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I have not heard of ACEs before this article, and I wonder how that can be modified for parents to fill out about their students. I think that it is important for students with ASD to be diagnosed as early as possible in order to begin to receive treatment and therapy. This can allow them to have access to the services and tool that they may not get if they were not diagnosed.

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I have not had any professional training for trauma and I have worked at two different schools in my 5 years of teaching. We did have two student's that were murdered and all the district offered was grief counseling for two days for the whole school and for the homeroom teachers of the students they did not offer any specialized lessons for the students. I do work for CPS but the principal at the school was not compassionate, I like to think that played a role and CPS is not that cruel. It was one of the factors that made me leave. Currently I do have a student in mind while reading this article and I have had no training while reading this article. There has been no training and I was the co-teacher in the class and I only found out by the gen. ed teacher. It took a lot of trails to figure out how to meet the needs of the student and hopefully the tools we provided her with, will help her over the summer.

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I had not heard of ACE's yet before, although I feel like they are so important that I should have been hearing about them before now. I think that an early diagnosis of ASD is super important because then those kiddos can start receiving services such as behavior therapy, academic intervention, and so on. Getting these services as soon as possible will help those kids to more readily learn the adaptive skills they will need in life. Delayed diagnosis means they won't be getting the services that they need as early, and therefore they will struggle more with adaptive behavior and skills.

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I had not heard of ACE's yet before, although I feel like they are so important that I should have been hearing about them before now.

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I had not yeard of ACE's yet before, although I feel like they are so important that I should have been hearing about them before now.

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I have had a small bit of PD regarding trauma, but only because I voluntarily signed up for the Learning First Conference that took place here in Normal in June. The person who spoke was LaVonn Ruth and she was amazing! I would highly recommend following her on twitter and hearing her speak sometime. It was more of a talk about trauma though, rather than PD about how to teach and deal with our students who experience trauma. I personally think about a student I had only briefly this year. She moved here from Michigan because her mom's ex-husband sexually abused her. They ended up moving back to
Michigan at the end of the school year, and I worry about her from time to time, if they are with that same man or not, or how they are doing. I do not feel that I have received training to effectively teach students who experience trauma.

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Until I read your article, I have not heard about ACEs before. I definitely think that it is important for early diagnosis for students on the Autism Spectrum. The sooner the child is diagnosed, the sooner the student can start receiving the services that will help him/her get the best education possible. Another reason why early diagnosis is important is because the sooner the parents understand what services the child needs, the sooner they too can get the help and therapy (if needed) to help them cope with the diagnosis and the new norm for their family. The older the child gets when he/she is diagnosed, the more difficult it will be for him/her to get the developmental help and training needed to help them get acclimated to their new norm.

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Before reading this article I had not heard of ACEs. I believe that is is important for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder to be diagnosed early in order to "get the ball rolling". 1) Unfortunately, without a diagnosis, many students are not eligible for services that could/would greatly benefit them 2) The earlier the student is diagnosed, the greater potential they have of reaching their fullest potential. When we (and our brain) is young, it is SO much easier to learn new things and acquire new skills. This becomes increasingly difficult the older we get. If students are diagnosed earlier, they can begin this process at a younger and more malleable stage.

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Unfortunately, I have not had any sort of professional development in regards to different types of trauma. I learned a little bit about physical trauma such as concussions, but have not had any sort of training on the types of trauma mentioned in the article (i.e. violence, sexual abuse, etc). I am sure that there are many students that have experienced some sort of trauma that was mentioned in the article, but I can't think of any child in particular, cause it's not something that children are especially talkative about (especially sexual trauma).

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I just learned about ACEs from coworkers who went to a presentation/training on it at the end of the year. It's fascinating to me and I hope to learn more ways to help!  I think diagnosing ASD as early as possible is important because then the child and then parent are given support they need to help in coping with ASD and resources.  I think a delayed diagnosis just makes it harder to adapt or find ways to cope with ASD and would have the potential to cause more stress!

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Just from the criteria mentioned I know my classroom had at least 5 students and I think that could be an average in every classroom in our school.  However, we have had no PD on this and no training on how to effectively teach them.  I know I do a lot of research on my own to find ways to help but I can't say that everything I have tried is best practice.  This is a hot topic though and I'm hoping that we do get some PD on this!

