they won't continue to have these learned behaviors that we don't want them to have. Then we're getting them to learn more on an educational level than more on a life skill level. However, life skills are needed. But if we have that mindset that they are children and children are going to be children, so what is autism? That's the mindset that I had this year going into my classroom. I think it's a very impressive and I think it's a really good way of looking at it to make sure that, you really do understand who you're dealing with and just focus on them as a child. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I just hope that other educators that are working with kids with autism have the same type of passion that Tara has, right? Because I know we had a child with autism we're literally handing them over to someone we would want them to have the best experience. Yeah, definitely. I think that it shows that you teach more out of passion than it being a job. And I think that's important for all educators, any type is teach out of passion. And I think that's Key and making a positive influence on these kids lives Yeah, so thank you Tom for spending some time with us and educating us more on your profession and Like mr. Dolan said thank you for teaching out of passion. I hope that someone who is thinking about Doing that job will Be more like you, right? Absolutely. All right. We're going to wrap this up, ready to wrap up. All right. Thanks for joining us today. Make sure you follow us, like us, subscribe, things like that. Join us for the next one and we'll look forward to, having you involved and listening and potentially participating in the future. All right. So I hope you have a wonderful day. Have an absolutely beautiful day. Have a magnificent, glorious day. You can't top that one. A magical week. Magical. Alright, until next time, bye. Bye bye. Bye.