I occasionally get emails from people asking “do you have any tips on how to teach math to my autistic son\/daughter?” These queries leave me torn – I can’t help but want to help, but I have no experience with autism.<\/p>\n
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Once, I emailed my state autism association for advice. The reply contained a whole bunch of useful tips. The most important point was this – every autistic child is different<\/em>, so it’s hard to give specific rules.<\/p>\n Some friends of mine visited me once with their autistic child in tow – I’ll call him John. John was about the age of my son, but severely autistic. In school, he was seated in front of a box, he would take a problem to be solved from the right, and put the solution out at the left. The box allowed John to zoom in on a tiny micro-world of just himself, the box, and the problems to be solved. No distracting teachers, classmates, windows, or pictures on the classroom wall.<\/p>\n You might be wondering how on earth they managed to travel with such a child. Their solution was to carefully plan every day of their itinerary beforehand, and make up a book (with photographs) showing where they’d be staying each night, what they’d be doing each day, how long each plane flight would be, and so forth. Their book worked – John had no trouble with the disruption to his schedule that an overseas trip normally brings.<\/p>\n John hardly spoke a word to me during dinner – I guess my photo wasn’t in the book. By the end of the meal, I was able to get a smile out of him by humming a few catchy tunes, but he cried the one time I hummed a song in a minor key. I’ll know better next time!<\/p>\n\n