An experienced high school teacher shares her insights on working with families of autistic students. Sandy Morais explains how to achieve successful cooperation between teachers, parents and school psychological service (SePAS) and what challenges need to be overcome.
Collaboration with Parents and School Psychological Service
As a high school teacher, I want to share my experiences in supporting autistic students and their families. I particularly want to emphasize the important role of the school psychological service (SePAS) and provide practical recommendations for successful collaboration.
Professional Communication with Parents
In dealing with parents of autistic students or when autism is suspected, close collaboration with the school psychological service has proven indispensable. It is extremely important to involve SePAS in all parent discussions, whether during regular parent-teacher meetings or individual conversations in our role as class teachers.
The psychologists, social workers, and educators of SePAS have special training for various situations and can thus professionally address the needs of all involved parties.
As teachers, we should focus on maintaining open and honest communication. We leave specific questions to the SePAS members, as we as teachers don’t have all the necessary information or training. This transparent division of tasks has proven very successful in practice.
Procedure When Autism is Suspected
When we notice signs of autism in a student, a structured approach is particularly important. The first step always leads to SePAS, where we concretely describe the situation and our observations. The school psychological service then takes over the further coordination of the process.
For minor students, SePAS first makes telephone contact with the parents and conducts a systematic inquiry. If telephone communication isn’t sufficient, a personal meeting at the school is arranged.
In many cases, it turns out that parents are already aware of the situation and diagnoses even already exist that hadn’t yet been communicated to the school. These situations can then be clarified retrospectively.
Particular Challenges
A particular challenge in our work arises when parents don’t want to accept their child’s possible neurodivergence. Experience shows that autism is still associated with a sense of shame for some parents.
The lack of information and awareness is still very pronounced in this area and can have serious implications for the development of affected students.
In such situations, it’s important that we as teachers remain professional and objective and rely on SePAS’s expertise. We can offer information and support but must also respect the parents’ process. In doing so, we always keep the child’s well-being as the focus of our actions.
Years of experience in daily school life has shown that close collaboration between teachers, SePAS, and parents is the key to success.
Only through open communication and mutual understanding can we ensure the best possible support for our students. This collaboration requires patience and understanding from all participants but leads to the best results for the educational development of children and adolescents.