Autism Month 2026

RPM focuses on educating and building skills to engage with society. The practitioner plans and leads the session to work on the student's goals.

One teen student started a session with their own topic so we switched the goals to match their motivation. Instead of using our planned lesson, discussion, and writing prompt, we let them compose what they wanted while working on their fluency, speed, accuracy, and regulation. Then, we worked on editing which combines cognitive, tolerance, and motor skills. Here is their last draft:

“Grand proclamations about labels and symptoms do not help us autistics. We are not on a certain floor of a building, accessible by elevator. If you need to picture it, then imagine marine zones with movement in all directions. We are all so variable even within zones. Don't even get into diversity by location like culture or resources. Really we are people all on earth living our lives.”

This was a large amount of work to type and edit this paragraph especially in one session and a huge achievement for this particular student. With their permission, we shared their writing with other students and participants in our programs. For some, we built it into its own lesson, but others used it as a writing prompt. Not all agreed, some focused on the writing itself, some expanded on the idea, but they all appreciated the opportunity to engage with it.

One adult shared this feedback:

"The metaphor of the marine zones makes me think of how much we know about coastal life compared to our ignorance about deep ocean life."

We followed their thought process and eventually came to what they thought might help:

"The resources need to be spread more so we can learn what we do not even realize we misunderstand and fully serve the whole spectrum."

The author of the original paragraph declined the option to expand on it or respond to the feedback at their next session. The motivation was gone so this would have become more of a tolerance goal than anything else, but they were glad that their writing inspired others and hopefully it motivates them to share more and work on improving their writing in the future.

We shared some of the responses within our own team and particularly resonated with needing to "learn what we do not even realize we misunderstand" because it reminded us all of our own lives and careers. We have grown and learned a long side of those we support, their families, other professionals, and each other. We are still learning and broadening our experience to better support our community.

Thank you to everyone who has helped us grow.