One of our most successful tools when our sons were in Elementary School was their About Me Portfolio. This was designed to introduce our son to his teacher. His teachers always loved it and I always felt it made a difference as the teachers knew what to expect and how they could help.
The first time we did it was when our son was switching schools, and the new teachers wouldn’t be able to talk to previous teachers. We wanted them to know what our son was like and see him in a “non-school” setting. When we were switching schools, it was the first time the school had an autism program, and no teachers there had experience with inclusion of that type. We wanted to help that transition for them to be as smooth as possible.
That first teacher found it helpful, so we continued to give it to his teachers on his first day of school, or at Open House if that was scheduled prior to his first day of school.
Things to include in your About Me Portfolio:
- Lots of current pictures
- Activities and favorite toys that your child likes
- Activities and things that your child dislikes
- Triggers for your child (loud noises, change in schedule, personal space, etc)
- Coping measures (walk in a quiet area, advance notice of a change, etc)
- Behaviors that your child does that is unusual
- Your child’s strengths
- Foods that your child likes
- Allergies
- Information about his family
- Favorites – subject in school, animal, song, tv show, movie, etc
- Nicknames – if your son or anyone else in the family goes by one
Using short phrases with bullet points and section titles makes it easy to read and easy for the teacher to find what they are looking for if they need to go back and refer to a section.
Current pictures add personality and break up the text so that it doesn’t seem like they are reading a book. We usually had one picture for every other page. You don’t want them everywhere as it will make it longer and seem more like a book. We included photos of him with family members, doing his favorite things, as well as those by himself. The idea was to show that he was a normal child.
The photos don’t have to be professional. We used normal snap shots from our walk around camera and phone in many cases.
Sharing your child’s favorite activities, toys, subject in school, animal, song, TV show and movie gives the teacher topics that she can discuss with your child to help them work on their verbal skills. It also can be used as a reward when your child does something good – the teacher can pull out a favorite toy and let them play with it for 10 minutes.
Family information and nicknames are things that your child’s teacher can use to help them establish conversation with your child and to understand things that your child is saying. For instance, your child may call his grandma, Nana. The teacher would want to say Nana instead of grandma. Only list family that your child has frequent contact with and maybe what job they have or if they always see Nana every Sunday at church.
Dislikes, triggers and unusual behaviors are very important to include. You want your child’s school day to run smoothly and the best way to ensure that is to make sure that the teacher is aware of potential problems. We even pointed out how to tell that a situation was escalating so to know when a problem was about to arise.
Equally important is coping measures that you already use for your child. This did two things. First it ensures consistency, which can be critical when dealing with a special needs child. Second, it let the teacher know how to deescalate a bad situation.
Why make the teacher reinvent the wheel when you already know what works best. Be sure to include if one thing works best in one situation that doesn’t always work in a different situation. For instance, when my child flaps (Stemming) his arms most of our basic coping techniques don’t work. The only one that works well in this situation is speaking with him in a calm voice asking him if he wants to take a walk and then taking him for a short walk where he can calm down. Activities frequently change in elementary school, we found with our child that saying “five minutes until…” and using a timer really helped with transitions, so we always included this in our son’s portfolio.
Listing your child’s strengths is important for two reasons – first, it allows both you and the teacher to see the good things and accomplishments that your child has done and second, it makes sure that the teacher has something to focus on if there is a day that your child is struggling.
Allergies are important to include, especially if your child is non-verbal or doesn’t understand the consequences or what they are allergic to. It is best to list all allergies even if you pack your child’s food, as some kids (even though they are not supposed to) will trade or give food to their classmates. We also included that my son especially loved strawberries even though he was highly allergic to them as he would try to eat them anyway since he did not (still does not even years later) understand what an allergy is and how it can harm him. We also included the responses to the allergies – in our son’s case, breaking out in a rash or hives.
Teacher’s often told us that the portfolio helped them learn more about our son and connect with him. It made for an easier transition that really helped them to achieve the goals that we set out for our son at the beginning of the school year, and to understand him in a way that may not have been possible without the portfolio.