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I have never have any professional development regarding trauma. However, I do think it would be very beneficial. I briefly mentioned this student already in a comment to Brittney, but yes, I did have a student in mind when I read this article. A former student of mine experienced sexual abuse from her older brother when she was in 4th grade. Prior to this, she was outgoing, idolized her older brother, obtained honor roll every quarter, and was extremely helpful in class. After being raped, she would have outbursts in class and yell in scream. Other times she would completely withdrawal. Her grades dropped, and she was "moody". Brittney brought up an excellent point about students experiencing trauma needing compassion, and I completely agree. This all happened to this student the year before I had her. After the situation "had been handled" at home, as a school we attempted to help her feel secure. She chose me to be her "check in" person each morning and afternoon. I think this helped some, but I didn't really see a change in her (to start to become herself again) until the following year. She needed to feel like she was still seen as the smart, helpful, outgoing girl that she was. She didn't like being seen as angry, moody, and careless. She just needed help being "loved back to life". That is one aspect I really enjoy of teaching at a small school, you can become so involved for your students. Get to know them, their families, attend their sporting events, help them with their homework. Be there for them. Anyway, I could go on and on. She by no means stopped struggling with the trauma she had experienced, but I was happy that she did learn how to cope with what had happened to her and to start being herself, and being a kid again.

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Prior to reading this article I have heard of ACEs. I thin it is extremely important for students with ASD to receive early diagnoses because they can start receiving the appropriate services and interventions. The article explained that students with ASD and ACEs showed serve symptoms of ASD compared with students with ASD without ACEs. One effect that comes to my mind when I think of a delayed diagnosis is the delay in finding professionals to work with the individual as well as time lost from working on the skills that the individual struggles with.

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I have personally not received any training in regards to trauma however many of my students have experienced trauma in their personal lives and I feel like it would be useful to receive training in this area. While I was reading this article many of my students have came to my mind. The student that I was thinking of doesn't have a great home life and has been in an unstable home much of the school year. Myself and the social worker have worked together to provide the most stable environment at school for him but I wish I received training in this area so that I was better prepared to help my student when things at home were not going the way he wanted.

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Amanda - you're lucky that you've been able to receive PD on the topic. Everything I've learned about the topic for my students in trauma I've had to research myself or learn second hand. I like that you talked about helping those students learn to identify their emotions. That is so key. Right now, my student who has had some significant trauma has one reaction - anger. No matter what happens to him on a day to day basis, he explodes. Last year I was able to get him services from our school psychologist on the IEP (don't even get me started on why he wasn't getting it before). She worked with him heavily on identifying emotions in himself and in others. Helping him see what behaviors look like on others is so needed for him. I remember that I used to have to do literally everything with a massive smile on my face so that he wouldn't assume I was mad and have a breakdown. That's gone down and he's been able to more easily read other people. Now we are working on appropriate reactions for him to have when he's actually mad. It's a process, but those emotions are difficult to work through for students in trauma.

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Danielle, for article 1, I like how you brought up creating a safe space in the classroom for students when they feel overwhelmed. In the high school setting, I normally will send a student to get a drink as a cool down, but I like the idea of having a break space within my classroom as well. One strategy I used last year to create a safe space was that I always kept little things of play-doh out in my room. That way students could grab it and use it as stress putty when they needed. I thought it worked pretty well and the kids seemed to enjoy it.
Amanda- For article 2, I found it interesting as well about early diagnosis reducing symptoms of autism.

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I had heard of ACEs prior to reading this article. I think early diagnoses is important for students with ASD, so they can begin to receive the support they need as soon as possible. The article mentions that students with ASD with more ACEs showed more severe symptoms of ASD.  If students have a delayed diagnosis, they are likely not learning to coup with situations as well as ACEs well. While a student without ASD may be able to overcome ACEs, it is more challenging for students with delayed diagonsis of ASD
to overcome the same events. The students with ASD could become behavior problems as they do not have strategies for coping.

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I have not received any training regarding trauma. I wish this is something my school would focus on a little more. So many of my students come from rough home situations and I don't always know how to best support them. I try to create a relaxed environment in my classroom and build relationships with my students, so that they feel safe and able to discuss what's going on. As I was reading this article I was remind of when one of my students committed suicide my first year of teaching. All of his teachers were brought in to the principals office, so we would know what happened and they suggested we send anyone to the counselors office who we thought needed it. This is an example of when I wished I was better trained on how to handle a situation like this and how to best support my students. In a high school setting, I think we are encouraged to send students to their counselor a little too much.

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Article 2: I agree that finding strategies that are specific to each child would be a huge benefit of early diagnosis. The collaboration of parents and schools would also be a great connection to make early so that when the student struggles or succeeds, those situations can be communicated to parents more easily-- and vice versa from parents to schools.

