April is Autism Awareness month.  This month our school is raising money for Autism Speaks.  Your child can bring in $1 to “purchase” a puzzle piece that will be displayed throughout the halls of Brecknock.  Today Miss Boyer, an autistic support teacher at Brecknock, visited our classroom to teach us a bit about autism.  She did a few activities with the kids.  For the first activity students approached her to tell her about a pretend “hurt” they had (example: My leg hurts) but no matter what body part the complaint was for she could only put a bandaid on their hand. The kids thought this was so silly.  Miss Boyer made the point that teachers can’t always do the same thing for every student and autistic children may need to learn differently or be taught different skills.  For the next activity four students had to try to lift up a ball, but there were a few challenges: the first child couldn’t use his hands, the next child had slippery gloves on, the third student had one glove on, and the last child could use both hands.  We saw that some basic tasks can be more difficult for others depending on their challenges.  Miss Boyer finished by reminding us what we can do to be a friend to someone with autism.