Intro to Autism for New City Kids
1. The Goal
The organization, New City Kids, supports teen mentors who will be working with ___ in an after school program
2. The Approach
Introducing autism
a challenge, most importantly because I am not autistic myself …
avoid deficit-focused, doom-and-gloom / medical model
I developed a way of thinking about autism
in line with the
social model of disability recognizes that society disables disabled people. Understanding disability this way teaches us that there is nothing inherently wrong with disabled people, nor are they in need of fixing. Instead, it’s on educators and neighbors and all those in society to understand accept and adjust
Introducing autism to teens
Diving into the medical and social model of autism would have been too
For this audience of
3. The Day
Over 50 teens and
4. The Workshop
I developed
5. The Take-Away
“Aaron was strategic, thoughtful, and passionate as he taught our teens on how to work with children on the spectrum. His training inspired a lot of discussion and reflection and our teens came away with a deeper understanding of children with autism and how to be a more intentional teacher with very practical steps. We look forward to partnering with Aaron again!”
