The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

As a teacher, it is inevitable that one particular will encounter various students in his or her classroom. The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism discusses how a child with autism views the planet. This text is an eye-opening knowledge for educators and family members members/buddies that allows a further understanding of the behaviors of a student with autism. In our course, we have had a lot of discussions surrounding the differences in the ways educators teach young children as effectively as the multitude of students that we will teach. We have also discussed that as educators, we cannot merely teach all children in the very same way but we want to mold our instruction for every individual student. Naoki Higashida reiterates this point in his novel. My initial interest in this book came from a student I had this last school year with autism and skilled a lot of what Higashida talks about in his book and wanted to get a far better understanding on students like him going forward. As a teacher, it is crucial I take the time to obtain information on how to best educate each and every youngster.

Naoki Higashida is a outstanding thirteen-year-old boy who discusses his strengths and weaknesses as a youngster living with autism. He provides the reader with his viewpoint on his believed process, daily life and provides the reader an explanation for why he behaves in a distinct manner than other people. Higashida addresses the widespread behaviors that people typically wonder about when they encounter a individual with autism. He allows other people into his perception of the globe and how his actions oftentimes trigger troubles between a particular person with autism and a particular person without this disability. For instance, Higashida discusses the causes a person with autism may possibly not make eye contact with other men and women when possessing a conversation and how for him, this is not disrespectful but it is often perceived this way. This text is written as an interview format, in which Naoki provides thoughtful answers to queries that people without having a disability often want the answer to. All through the book, the author describes daily life via anecdotal stories and experiences. Higashida is nicely conscious of how he functions differently than other people, which created me wonder if other men and women with autism have the metacognition that he does. As I read this book, I thought about how a lot autism varies and wondered if the answers provided by a various student with autism would vary significantly or not a lot at all. By reading this novel, I was able to obtain far more insight on how to far better aid students like Naoki be effective in my classroom.

It is clear to Naoki that he is not like his peers and is not establishing at the identical pace that his classmates are. According to the Woolfolk text (2019), a child who is Naoki’s age should be in the identity v. function confusion stage of Psychosocial Improvement as created by Erik Erikson. In this stage, it is crucial that the kid maintains and develops relationships with peers. Youngsters at this age are establishing abstract thinking and understanding others’ perspectives. Whilst numerous of Naoki’s peers are getting into this stage of improvement, Naoki is not yet there. He is most likely in the stage of industry v. inferiority. Naoki is still studying to trust adults, act autonomously in circumstances and initiate his personal actions (Higashida 2017). The challenge in Naoki’s current stage of psychosocial improvement he is operating on creating a lot more complicated relationships with their peers as well as risking failure. For a kid with autism, it is important for their educator or parent to aid create these skills in order to support him move to the next stage of psychosocial improvement. There are many approaches to assistance this improvement in young children like Naoki encourage the student to make and act on alternatives, provide assistance for students who seem discouraged and give students a possibility to show their independence from teacher assistance.

Yet another essential topic from the book is that Naoki usually talks about becoming lonely and that he doesn’t really feel like other men and women really have a sense of who he really is beyond his disability, many of his peers shy away from him since of his autism. The interviewer then asks Naoki why men and women with autism typically exclude themselves from playing with other people. Naoki states that he does not like to be alone but that he feels as if his actions cause problems for other people and get on their nerves so this is why he separates himself from other folks (Higashida, 2017). As Woolfolk (2019) mentions in her text, student-teacher relationships have a large impact on student achievement. With a student like Naoki, it is important for his education to construct a strong connection with him so that he feels as although he is becoming understood and validated. As Naoki’s teacher, I would devote some time to get to know him on a private level outdoors of his academic progress and his learning wants, which I feel would help him be much more at ease in the college setting with others. I would also encourage conversations among Naoki and his peers, so they could uncover items in frequent and eventually generate a partnership. This would support Naoki feel much more comfortable at college and much less lonely as he talked about.

As portion of being capable to construct relationships with other students, a childlike Naoki would also benefit from social-emotional learning instruction. By incorporating these lessons, Naoki would be in a position to discover far more about social-emotional expertise in order to better understand and relate to his peers. In his text, Naoki remarks that at times, conversations are tough with other people because of his a variety of tendencies. Some of these contain: lack of eye speak to, speaking loudly and weirdly, minimal facial expressions, and taking too lengthy to respond (Higashida 2017). Woolfolk expands on this in her book and states that a child with autism must have early and intense interventions in communication with other folks and social relations. She also shares that if this does not happen, the child’s a variety of mannerisms and lack of social capabilities with other individuals will continue to improve over time. A teacher of Naoki could introduce lessons in eye speak to and respond appropriately to a person when possessing a conversation. It would also be beneficial for a kid with autism to participate in morning meetings in order to locate commonalities among themselves and other classmates to spark conversation.

Woolfolk (2019) informs us that as teachers, we need to have to have high expectations for all of our students. Not just the gifted students, or the teacher pleasing students but every single student in our class needs to be held to a high standard. As I was reading Naoki’s book I was reminded of this. Oftentimes, as educators, we see a kid with a disability and want to make it less complicated on them in some way or may possibly lower our expectations due to this disability to assist them be much more productive in our classroom. Nonetheless, when we do not continue to have these higher expectations, our students will underperform. Students will adopt this significantly less high expectation for themselves, as well. Even though it is important to adhere to and implement all elements of the student’s IEP, it is also critical to show a student with autism, and all other students in your class, that you nonetheless have higher expectations for them and that they can develop objectives and rise to this occasion. In his book, Naoki also references this. He speaks about how oftentimes because he can't communicate by employing his speech as other students do, this causes folks to think that he is not smart. And he notices that other people treat him in this way (Higashida 2017). Building higher expectations will assist a child with autism be successful in the classroom.

Each child has a range of interests and these interests often grow to be intensified in youngsters with autism. In his book, Naoki speaks on numerous points about how individuals with autism have intense interests in items due to the fact it supplies them comfort, and can supply them with a connection to past joyful experiences. Naoki comments that he appreciates when a person takes notice or a liking to some thing that he does (Higashida, 2017). Woolfolk (2019) suggests that teachers of students with autism create on the students’ interests. She adds that teachers of students like Naoki need to use his/her intense interests to guide their lessons. For instance, an educator could incorporate their interest into an interdisciplinary project, the teacher could use it as a piece of the lesson to help peak enthusiasm for the subject matter or if incorporating the interest is not attainable, the teacher could use their interest as a variety of reward. This strategy would help a child with autism really feel comfortable and greater engage and focus on the lesson.

Soon after reading The Purpose I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism, I feel that I have more awareness of how students with autism view our world and what their behaviors imply. In combining what I read in his novel with the Woolfolk textbook, I now have a far better understanding of my function as an educator in assisting a youngster with autism in my classroom. As an educator, it is crucial to the achievement of my students to give them the highest good quality education that I can deliver. In order to do this, I should recognize my students’ strengths/weaknesses and their background whether or not that be a learning disability, a distinct culture or an emotional previous. This text makes it possible for educators to much better interpret the behaviors of students with autism. Naoki Higashida tells an extraordinary story that paints a image of the life of a kid with autism and makes it possible for the reader to obtain a fantastic deal of understanding for a child who has a day-to-day internal struggle as he does. Reading this book has changed my perspective on educating a kid with autism and I hope to continue to create my appreciation of every child’s uniqueness to make an influence, both personally and educationally.