The term paraprofessionals refer to individuals who help teachers and students during school hours. Depending on your country of origin, they may be known as school aides, para-educators, instructional paraprofessionals, instructional assistants, educational assistants, personal care assistants, one-on-ones, teacher’s aides, therapeutic support staff or shadows.
One of the key responsibilities of paraprofessionals is to aid the teacher in ensuring a meaningful learning environment for children on the spectrum. They can help children diagnosed with ASD accomplish their educational goals and objectives by means of social and independent assistance and active instruction in classrooms.
Paraprofessionals can play a pivotal role in mediating communication, behavioral, and socialization difficulties while encouraging a child with ASD to attain success in the learning setting. Note that both the educational team and the paraprofessionals should function in an orchestrated manner.
Paraprofessionals are integral to the educational development of children diagnosed with ASD. Students with ASD generally require an increasing amount of assistance that cannot be provided exclusively by the teacher. A qualified paraprofessional can increase the scope of learning by providing such differently-abled students with adequate opportunities to practice their skills.
They can provide a child on the spectrum with more customized instruction, and help in implementing behaviour intervention programs. The paraprofessionals can offer teachers planning time paramount to educational programming development.
In general, they are greatly helpful in ensuring an increasingly involved instruction delivery, more careful monitoring, and increased support for children diagnosed with ASD.
Your child may require several aides during school hours. Whenever possible, make sure that your son or daughter has the same paraprofessional during the day as it offers consistency while reducing the frequency of transitions. This will increase the benefits of the two-pronged approach to children on the spectrum.
At CASE, we continue to strive to improve awareness levels about ASD throughout the Caribbean and assist every child diagnosed with ASD to play a meaningful role in their communities.
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