“Mom, what’s the American dream?” Mary Ann Winter-Messiers’ son Jonathan once asked her.
“People usually see it as the mom, dad, two kids, picket fence, a dog,” Winter-Messiers replied.
He said, “Can you still be an American if you have a different dream?”
Jonathan, now 13, has Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of autism.
There’s a saying within the community that treats and cares for autistic children: If you’ve met one child with autism, you’ve met one child with autism. No two are alike; they vary wildly in passion, paranoia and potential.
Winter-Messiers said her son is proof that children with autism should not be defined by their shortcomings, but by their “astounding insights and questions about life and about people and about God and how people interact. They’re brilliant.”
April is Autism Awareness Month, but for University professors and graduate students involved in Project PASS (Preparing Autism Specialists for Schools), “every month is autism awareness month,” said Winter-Messiers, the program’s coordinator.
Autism rates have greatly increased nationwide in recent years. In 2007, the Center for Disease Control’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network found that one in 150 8-year-old children in the U.S. had an Autism Spectrum Disorder – and “Oregon has either the highest or the second highest per capita (prevalence) in the nation,” Winter-Messiers said.
In previous decades, studies found that ASD prevalence rates consistently hovered around four or five in every 10,000 children.
Little is known about why prevalence has increased so quickly in the last decade, but the statistics demand the need for more teachers who understand autism and its many facets.
“With ever-growing numbers of children diagnosed with autism in the U.S. and in our state, we must train educators specifically to work with children with autism so that they will be properly equipped and can serve these children with confidence,” said Cynthia Herr, an education professor who teaches classes in the Project PASS program. “It is very rewarding to know that we are equipping educators with the skills, tools, and resources they need to serve these wonderful students appropriately.”
Autism is a spectrum disorder because every child who lives with the condition behaves differently. However, most children with Asperger’s Syndrome have one thing in common: They each have one very specific passion that consumes their entire life. Winter-Messiers and Herr are both involved in a research project involving these passions.
“These children have a highly focused area of passion – elephants, dust, elevators, running shoes, World War II planes, electrical cords, dinosaurs,” Winter-Messiers said. “We research how it develops and what these passions look like. We think, ‘How can we harness the power in these passions to help motivate them and help them develop career interests?’”
The program’s students, which total about 10 each year, take a few classroom courses and two terms of practica, in which they have the opportunity to work with autistic students in schools.
“Our program is critical because children and youth with autism deserve educators who understand them and know how to teach them effectively,” Herr said. “We train teachers to be successful with students with autism, so that those students can be successful in school and lead productive, meaningful lives.”
Students who complete the 46 credits needed for the special education program and take additional courses through Project PASS will receive a master’s degree in special education with a specialization in autism.
These students “are being highly sought after by school districts because school districts are desperate for people who know what they’re doing,” Winter-Messiers said.
Interest in special education at the University isn’t limited to just these 10 students, though. About 45 to 50 students, both graduates and undergraduates, enroll in a general overview course Winter-Messiers teaches each fall.
“It indicates the broad general interest in autism in the community,” Winter-Messiers said.
Like Winter-Messiers, many of the students who take courses and practica through Project PASS found their passion through autistic children of their own.
“People tend to be very passionate about it – in a great majority of the time, it’s because they have a child, a grandchild, a niece that has autism,” Winter-Messiers said.
Her son and her students still keep her enthusiasm and motivation high in her day-to-day work.
“It’s very challenging, and it can be very exhausting,” Winter-Messiers said, but “there are a lot of surprises in autism in the sense that you can’t take things for granted. Things can change quickly. That fuels my energy.”
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