Before coming to this lecture I didn't really know what to expect. I found out that the speaker, Barb had autism only on Tuesday. I was informed that she used a typing method to communicate. I was very excited to experience this lecture because I had watched a movie called Autism is a World previously in the semester in my special education class which was a documentary about a girl who had severe autism and used the same method of communication.
It is amazing to see Barb using technology to express her ideas and also to her parts of her book that she wrote. I think that we are quick to judge people with autism and assume they are stupid or not capable of things that people without disabilities can do. This is far from the truth. It is our job to find outlets for people with autism to express themselves and also be themselves and lastly to stand up for them.
The thing that I got most from this lecture is that autism is real and it something that I will encounter in my classroom. I would really like to educate myself more about autism (when I have a little more free time...) and how to adapt my classroom and become a better teacher to a student with autism.
I did find myself having somewhat of a hard time keeping my attention on Barb's presentation because I was very intrigued with Barb herself, watching her and listening to her. I was thinking almost the whole presentation about what it would be like to have autism as severe as Barb. I feel like I would feel trapped inside of my own thoughts which would become incredibly frustrating. As I stated before, this makes me want to educate myself more about autism and become an autism advocate.
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