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Article 1: Danielle, I feel like the PD I've been to on trauma-informed teaching always focuses around assuring students that they are safe at school. I think that having a safe space is a great idea, and I think it would be beneficial for me to find a space for my students like this. I've had students walk into my classroom crying, and I knew I couldn't move on with a lesson, but wasn't sure how to handle the situation since they did not want to go to a counselor. Right now, if a student needs space, I send them to the hallway (middle school level), but that seems almost like a punishment. My room is so small, I'm not sure how I would set up a safe space, but I think having a go-to place would be great.

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Article 1) I have not received any formal professional development in trauma, though I have requested it. Unfortunately, it’s been denied each time since it’s been during the day and would require a sub. However, I have a student who is considered “in trauma” (I used to have two). I work closely with our school psychologist and dean of students. Between the three of us, we have learned a lot about trauma and do our best to apply what we’ve learned in order to help our student feel safe at school, accept help more freely, and succeed in school and in after-school activities.

I actually want to thank you for posting the first article, I will likely be sharing it with my team come fall. We are having a hard time getting some of our IEP team members to understand just how seriously our students trauma impacts his behavior and his interactions with others. They take everything he does personally and feel the need to punish every behavior he exhibits that is deemed “rude.” While we understand that we need to be teaching proper social skills, there is also a lot of compassion that we need to have as teachers for these students in trauma and it kills me when teachers lack that compassion.

Article 2)

I had never heard of the term Adverse Childhood Experiences before this article. It’s imperative that students with ASD are diagnosed early — even if it’s just being labeled with a developmental delay because the doctors/parents/teachers want to wait for the child to be earlier. Studies have repeatedly showed the importance of early intervention for all students with disabilities. When you can help a child earlier while their brain is still forming those neurological pathways, your likelihood for success at a faster pace is increased. In my humble opinion, I also believe early detection is so important because if you can get a child an ISFP, there are therapists available to actually teach the parent how to help the child. This support for the home and parents is so much more difficult to obtain with an IEP alone. Delayed diagnosis means that child’s brain is going to develop at a slower rate and it will be more difficult to get them to learn new skills compared to when they are still toddlers.

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Article 2: I have heard of ACEs before this article. I found it really interesting that the author of the article stated that early diagnosis of ASD can reduce "symptoms" of autism. I think that an early diagnosis allows more support from educators and parents to be provided. The article mentioned that more developmental gains can be made as a result of early diagnosis. The effects of a delayed diagnosis might be, especially for those students who have experienced ACEs, more behavioral issues, stress, and lower academic achievement. Early support may help students learn the tools they need to succeed better.

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Article 1: I have been to a few mini-sessions on ACEs, trauma-informed teaching, and restorative justice practices, but my school or district has not provided any uniform PD that addresses this topic. I have found the sessions I've been to really interesting, and they have changed my outlook on student behavior. I have thought of my students who have had parents deported. I haven't seen deportation listed under the "loss of a parent" category yet, but I imagine that trauma-informed experts will soon start listing it as an adverse childhood experience. I think of how I cannot often meet those students on an emotional level because they internalize, and I have not experienced such a loss. I would love to have more strategies to reach my students when this is their experience. The article mentioned helping students identify their emotions. If there's one thing I would like to improve on this school year, it would be to identify students' behaviors, help them identify them, and equip them with strategies to appropriately respond. This is such a huge task. I'm shocked by the statistics found in Philadelphia. We sometimes never really know how much "baggage" our kids carry into the classroom.

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Article 2: I had not heard of ACEs before reading this article. I think it’s important for children with ASD to be diagnosed early for both families and educators to begin learning strategies to best benefit the child. Learning what works for students with ASD can be a challenge in itself, especially in the school setting where the teacher may not know the student. Therefore, I think being diagnosed as early as possible just allows the parents to work with professionals to find what will work best for the child. With a delayed diagnosis there can be effects on finding assistance from therapists and medical professionals. I think it would put more stress on the child and family with the many steps it would take to get an accurate diagnosis.

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Article 1: I have not had any PD that specifically focused on trauma, but when I attended a PD for behavior they did touch on the topic. I definitely have a few students that come to mind, and some that I know I will be getting in my classroom this upcoming year. From the behavior training I learned some strategies to help these students. One suggestion that I just love is having a safe place in the classroom for students. This place is to show them that the classroom is safe, and this is a particular place where they can go when they are feeling overwhelmed or need a break. In the pre-k setting our strategies focus a lot on the social/emotional learning and how we can teach the students to understand and manage some of their emotions.