Autism

Yesterday, I met with a potential beginner violin student.  I knew ahead of time through the office manager that it was a young (4-5 yr old) child, and I was a little pessimistic about it because I don't do very well with especially young children.  Typically, their attention span is very short and their focus is all over the place.  They bounce off the walls, and I end up feeling more like a nanny then a teacher.  This cute kid came in and his mom had two other siblings with her, so she stayed outside while I had a chat with him in my studio.  As soon as he walked in, he was asking a million random questions, and my attempts to have him sit still while I showed him my violin were futile.  He kept getting up trying to touch the instrument, or pick at the cushion covers on the bench, etc. etc.  After 15 minutes, I thought I had made up my mind and decided to get the mom in to let her know that I couldn't take him as a student as he was too young for my teaching style.  As I was talking, trying to let her know in the nicest way possible, she interrupted me and told me, "The office manager did tell you that he has a spectrum disorder, right?"  And I said, "No. What is that?"   So apparently, he has PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified), a form of autism.  As soon as she said "autism", that changed everything for me.  Suddenly it made sense why he was acting the way he was.  Here, I thought he was just a rowdy kid who wasn't disciplined at home and I was ready to write him off. 
I accepted him as a student in my studio.  Why did that change my mind?  Well, I don't know too much about autism, but as a musician, I completely believe in the power of music.  I do  know that autistic children have a hard time socially, and music can be a possible outlet for that lacking skill (although it seems like a lot of musicians who are perfectly normal are lacking in social skills, too.  Hmm).  I also like a challenge.  It's one thing when I get a student who doesn't want to be there and gives me a hard time and the parent is uncooperative in disciplining them--I have no problem throwing them out of my studio, but it's another story if I know the child WANTS this and simply has a disability that doesn't allow him to behave normally.

Has any other private teacher out there dealt with a special-needs student?  What were the results and how challenging/frustrating/rewarding was it for you?

I once taught a girl with cerebral palsy, and she actually was capable of playing the violin and had played before coming to me, but she had the worst attitude ever and many times, I had trouble getting her to just get her violin out of the case during a lesson.  I had to drop her.  So I didn't really get a chance to experience teaching someone with this kind of disability.  We'll see how it goes.

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