The Avengers is the team name for the Dellwood Autism Spectrum Disorders programme. Miss Dionne Greene, ASD classroom teacher, and Miss Trina Davis-Williams and Mr Danté Cooper, ASD classroom para-educators, are the educators who run the programme.

Whilst visiting Dellwood, Young Observer had the opportunity to sit with Miss Greene to learn more about Autism Spectrum Disorder and what the programme offers students at Dellwood Middle School.

• Please define Autism for our readers.

Autism spectrum disorders are disorders of brain development. They are characterised and range in variability by difficulty in social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication and repetitive behaviours, for example, hand flapping, toe-walking, rocking, jumping, clapping, walking up and down without any real function.

It is said that when you meet one child with autism you meet one child with autism because of the wide spectrum. No two children are alike or present with the exact same characteristics.

•How many students are in the programme at Dellwood and what are their ages?

There are five enrolled in the programme at Dellwood — one girl and four boys ranging from ages 11 to 13.

• How long has the programme been in place?

The programme is in its second year at Dellwood but has been in the Bermuda Public School system officially for four years (started officially in 2012).

There are programmes in three primary schools — Prospect Primary, West Pembroke and Paget Primary. CedarBridge Academy and the Berkeley Institute have programmes that service children with special needs although they are not specific for children on the autism spectrum.

• What does the curriculum cover?

We have just started using the Unique 2 You curriculum, which is a special education curriculum that covers English language, arts, maths, reading, science, social studies (specific to the US, currently) and life skills. The lessons are interactive and differentiated.

We combine this curriculum with other activities and lessons that we find in books, on the internet, networking with other teachers that we feel will benefit and work for our children.

• What is an average day like for the students?

A day in our classroom begins with our morning routine. Calendar: this is student-led and the children change our calendar for the day. Each student is asked a question about the day (what day is it, what is the number date, the month and the year) by another student.

Individual work: students work at their individual desks completing tasks on their own that have been learnt previously. The object of this is to get the students to work independently without relying on prompts for everything. The task is meant to be something that they can do on their own without help.

Ball kit: morning exercise on an exercise ball. These exercises, which the children do from a DVD, work their core, as well as gets their bodies and brains moving, active and ready for the day.

Tooth brushing (or some other form of functional skill): we have found that many of our students will do more for us than they will for their parents and do not give us the reaction that they give their parents (it is a different environment with different expectations), so we help to teach and reinforce a lot of the skills that are usually taught at home. Also, it makes it a lot easier to sit close to the children as we work.

Following our morning routine we begin our academics. We have Readers Workshop every day while the rest of the school has their LLI (Leveled Literacy Intervention) and have maths and ELA four times a week. We also try to do science and social studies once a week.

The children go to PE twice a week with their age-based peers as well as encore classes and advisory with support.

Wednesday afternoons we go on field trips and take every opportunity to go into the community daily to:

1. Teach our children using real life experiences.

2. Help to desensitise and remove the stigma attached to not only children with autism but people with different needs in general.

Through this teaching we have found a change in our children’s behaviour and in the behaviour of adults in places that we frequent.